The cooking thread

[gae]

I missed the Solstice thread yesterday.

Greg, if you like maple butter, you'd probably like Trav's now famous acorn squash with maple syrup and pecans.

Cut an acorn squash in half, and place cut side down on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 until just fork tender. Turn cut side up and add about a T of (real) maple syrup, about a T of butter and some toasted pecans. Return to oven for another 15 minutes or so.

D_2 -- Trav and I were talking about cooking "lessons" last night. If you will decide what you want to make, we'll come over and walk you through the entire process. We thought about having you and Jump come here, but thought it might be better if you were in your own kitchen. BTW, you'll have mail in just a bit.

<font color="#a52a2a" size="1">[ December 23, 2004 04:51 AM: Message edited by: gae ]</font>

[travelinman]

You just can?t trust anybody these days.

Trav?s Baked Acorn squash:

2 squash
1-cup coarse chopped pecans
1-cup chopped yellow onion
1-cup maple syrup
9-tablespoons butter (1 stick for the filling and 1 table spoon to grease the sheet)
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut squash in half, remove seeds.

Trim bottom and top to make flat surface without cutting into the hollowed out seed section (if you do all the good stuff you add later runs out.

Salt and pepper the halves and place cut side down on buttered cookie sheet and bake until fork tender.

Toast pecan pieces in heavy skillet remove and set aside.

Sweat onions in butter over low heat until soft

Turn up the heat some, add pecans and saut? until the butter starts to brown slightly.

Stir in syrup and fill squash.

Place squash in small casserole dish so their sides touch up keep them upright cover with plastic wrap and put in refrigerator. This can be made up to a day in advance.

To serve:

Remove squash and let them come to room temperature.

Heat squash in medium oven until filling starts to bubble.

Serves 4

Options:

Depending on what else your serving you can kick this up with some cayenne or fresh grated nutmeg. The cayenne is added to the filling with the pecans and the nutmeg gets dusted on top when you reheat them.

[cincygreg]

This is not being mentioned to try an impress anyone, because it is an amazingly simple thing to make. Only mentioning it, because the veggie version would make a colorful holiday side dish.

Need"
Penne
'Mater Sauce (homemade if you can, but jarred works fine)
Spinach (fresh if you can, but frozen works fine)
Ground beef, pork or turkey
You can use more vegies ('shrooms, extra maters, zuccini, yellow squash ... instead of meat for veggie version
Garlic, crushed red pepper (optional, depending on sauce and taste)
Grate parmesian or Romano Cheese
Mozzerrella

Boil Pasta, set aside
Thaw frozen spinach and squeeze all the water out of it (if using fresh, wash it and chop it up)
In skillet, brown meat, season to taste
strain excess fat off meat
add spinach and garlic to meat and saute
Pour in mater sauce, not too much you want to keep it thick and not soupy
mix together season to taste
add pasta
mix together
add 1/3 of the mozzerrela and romano/parmesian
(use rest of cheese as topping at service)
Scoop it out and chow down


Looks all red and green with the white cheese on top looking like it's snow coverred

I'll eat it with salad and some breadsticks as a meal, but it works well as a side dish

Really simple, and like I said this isnt to impress anyone, just an idea.

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[gae]

Question, Greg.

Do you then bake the mixture? If not, how does the pasta stay hot?

[cincygreg]

You can if you want, but once the sauce/meat mixture is hot it will reheat the pasta as you mix it through.
You can put it into a casserole dish and bake it though, doesnt take much time to get the chees all melted.
Might want to transfer it back into the pasta pot to avoid spillage if you do it stovetop.

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