Food & Laughter » Shannon

Acorn Squash and Almond Milk Macaroni and Cheese

Shannon — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:00:47 +0000

Last night when I was gathering supplies to make macaroni and cheese, I seriously considered using egg nog in place of the milk. I managed to convince myself that was a horrible idea, but the combination of almond milk, acorn squash puree and white cheddar came out tasting a little like egg nog anyway. In a good way. I decided to go with it and add nutmeg. That seems to be a common spice in mac and cheese but usually I use mustard instead.
My daughter claimed she didn’t like this after hearing there was squash in it. She ate it anyway, so it obviously wasn’t too bad. She requested kale to go with it, which I sauteed with olive oil, salt and pepper. She ate that all up and each bite she exclaiming, “Mmmm!”

Acorn Squash Macaroni and Cheese

1 package of penne pasta
2 cups grated white cheddar
1 cup almond milk
2 T butter
1 1/2 cups acorn squash puree
1 t nutmeg
salt and pepper too taste

Preheat oven to 350.
Cook the pasta to slightly less then al dente. Drain pasta and put in in an oiled 9×13 casserole dish.
Melt butter in saucepan on medium low. Add squash and milk and stir until they are combined. Add cheese in small batches and stir until melted. Stir spices in. The sauce should be thick and creamy. Pour on top of pasta.
At this point, if you prefer creamy non baked mac and cheese, you can serve it. I like it baked, so I pop it in the oven for 20-30 minutes, depending how patient I am. I usually sprinkle grated cheese on top before I bake it, but I didn’t feel like grating more cheese last night.

Green Pepper Chicken

Shannon — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 01:37:44 +0000

This doesn’t look terribly appetizing, especially when I photograph it in a green bowl, but I promise it is as delicious as it is ugly. I made very few changes to the original recipe, mostly it called to slice the chicken, but I just cook it long enough that it can be shredded. I’m not a huge fan of chicken, but I love it shredded. I also added the sauteed peppers and onions, because I tend to throw extra veggies in everything. Usually we just eat this over rice with cheese. Sometimes we eat it with tortilla chips, because I also love tortilla chips.

Adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking

Green Pepper Chicken

3 chicken breast halves
4 large green bell peppers or 2 green and 2 other colored peppers
1 (7-ounce) can whole or diced green chiles or 2-3 fresh or dried chilies, chopped.
1/2 teaspoon basil
2 large yellow onions
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup water

The Directions.
Put the 2 bell peppers, 1 onion chopped in large pieces and the all the chiles in the crockpot. Put chicken on top. Add basil, salt, and pepper. Pour in the 1/4 cup of water. Cover and cook on low for about 6 hours, or on high for 3-4.
Remove the chicken, and put in the fridge to cool. Blend the peppers and sauce left at the bottom of the slow cooker. I have an immersion blender now, so I use that, but I used to do it in batches in my blender. I also cleaned the crockpot out before I put the sauce back in there, since chunky bits would get left behind this way.
Pull chicken apart, and return to the cooker. Slice and saute the remaining peppers and onion and throw them in for extra veggie content. Stir and cook on low for another 30 minutes or so until warmed. Or, for over an hour on the “keep warm” setting.

Chili

Shannon — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:07:04 +0000

Chili is one of my favorite meals when I’m tired or stressed out. I eat it with cheese and chips so it’s as unhealthy as possible. Of course, I had to go and ruin that by using better and better ingredients. This time, instead of using commercial sauce and water, I used some of my home canned tomato sauce, and I am officially a convert. It no longer matters me how long it took, or how hard it was. I would even push it through the sieve by hand if I had to. Note to Sika and Pearl, next year you want in on the canning action with me. Don’t argue.

Chili

1 lb ground beef
1 small onion, diced
2 ribs celery, chopped (not this time)
5 small sliced carrots
2 cans tomato sauce
3/4 c water
3 t Worcestershire sauce
1/8 c chili powder
3 t cumin
1 T salt
2 T garlic
1 t red pepper sauce (like tabasco)
1 can beans (black or kidney)
2 diced dried chilis (or 1 can diced chilis)

Brown ground beef. Put all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 5-6 hours. Or you could put them all in a big heavy bottomed pot, put the lid on and cook on low for 1-2 hours. Stir two or three times either way. Maybe a few more times if you are cooking it on the stove.
Near the end of the cooking time I taste and readjust the spices. Every time I make it, I make new notes on this recipe, but I haven’t figured out exactly what I’m using yet.

