Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese

Really easy side dish to write up today. I'm afraid I was a bit lazy on one of my last days off and didn't feel like doing groceries - so dinner was this Nigella Lawson dish with a side of pesto macaroni. There's only three ingredients but they went really well together!

First step was to toast the pecans. Really easy - I just threw them in a dry pan and tossed them around for a few minutes. I translated the pecan measurement (100 g/4 oz) as 3/4 cup. Luckily I had these in the freezer already, purchased for a pecan pie that never got made...

Next was cooking the squash. I must have bought a huge one - it filled two whole pans. This was the most time-consuming part, which is why I don't eat nearly enough squash in the winter. But it smelled like Thanksgiving while it was cooking! The squash released a lot of water while it cooked - if I wanted it really roasty I suppose I should have split it into four pans so it wasn't so crowded. Oh well. I did peel it - I'm not into eating butternut squash peel yet, though I know you can.

I just mixed the nuts and cubed squash together in a big bowl, and since my hubby doesn't like blue cheese, I added it as more of a garnish instead of mixing it in. I have to say, though, it was fabulous with the blue cheese - totally worth adding it. It cut right through the sweetness of the squash - I wanted some in every bite. A really comforting meal on a cold night. Perfect for when you buy blue cheese to serve to your friends then forget to put it out!

Better Butter Tofu

Happy Boxing Day!

Now let me start this post by warning you that this recipe is trying to be a 'healthier' butter chicken (or in my case, tofu) - but I wouldn't tell anyone to make it if you were actually craving rich, restaurant-style butter chicken. Having said that, it's a tasty, easy Indian-flavoured dinner. The recipe comes courtesy of Greta and Janet Podleski of Looney Spoons and Eat, Shrink and Be Merry fame.

The ladies first call for marinating chicken thighs in PC Tandoori sauce and baking them. I instead fried up some tofu with some vindaloo curry paste I have in the fridge (those jars last a long time and do go on sale occasionally). Hey, Indian flavour is Indian flavour, right? I then added (real!) butter to the pan with some oil, 1 large onion and 3 garlic cloves. My spice mix was mostly the same as listed in the recipe, omitting turmeric (just don't have any) and replacing the fresh ginger with 2 tsp dried ginger.

I added in the diced tomatoes, 1 cup only of stock, and 1 tsp molasses instead of brown sugar. After simmering, I skipped the part where they blend half of the sauce - if I had an immersion blender, I would, because I'm sure it makes it much creamier, but I couldn't be bothered to dirty my blender. I also threw in some extra veggies - carrots and cauliflower - and put the tofu back in.

Some delicious ingredients go in next - sour cream, and a Tbsp of peanut butter. No cilantro this time, but if I had some I would add way more than 1 Tbsp! I just threw some green onions on top.

The result was more like a chunky, peanuty Indian stew, since I didn't eat it over rice - just inhaled a bowl of it. But I could see if you blended half of it and ate a more manageable portion over rice, it would be like butter chicken/tofu. Either way it was damn good.

Light Shrimp Chowder

I found this Low Country Shrimp Chowder recipe in a Food Network magazine and it looked like an easy, quick shrimp soup. Not really a thick chowder but something a little lighter. On this particular night I had just received a nice package of chocolate from my dad in the mail, and was looking forward to finishing up the last season of True Blood, so I got to work.

I started with a good chunk of butter (yes, real butter!) in the pot but added some olive oil too - I find I usually burn pure butter. I added the scallions but omitted the celery (because it's gross). Actually I would have added celery in this case, but hardly wanted to go out and buy a whole bunch when I just wanted one stalk. I was very excited to use my Old Bay seasoning, which I had just bought, I just wished it called for more! I probably put in 2 tsp, even though I'm pretty sure it's mostly salt. I then threw in some orange bell pepper and, as extra veggies, a couple carrots.

