Pumpkin Risotto

I have very little time to blog these days.  That's why it's been almost a year since my last post.  Since no one actually reads it, I do it mostly for me.  So, I guess it doesn't matter how often.  Anyway, it's now October 2013 and as a federal employee, I find myself furloughed.  Suddenly have all this time to fill.  It's day three and I've already been experimenting with lots of recipes.  As I've noted before, I LOVE the fall. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a couple of pie pumpkins so that I could roast and use them in my fall recipes.  On day two of the government shutdown, I got down to business and roasted the pumpkin and for dinner my husband and I enjoyed this delicious pumpkin risotto.  I did  not come up with this recipe on my own.  I adapted this Butternut Squash Risotto recipe from Skinnytaste.com. I didn't have any butternut squash, but I really wanted to try this risotto.  Since I had all that pumpkin, I used that instead.  My husband hates sage, so I decided to go with something I know works well with pumpkin...nutmeg.  It worked perfectly...if I do say so myself.  I also found that there wasn't quite enough liquid, so I added some water and more wine. 

Pumpkin Risotto

3 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup water
1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree (You can use canned, but I used roasted pumpkin)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
2 large shallots
1 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/3 cup grated  Parmigiano-Reggiano
salt and pepper to taste


In a blender (I used my Ninja which is amazing), combine broth, water and pumpkin.  Blend for10 seconds or so, until mixed thoroughly. It will look like a very thin pumpkin soup.  Transfer to a pot and heat through.  Keep warm.  In a large pot (I used a dutch oven), heat olive oil on medium heat and add garlic and shallots.  Saute about 2 minutes.  Add arborio rice and mix thoroughly, making sure the rice is coated with oil.  Stirring almost constantly so the rice doesn't burn, saute for another 2 minutes or so.  Keep the burner on medium to medium high heat.  Add the wine and stir constantly until the liquid is well absorbed.  Add ground nutmeg.  Ladle in the pumpkin/broth mixture, making sure all the liquid is absorbed before adding the next ladle.  Continue doing this until all of the liquid is gone.  Add the cheese and mix thoroughly.

The result should be a creamy, pumpkiny and delicious risotto.  Serve immediately.

Fall Squash. What to do...

After I made my last batch of butternut squash soup, I got another butternut squash and an acorn squash in my next produce delivery.  Well, I had plenty of the Curried Butternut Squash Soup, so I didn't want to make that again.  I looked up some recipes for acorn squash soup as well as some soups that used both, but all seemed too sweet or had cinnamon or something in them.  I was looking for something a little more savory this time.  Since I didn't find anything I really liked, I decided to wing it and come up with something of my own.  The soup turned out better than I had expected and I immediately wrote down the recipe before I forgot what I did.  It's a savory soup with a slight hint of sweetness.  The only seasoning is salt and pepper.  Nothing else was really needed.  The squashes provide plenty of flavor of their own.  It's the perfect fall soup for a Sunday afternoon.  I plan on having it for dinner tonight with a delicious BLT.

Roasted Acorn and Butternut Squash Soup

1 acorn squash

1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed

3 tbsp butter

1 large sweet onion, diced

2 medium leeks

4 cups vegetable broth

1 ½ tsp salt

2 tbsp brown sugar

Ground pepper to taste

½ cup half and half (I used fat free)

Cut acorn squash in half and roast at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes.  Remove and discard seeds.  Spoon flesh into a bowl and set aside.  While acorn squash is roasting, melt butter in large pot.  Add diced onions and leeks.  Saute about 5 minutes on medium heat.  Add cubed butternut squash, salt, pepper, brown sugar, and vegetable broth.  Simmer on medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Once butternut squash is soft, add acorn squash to pot and stir together.  Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth.  Stir in half and half.  Serve with crusty bread or half of your favorite sandwich. 

Buffalo Chicken Chili and Beer Bread

I have always loved chili.  I don't think there is anything better on a cold winter night than a big, steaming bowl of delicious chili.  Unfortunately, chili isn't one of those foods one could call healthy. While not everything I make is on the light side, as I've mentioned before, I've learned to cook lighter when I can.  I substitute lighter, healthier ingredients, and most of the time I end up with a much healthier and equally delicious dish.  Chili is something that you can easily lighten up by using chicken or turkey instead of beef.  I've tried a few different chicken chilis: some white chili that doesn't have a tomato sauce base; and some traditional chilis that simply use chicken instead of beef in the recipe.  All were good, but not what I would call great.  The recipe I'm posting today is sort of a combo.  I pretty much googled a bunch of chicken chili recipes and developed a hybrid of what I found.  If you like chili and you like chicken wings then this is the chili for you.  This is the perfect dish to serve for Sunday football with some freshly baked beer bread.  Beer bread is quite possibly the easiest bread you could possibly make.  It's only three ingredients and is the perfect side for any chili.