Enjoy!

Chicken (or Veggie) stock

Shannon — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 04:41:18 +0000

This is definitely more of a process then a recipe, but since I’ve posted two recipes recently that call for chicken stock, I figured I would write up how I make my own here.
I have two gallon bags in the freezer at all times. One for leftover poultry bits, mostly bones from roasts, but occasionally uncooked bones as well. You get different flavors from cooked and uncooked bones, but I don’t think it matters that much in the end result, at least not for cooking other things with. I don’t put much meat or skin in, because they don’t add much to the flavor. The other bag is for veggie bits. Basically, everything I cut off of veggies that I’m chopping for our meals ends up in here, except for soft spots and the like. Onion skins, carrot tops, celery leaves, broccoli stems, the green parts of leeks, the stem and seeds from bell peppers, peels from most root vegetable, fresh herbs that are going to go bad before I can use them. I don’t put in potato peels, because I think it makes the stock too starchy. I also don’t put in whole veggies, because they have a higher water content to flavor ratio then just the leftover bits.
When both those bags are full, I stuff them in my stock pot and cover with water. I stick the lid on and simmer it for a couple of hours, until everything in there is falling apart. I let it cool a little and strain it through a mesh sieve.
If you want to keep your stock in your freezer, I recommend you reduce it by half and pour into ice cube trays. These I store in yet another gallon sized ziplock bag. I like to throw them in rice, and use in place of the small amounts of chicken stock called for in some recipes. You can also freeze it in quart sized containers to use for batches of soup.
A friend recently told me that she pressure cans her chicken stock, and since I recently discovered that had two of each kind of bag in the freezer, I decided to give it a go. I followed the instructions on this site sort of. Due to nap time for my toddler, the pressure went higher then that (about 15psi) and it stayed in the canner longer. I believe my friend told me she leaves hers in for an hour, but she didn’t mention what psi she used.

Creamy potato zucchini soup

Shannon — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:59:19 +0000

Our blender got broken back in the spring, and I only just replaced it in August. I decided to get an immersion blender for a replacement, because I love creamy soups, and they are such a pain to make with just a regular blender. It turns out that I had perfect timing, because I had two fillings replaced the day I was planning to make this.

3 c chicken stock
6 med yukon gold potatoes, quartered
1 large leek, sliced
3 med zucchinis, sliced
1 head garlic
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a crockpot on high for 5 hours, or until your potatoes are soft. Turn off heat and let cool a bit. Blend an immersion blender until smooth.
This makes a lot of soup. You could either feed 10 adults, or put some in the freezer. I put a quart in the freezer, and we’ve eaten it for at least three meals.

Challa stuffing

Shannon — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 04:39:27 +0000

I love bread, and I especially like bread I can pretend is a balanced meal. This weekend we celebrated my husband’s 40th birthday with a faux Canadian Thanksgiving meal. Friends brought stuffing and stuffed acorn squash, but we ended up with all the leftover turkey and no leftover stuffing. So I decided to make something to eat with the leftovers that had lots of veggies in it.

1 c raisins
½ c rum
1 loaf of Challa bread (you can use stale bread, it’s better for this use, but I hadn’t planned on making this until that morning, and I didn’t find any day old bread at the store.)
½ med diced onion
4 sliced carrots
1 red pepper, cut up
1 T minced garlic
2 eggs
2 cups chicken stock
salt pepper to taste
1 T lemon juice
1 t oregano
2 t basil
olive oil

Soak the raisins in the rum for at least 30 minutes, but longer is better. Usually when I know in advance that I’m making stuffing, I soak them over night.
Cut the bread into roughly 1.5″ cubes. Spread these in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast for 5-10 minutes in a 350 degree oven.
While that is cooking, saute the onions, peppers and carrots until they are cooked through. Add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.
Lightly beat the eggs in a large bowl and mix with the chicken stock and herbs. Toss the cooled toasted bread in this mixture until all the liquid has been absorbed and then stir in the veggies. Pour into a greased 9×11 pan and bake for 20 minutes at 350.

Serve with gravy and turkey. An actual vegetable would be good too, if you are more motivated then I am.