The broth is made up of 2 cups of milk, and 6 cups water. Many of the reviewers on the Food Network website used stock instead because they found it too bland, but I just went with water. I did of course add salt and lots of pepper, and shrimp's pretty salty anyway. The recipe also calls for 1/2 cup white rice, which thickened it a little. Near the end I added in (drained and thawed) corn and shrimp - I bought the slightly cheaper 'Atlantic' shrimp, the tiny ones, which means there were a lot more and they were easier to eat in soup-form.

I topped the soup with parsley, grabbed a glass of white wine and sat down to watch vampires kill/have sex with each other. The soup was really good, light but with lots of flavour (definitely salty enough!) and a nice yellow butter shine on top. Mmm.

Cold Rolls

Pssst... here's a secret: Sometimes I don't feel like cooking! Yes, it's true. Sometimes when I get home late from work, mostly on the days when Mike's working late, I make a very simple dinner for myself: cold rolls, aka fresh rolls. While I often think of them just as vehicles to eat large amounts of peanut butter and sriracha hot sauce, they are healthy (well, as long as sodium's okay!), easy, versatile and fast. I eat them pretty much every week.

For protein I usually go for tofu, and if I'm smart the night before, I'll cut some up and place them in a 'marinade' of lemon juice and pepper. It makes the tofu a little tangy, and really good. Alternately I use those little flavoured tuna cans (I buy them on sale, and man are they ever convenient) in thai chili flavour, or lemon pepper, or peanut satay. Whoever thought of those is a marketing genius. I've also used cold chicken on the rare occasion we buy rotisserie chickens.

Next up are the veggies: usually chopped bell peppers, and matchstick carrots and cucumbers. Bean sprouts if I'm feeling fancy (and can finish a whole bag in two days before they turn slimy). Cilantro is delicious but I rarely buy it just for rolls. And I always add dabs of (natural) peanut butter. Then it's time to roll! The rice paper package says to soak towels and place them between the papers (blah blah blah) but really you can just run the paper under the tap and let it sit for a minute while you assemble the roll. They'll become sticky and malleable.

Assemble, cut into halves, eat while dipping into hot sauce. Delish! While it's not the healthiest dinner (the rice papers are full of salt, as is my beloved sriracha) I figure the large amount of raw veggies balances everything out.

This is my go-to dinner when Mike works nights, which means I also eat it while watching my guilty pleasure TV shows. I happily chomp down while sitting at my laptop with Gossip Girl, Glee and Grey's Anatomy. Happy times.

Cherry Brownies

We were having some friends over for a Friday night of cheese, desserts and Rock Band so I decided to try the Blackcurrant Brownies from the LCBO's lovely Food & Drink (Autumn, 2012). Something a little different, since I don't make brownies too often - but hey, sometimes I like to go all out with gooey brownies full of butter! Especially when others are around to eat them.

First up was melting the butter (I took it down to 3/4 cup from 1 cup) with the chocolate. The Hershey's bar I had bought was less than the 175 grams they called for, but luckily I usually have some dark, mini chocolate chips in the freezer, so I threw in a handful of those too. I also took it down to 3 eggs from the 4 the recipe called for, and cut the sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 cup. Sometimes recipes are just too decadent, ya know? These ingredients cost money!

The batter was quite grainy (so much sugar!) but looked very chocolatey. Next up was putting half the batter in the pan, then freezing it for 30 minutes. The recipe claims the freezing makes them more moist - maybe, but more importantly it lets you put a nice layer of jam in the middle! I used an organic Morello cherry jam I had, because who doesn't like cherry and chocolate? It was a little tough to spread the second half of the batter onto the jam, but it didn't need to look very pretty - I figured it would all even out in the end.

After a further 20 minutes in the freezer, they were ready to be baked. Even with the slight reductions in butter, sugar and eggs they tasted fabulous. Really chocolatey, gooey, and the layer of jam in the middle gave them an extra fruity kick to cut through the rich chocolate. Fairly easy recipe, if you don't mind waiting while the pan's in the freezer.