Buffalo Chicken Chili

1 large onion
3 stalks celery
2 large carrots
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
salt to taste
2 lbs ground chicken (you could use shredded instead if you prefer)
2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp ground chipotle peppers (or to taste)
1/2 cup buffalo sauce
1 (28oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 (12 oz) can diced tomatoes
2 cans white beans (I used great northern beans, but you can use white kidney or cannellini beans)

In a large pot or dutch oven, brown ground chicken and add spices. Remove from pot. Dice the onion, celery and carrots.  In the same pot, heat olive oil and add veggies, sweating until all are tender.  Put the ground chicken back in and mix together. Add buffalo sauce, crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes, mix thoroughly.  Cook on low in dutch oven for 2 - 3 hours or transfer to crockpot and cook on low. Serve with sour cream and crumbled blue cheese and a side of beer bread.

  Beer Bread

3 cups self rising flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 bottle beer (the lighter the beer, the less the bread will taste like beer...I use Yuengling Lager)

Mix all ingredients in large mixing bowl.  Spray loaf pan with cooking spray and transfer batter to pan.  Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes.  When bread is finished, remove from pan immediately and butter the top of the loaf.  Serve warm with butter.

Blue Bacon BBQ Chicken Burgers

My husband and I just couldn't decide what to have for dinner the other night, but we knew we had to use up the gazillion potatoes we had.  I had a plan for that.  Check out these Skinny Texas Cheese Fries from Skinnytaste.  So, we had a side dish, but no main course.  We were leaning toward burgers, but we've been watching the amount of fat and calories we've been eating.  So, we landed on chicken burgers.  I have a couple of recipes that I use for chicken burgers, but none of them went really well with the cheese fries we had planned.  So, I decided to wing it.  I'm so glad I did, but because I think I ended up with the best chicken burger I've ever made!  We had a mini disaster as were about to cook the burgers.  Our grill ran out of propane just as I was about to cook.  My husband had a back up, but for some reason it wouldn't connect without leaking.  So, the grill was out.  We unburied our grill pan.  I usually prefer the grill to a grill pan, but in this case, not being able to use the grill turned out to be a good thing.  The burgers turned out extremely juicy and delicious.

Blue Bacon BBQ Chicken Burgers

1 lb ground chicken
2 tbsp diced shallots
1 tbsp garlic
1 /4 cup blue cheese crumbles
3 tbsp BBQ sauce
1 tsp salt
4 slices bacon
More BBQ sauce to taste

In a mixing bowl, mix first six ingredients together thoroughly,  Form into four burgers.  Put on the grill (or grill pan) until cooked through.  Serve on hamburger roll of your choice with one piece of bacon and BBQ sauce to taste.

Bacon and Egg Cupcakes

I am not a huge breakfast fan, but my husband is.  For that reason, I'm always looking for new things to try out.  I rarely actually try them, in fact if we do ever make breakfast it's bacon, egg and cheese on an english muffin.  And sometimes if we have people over, we make pancakes or waffles.  Well, since Pinterest is my new best friend, I've been even more inclined to try new things.  I kept seeing little quiches in muffin pans or an egg surrounded by Canadian bacon.  Since I didn't have all the stuff to try those things, I decided to use the concept and experiment on my own.  I had a package of reduced fat crescent rolls and a TON of eggs thanks to my bi-weekly produce (and egg) delivery.  Fortunately, I also had bacon the freezer. These really were the only ingredients I needed to make these delicious egg cupcakes.  They would be perfect for company...a great way to make a bunch of eggs at once.   You could also experiment with other types of meat or cheese or even veggies.  

Bacon and Egg Cupcakes

1 tube crescent rolls (I used reduced fat, but it's not necessary)

8 slices bacon (I used thick cut)

8 eggs

Cooking spray

Spray a muffin/cupcake pan with cooking spray.  Remove crescent rolls from tube and unroll.   Do not split along perforation.  Using a pizza cutter, slice them into 8 squares.  You could use a knife, but the pizza cutter will save you time and keep the dough from bunching up.  Put a square in 8 of the muffin cups, making sure the bottom is covered and up the sides as much as possible.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  In the meantime, cook the bacon until about half way done (It's important that it's not fully cooked or it will burn in the baking process).  Put one piece of bacon in each muffin cup, making it into a ring.  The crescent roll and bacon will be sort of a cupcake liner for the egg.  Next drop one egg in each muffin cup.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes.  I put them in for about 18 minutes, but I think 16 would have been enough.  It depends on how you like your eggs cooked.  Remove cupcakes from pan and serve with fruit as a side.  The perfect, easy brunch!