Spaghetti Sauce

Shannon — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 04:47:04 +0000

Ingredients:
2 cans tomato sauce (I use sauce because I have a problem with cooked tomato pieces, but if you like them, they work just as well.)
1 lb ground beef (I have easily cut this amount in half an put in more veggies, and it’s still delicious.)
1 medium sweet onion, diced
2 sliced carrots, 1 small chopped green pepper, 2 diced celery stalks, ½ extra diced onion. (I usually just use whatever veggies we have around the house, about 2 cups worth, especially if my husband has cooked recently and there are pre chopped veggies sitting in the fridge. I have also used broccoli, spinach, chard, brussel sprouts and peas before, but not together. I probably wouldn’t use the peas again.)
3 T garlic
2 T basil
1 T oregano
2 t celery seed
2 T ill or sage (Depending on season, this time I use dill. It’s my favorite spice ever. Use whatever you like.)
Salt & pepper to taste
Molasses to taste, between 2 T and 1/3 c (This is a trick I learned from a friend, that cuts the acidity of the tomatoes. The amount you need depends on the veggies you use. You need significantly more if you use spinach then you do if you just use peppers and carrots.)

Directions:
Brown the ground beef in a large, tall sided pot over medium heat. When the meat is brown add the onions and cook until they start turning translucent. Next add the veggies in whatever order makes sense, I cooked the carrots longest and the peppers the least. Cook until all veggies start softening and add the garlic. Cook for another minute and add the tomato sauce.
Reduce the heat to medium low (tomato sauce splatters a LOT). Add spices and cook, stirring occasionally for 10-15 minutes, or until the pasta is almost done. Add a small amount of molasses at a time, until you like how it tastes. This is a good time to adjust the other spices if needed too.
Garnish with Parmesan, and serve with garlic bread. Yum!
Feeds 6-10 people.

I actually used some of my home canned tomato sauce in this batch, which is runnier the the commercially canned stuff. I’m going to have to do some fiddling to see if I can figure out a good way to thicken it, without resorting to canned tomato paste.

End of summer soup

Shannon — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:37:18 +0000

Somehow over the last week, we ended up with tons of small containers in our fridge containing chopped uncooked veggies, sausage and chicken stock. That combined with me getting a small cold made me want to have soup. I’m trying to use what we have more, as our freezer is chock full, so everything in this soup was already in my house. I did go out and buy a loaf of bread though.
I’m generally the kind of cook who likes to wing it. Even when I use a recipe, I rarely actually use all the ingredients in the amounts called, preferring to substitute what I have, or add more of the things I really love. I guess I look at recipes as more of a guideline. Please keep that in mind when you read this recipe.
I think if I made it again, I would use regular garlic instead of the roasted, which just disappeared into the soup. I would also use white beans instead of black, because the black beans made the liquid ugly.

8 cups chicken stock/water (I make my own chicken stock periodically, and it’s really concentrated, so I used about 2 cups stock and 6 cups water)
1 can black beans (Not actually canned, I followed these instructions)
1 chopped medium onion
10-12 heads roasted garlic
1 precooked chopped chicken feta spinach sausage
3 sliced carrots
1 bunch red chard chopped
1 T lemon grass
1 T cumin
2 t celery seed
Salt and pepper to taste

Throw everything in a large pot and simmer for 1.5 hours. Serve.

Apricot Vanilla Jam

Shannon — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:23:10 +0000

I love making jam. And now that my daughter is older, it’s turning out to be a fine activity to do on days where we are both cranky and Walker isn’t coming home for dinner. She alternates between watching and talking about the hot pots, and running around and playing.

There are a lot of fiddly things about canning. I’m very careful with the sterilizing and food handling, but there are a lot of things I’m more lackadaisical with. I use the fruit I have (or can get), and just cut around the bad parts. It’s always helpful when you make jam without pectin to use a good amount of under ripe fruit, as the natural pectin is higher then, but if things get bruised, I don’t worry too much. I’m also not concerned too much if it doesn’t set enough, as I could never the freezer gel test to work consistently. If it’s a little runny, that’s fine and if it’s really runny, we just use it as ice cream sauce. I can eat a lot of ice cream.

Adapted from David Lebovitz’ Apricot Jam
9 c pitted and roughly chopped apricots
5 c white sugar
1 T lemon juice
2 T vanilla (I used powdered vanilla, but liquid would work fine)
1/2 c water

Makes 4 pints
Combine all ingredients except vanilla in a large heavy bottomed, non aluminum pot. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat slightly or it will foam up over the sides. Add vanilla and continue to stir frequently until temperature reaches 220°. Pour into Food & Laughter. All Rights Reserved.