Tofu Stir-Fry with Rice Cakes

The hubs and I decided to snag a table at Mission Chinese Food, a hipster restaurant surrounded by Spanish markets and pawn shops, while we were visiting San Francisco back in September. As loyal (library) readers of Bon Appetit, we had already read about the rock star chef and knew the magazine named it one of the best new restaurants in the US in 2011. We enjoyed it but weren't overly impressed, but we were very intrigued by the Thrice Cooked Bacon dish, featuring tofu skins, bitter melon and Shanghainese rice cakes, which looked like water chestnuts but were gelatinous rice products of some sort... so we did some research and went in search of them in Chinatown.

Success! Turns out they come dried, so first we had to soak them overnight. The package did not give a specific soaking time, so we guessed a little. They were still firm once dinner time rolled around so we boiled them for a couple minutes to soften them up. They were just as we remembered - very gelatinous but strangely good.

The rest of the stir-fry was pretty straightforward. First we fried up 2/3 of a package of tofu. Next we threw in some veggies - broccoli, peppers and carrots. We also whipped up a quick sauce consisting of some kitchen staples: chopped garlic, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sriracha and toasted sesame oil. After the veggies had cooked for a few minutes we stirred in the sauce and the rice cakes in the pan.

It didn't turn out to be the most colourful dish, with the white tofu and rice cakes, but it was damn tasty. An easy and filling dinner for a night of sitting back, drinking an IPA and watching the Warehouse 13 Christmas special.

Peruvian Baked Quinoa and Cheese

I found this Peruvian Baked Quinoa and Cheese recipe on the Vegetarian Times website while looking for something else, but I thought it sounded good - I really like quinoa but had never made it in cheesy bake form. I was a little skeptical of the description - 'an alternative to mac-n-cheese' - but I thought I'd give it a shot.

First in the pot: an onion and bell peppers, which gave me a few minutes to rinse the quinoa. Then the quinoa went in with some garlic. Then I put in the water - but this is where it got confusing. The recipe states that the water will (mostly) be absorbed in 3-4 minutes - which is crazy talk. Quinoa is made with a ratio of 2:1 for water:quinoa, and usually takes at least 15 minutes to absorb/cook. I did wait until it was fully cooked, to be on the safe side, just not sure why the recipe was so off?

I did let it sit for a few minutes, but I was still a little worried the eggs would cook when I mixed them into the quinoa with milk and cheese. No need, though, it mixed fine and turned into a wet rice pudding-like substance. I wish I had added more veggies in though - it wasn't very colourful.

While it didn't brown very much on the top - maybe putting extra cheese on top would have helped - it was still quite tasty. Next time I would add more spices and make it a little more Southwestern - jalapenos would work well, since it was similar to corn bread. It's a good recipe for potluck dinners, and even better eating it cold out of the fridge the next day. Seriously.

Low-Fat Yogurt Loaf

It was a Friday night, and we needed a dessert to follow some delicious Thai food. I decided to experiment a little with the French Yogurt Cake recipe from Bon Appetit magazine (May, 2012). I've made it a bunch of times, but I wanted to see if I could eliminate some of the sugar and oil. I knew it would probably end up a tad less delicious than usual, but I figured the next day we could eat it with jam (which is what we did).

The recipe is really easy, which is probably why I keep making it. First I whisked the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt). I changed around the wet ingredients a little this time. I used 1/2 cup sugar instead of the whole cup, 1/4 c oil instead of 1/2 cup, but I still used 1 cup yogurt - unlike the recipe's whole milk Greek style yogurt, however, I just used what I had, which was plain ol' 1%.

I usually don't bother with the rubbing together of the sugar and lemon zest. Too much work. I skipped the zest this time, and decided to add in almond extract with the vanilla - because almond extract is amazing. Please go out and buy it, and put it in everything. I also added some almonds to the top to spruce it up a little.

The cake ended up spongy and not too sweet. Perfect to eat warm out of the oven with some butter or jam. Sure it was a little dry by the next day, but it didn't last very long anyway. The recipe is very adaptable - it's such a basic yogurt loaf, you could really add anything. I'm a little surprised, since Bon Appetit's recipes are usually a little fancier, but this was a great find.