Makes 8 servings.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

OK, so it's been quite a while since I last posted.  It's been a busy couple of years, but I suppose everyone is busy, so I guess it's not the best excuse.  I have done A LOT of cooking and experimenting in the last year and a half, and every time I think "I should really blog about this."  I guess I just wasn't ready.  Well, I'm back in business and ready to get down to it.  Here goes:

I LOVE THE FALL!!!

Recently I began receiving boxes of organic fruits and vegetables from Washington's Green Grocer.  I was super excited to find this service since a lot of the co-ops around here are very expensive and far away.  We have plenty of farmer's markets here in Northern Virginia, but some of them are held during the week.  Those of us who have full time jobs obviously can't make it to those.  The others are on Saturday mornings.  Now, I probably could get to one of these, but, well, I am NOT a morning person.  On Saturdays I like to sleep in...and getting to a farmer's market that is over by noon is not my idea of fun.  So, I now get produce boxes delivered on Wednesdays. 

The best thing about Washington's Green Grocer is that they provide local produce (for the most part), so there are always a lot of whatever is in season.  Right now I've been getting a lot of squash and apples.  These things are the best part of fall!  The last two boxes I received had butternut squash.  I am a HUGE fan of butternut squash and one of my favorite things on a crisp fall evening is butternut squash soup.  A couple of years ago I found a recipe in a Pampered Chef catalog for a soup that had curry in it.  I am not the biggest fan of curry, but I was intrigued.  I found that it did not overwhelm the soup and gave it a nice spice which my husband and I very much enjoyed.  I've made it many times and I've tweaked here and there.  The first couple of batches were too sweet, probably because of the type of onions and apples I used.  After some trial and error, my latest batch is probably the best I've ever made.  Tonight, I'm happy to share it.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

4 tbsp butter 

2 large onions, diced (try not to use sweet onions, otherwise the soup will be too sweet)

2 medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed

2 gala apples, peeled and diced

1 1/2 tbsp curry (I used muchi curry powder from Whole Foods)

1/4 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1 tsp salt

6 cups vegetable stock (you can use chicken stock instead if you choose)

1 8oz package light cream cheese

Salt to taste

 In a large stock pot, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the diced onions and sweat them for several minutes until tender.  Next add the butternut squash, apples, brown sugar, curry powder, and salt.  Stir and let cook for 3 minutes or so.  Pour in the vegetable stock and stir.  Allow to simmer on medium heat for about 30 minutes or until the apples and squash are tender enough to puree.

Remove the pot from the heat.  Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth.  If you don't have an immersion blender, you can transfer the soup to a stand blender in small batches (This takes longer and is a lot messier, so if you don't have a stick blender yet, I highly recommend you get one.  I use it ALL the time.  You will not regret it.)  Cut the cream cheese into quarters and add to pureed soup.  Stir with whisk until cream cheese has melted and soup is smooth and creamy.  You may want to add more salt to taste depending on your preferences.  

The soup will be ready to eat immediately. 

I hope to be a more active blogger this time around.  If anyone out there even bothers to read this, I hope you enjoy it.  I love suggestions and recommendations, so please feel free to help me out!

ENJOY!!

PS:  Next time, I'll try to add a picture ;-)

i love the grill....and i got a smoker!

Over the weekend, I planned on making stir fry.  We had this HUGE chunk of pork loin that we had to cook.  Actually, we had a huge chunk and a smaller chunk meant for two people, but my genius husband thawed the wrong one. Needless to say, we had to a crap load of pork to cook.  I decided to make sweet and sour pork stir fry.  Of course, I had no idea what to do with the rest of the pork.  Sunday came and it was a gorgeous day outside.  And I thought, not stir fry, kabobs!  I decided instead to make sweet and sour pork kabobs.  In included chunks of pork, yellow and orange peppers, onions and pineapple chunks.  Once I started grilling, I added the sweet and sour sauce.  They were served over jasmine rice. I had no idea  how delicious they were going to be!

But what to do with the rest of the pork....  As luck would have it, my husband finally bought me a smoker. I've been begging for one of these forever.  We ended up smoking the rest of that huge chunk of pork. Talk about delicious. As awesome as those kabobs were, I almost wish that we had smoked the whole piece of pork! We sliced it and had it with BBQ sauce on some potato rolls.  It tasted just like brisket.  I couldn't get enough. It's a good thing too because we may be eating it for a week!

This is only my second post, and I haven't yet gotten it together enough to provide recipes. In the future, I hope to add them as I post...especially the ones I develop myself!