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Yay, fall is here! This is our favorite time of year, because it denotes the beginning of cool weather foods. From stews to braised meat to all things pumpkin – this is such a special season!
Epicurious had some top autumn recipes on their site, and I found this one for Butternut Squash and Spinach Gratin which looked wonderful and completely unlike anything I’ve ever made!
First, fine dice a small onion and a few cloves of garlic and sweat them out over lowish heat in 3 tbs butter for about 8 minutes... do not let them burn! While that is going, peel 2 butternut squash, chop the neck off from the belly. I scooped out the seeds from the "belly", but in the end, I only needed the "necks" of the squash. I cut the necks in half lengthwise and tried to use this slicer we had, but that really didn’t work, so M just sharpened the Santuko knife for me, and I sliced them crosswise no thicker than 1/8". Just be careful of your fingers!
Then I folded the onion/garlic/butter mixture into 30 ounces of thawed frozen spinach (which we had thoroughly dried via hand-squeezing with paper towels.) Also going into the mix was 1.5 tsps salt, 3/4 tsp black pepper, rounded 1/4 tsp nutmeg and 1 cup of heavy cream.
Now it’s time to contruct! I sprayed some Pam on my shallow ceramic 9 x 13 baking dish (epicurious says not to use glass, although I’m not sure why?). Then layer squash, spinach mixture a sprinkling of grated Parmesan (this is another deviation from the original recipe), then repeat, ending with squash and some more cheese. Wax or parchment paper on top and then throw it into the top third of your 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then remove paper and put in for 12 more minutes.
When we took the dish out to remove the paper, the cheese on top was all stuck to the paper and I was out of Parm, so I threw some Jack cheese on top. Perhaps tenting foil instead would have prevented this outcome.
Overall, this dish was AMAZING…the only thing different next time would be a bit more salt and perhaps some crushed red pepper. The funny thing is how much the butternut squash looked like peaches the way I cut them! Each time I took a bite, I expected some sweet juicy fruit, but instead got a slightly sweet earthy flavor – food trickery!
What do you get when you mix 2 cups of cooked spinach with 1 cup of alfredo, lots of garlic and a handful of whole wheat pasta? A super bed of yummy goodness on which to rest a nice piece of grilled salmon of course!
We simply marinated a couple of salmon filets in white wine, chopped chives, and some salt for about 30 minutes, and then grilled them to perfection on a hot grill for 4 minutes on each side. To plate, make a thick pool of your creamed spinach mixture, top with a bit of whole wheat angel hair pasta, and set the cooked salmon on top. Super easy dish to make (especially for a crowd!!)
We’re off to go fishing again this weekend, but this time up in New Hampshire. Hopefully we’ll catch something to put on our table!
In the past, we've made meatballs by frying them in a pan which was messy and somewhat tedious - since we need to be making some sort of marinara at the same time. I then remembered seeing an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown bakes the balls of meat instead of frying them. Why hadn't we tried this before? And you can make more meatballs at the same time as well, and more is always better!
We mixed a little over a pound of ground turkey with 1.5 cups of thawed and well drained spinach. I added about 1/4 c. parmesan, 1/2 tbsp Worchestershire, some dried oregano, basil, S&P and some Penzey's Cajun Seasoning. I mixed that together and added roughly 1/3 c of breadcrumbs until the mixture was no longer gooey. I did not add an egg to this, but in retrospect, that would've bound everything together a bit better. 
After forming 1.5inch balls, I placed them on a greased pan and stuck them at 400F for 20 minutes, turned them and cooked for 5 minutes more. After plunking them into the marinara for a few minutes more, we served them up over some whole wheat angel hair pasta.
And what to do with leftovers...meatball sandwiches of course!
Another casserole-type dish?!? Two in a row - you ask? You bet. And you’ll see why in a sec! It’s been cold here in Boston – demonically so, and therefore we wanted comfort food that'll keep your insides warm. We decided on a kicked up version of shepherd's pie that would be topped off by mashed sweet potatoes and sharp cheddar cheese.
We browned up some “meatloaf mix” in some olive oil. This is just ground veal, pork and beef to give a nice depth to our pie. Once browned, we removed from the pan and started sautéing diced carrots and onions. After 10 minutes we added a couple cloves of chopped garlic and some chopped mushrooms. The spicing for this dish consisted of salt, thyme and lots of freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper. 
At this point we boiled up 2 diced sweet potatoes, and once tender, we mashed them with S&P, 1.5 TBS Promise, and ¼ cup milk. Returning to the veggies: we deglazed with ¼ cup red wine and 2 cups of beef stock. We returned the browned meat to the pan and added a cup each of frozen peas and chopped spinach. 
After most of the liquid had cooked off, we turned off the heat and spread the mashed sweet potatoes over the top of the veggies and meat, topped that with a sharp cheddar and threw the cast iron pan under the broiler for about 5 minutes.
This pie was so delicious, it made great leftovers for days! As you can tell, we LOVE one pot dishes – so if anyone has some fantastic one pot suggestions, let us know!
We've been out of town, but we've still been cooking and eating! We had a great Christmas visit to the homeland - Northern Maine - where we cooked a 10-lb turkey on Christmas Day. Along with that, we had mashed potatoes, boiled turnips, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce... the works. 
