Farmer's Market Spring Veggie Omelette-Type Thing - Vegetarian

So, I've never made an omelette before, so I am only assuming that this is what they are supposed to be like, or that at the very least, I got the general idea correct. After getting home from the farmer's market on Saturday, inspiration struck and I headed straight to the kitchen to create this wonderful, almost completely local brunch for us.

This was incredibly good - I am not the biggest egg fan, but I loved this. My only recommendation would be to split one of these between two people. They are huge and filling, I didn't realize how filling they would be. Both of us only ate half of our omelette's before wrapping them up and putting them in the fridge for a snack later.




























This is a picture of Brett's omelette, I added a little bit of chevrie to his.

The local booty legend (aka revealing my sources):
no asterisk = grocery store
+ = local produce from The Root Cellar
++ = The Peace Nook (will denote whether product is local or just from the Nook)
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden
**** = the non-profit buying club, Blue Planet or Purcell Mountain Farms

Farmer's Market Spring Veggie Omelette-Type Thing
4 eggs, whisked *
1/3 cup garlic chives, minced *
1 cup asparagus, chopped into half inch pieces *
4 cups of spinach, rinsed and chopped *
1 cup of oyster mushrooms, minced *
4 spring onions, chopped *
canola oil
salt
pepper

In a bowl, combine the eggs and the garlic chives, sprinkle with just a bit of salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, heat about a tablespoon of canola oil in a medium skillet. Add the asparagus and mushrooms and cook for about 8 minutes. Add the spinach and spring onions, cook an additional 5-8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

In a medium flat bottomed skillet, add 1-2 tbsp of canola oil. Once the pan is good and hot, pour the egg mixture and allow it to cook thoroughly. Flip the flat egg over to cook both sides - this should take about 10 minutes.

Add the filling to the middle of the egg "pancake" and fold the egg over. You can cook it just a minute or two more on each side and this will help it "seal" a little bit.

This was a pretty darn good meal. I will be back soon with the recipe for a super tasty local pasta dish I made earlier this week.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. Brett is off in homework land tonight, so I'm on my own this evening - I smell veggie sushi and a good book.

'Til next time!

Maple-Brown Sugar Roasted Acorn Squash Stuffed with Roasted Apples, Walnuts, and Cinnamon-Sugar Crumb Topping

This yummy looking treat was Brett and I's Christmas morning breakfast. It was super easy to make and filled our apartment with the warm, mapley, and cinnamon-spice smell that is quite fitting for the season. I am not generally one to do anything special or nice for brunch as I am usually satisfied with something simple and I save my energy for our evening meals, but occasionally it is nice to make something special, and what better occasion than Christmas?

This recipe also features some Missouri grown bounty. Local, easy, seasonally appropriate, AND yummy, you can't ask for much more than that from a brunch, can you?

That's enough blabbering by me, check out this bad boy.















The local booty legend (aka revealing my sources):
no asterisk = grocery store
+ = local produce from The Root Cellar
++ = The Peace Nook (will denote whether product is local or just from the Nook)
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden
**** = the non-profit buying club, Blue Planet or Purcell Mountain Farms

Maple-Brown Sugar Roasted Acorn Squash with Roasted Apples, Walnuts, and Cinnamon-Sugar Crumb Topping
Serves two.

The Squash:
1 acorn squash, halved, seeds and stringy bits removed *
4 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tbsp brown sugar

The Filling:
2 apples, peeled and chopped +
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped +
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
dash nutmeg

The Topping:
4 tbsp whole wheat pastry flour
2 tbsp raw organic sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2-3 tbsp Earth Balance

Preheat the oven to 400.

Pierce prepared acorn squash a few times with a knife. Fill seed cavity with maple syrup and brown sugar. Make sure the syrup coats as much of the squash flesh as possible.

Roast for 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel and chop apples, and chop up the walnuts. Toss them with the cinnamon, brown sugar, maple syrup, and nutmeg.

Stuff half the filling into each half of the squash and roast for an additional 35 minutes.

While the squash and filling are roasting, combine flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Using a fork or knife, cut in the Earth Balance until everything is all crumbly.

Top the squash with the crumble topping and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

Let cool for a few minutes (if you can stand it), and enjoy!

If I get the itch to do something more "in depth" for brunch over the winter, this might be my go-to meal.

'Til next time.

Homemade Cinnamon-Raisin Biscuits with Apple Butter

So what do you think I did with the rest of the apples Vern gave us? Well, I made a recipe that I enjoyed from my Nanny when I was younger - apple butter! Brett had never had apple butter, so I knew this was a treat he needed to experience, and what better way to try it than with Vernalicious apples?

As some of you know, I'm also quite intimidated by bread making of any kind. I don't know why, as I know it isn't as difficult as I make it out to be in my head, but I always imagine myself with cramped hands, covered in flour, sitting in front of a limp ball of dough that won't do what it is supposed to. As you can see, I've really psyched myself out about it. The thing is though, you can't just eat apple butter by itself - I knew I wanted some sort of bread, but I wasn't sure what kind. Eventually I decided to try my hand at making biscuits - I am damn tired of buying those icky tubes of biscuits that source their ingredients from who knows where and contain all sorts of less-than-pleasant ingredients. I also thought this would be a good way to get my "toes wet" in the bread making department. The end result? Bread making is not that hard and it is actually quite enjoyable. I liked getting my hands in the dough! While I might not be baking up a bread storm, as Brett and I don't often eat sandwiches, or many "flour oriented goods" beyond tortillas really, I will now make my own biscuits. I also have a wild hair up my ass to make my own pita next time it is called for. And yes, I will eventually try my hand at making tortillas. I think this weekend I am going to work on our pizza dough recipe some more. I'm taking Courtney's advice and using whole grain spelt flour. We found some in the bulk bin at the grocery store the other day (sadly not local), and we picked up a few pounds of it to work with.

Enough of the flour related tirade. Onto the food!















Such a yummy brunch! We enjoyed these bad boys while watching some pigskin on the tube.















We have a whole pint of this stuff to enjoy!

A quick note: The recipe for the apple butter came from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, so for fear of copyright infringement, I cannot reprint the recipe here. If you would like it, please just drop me an email and I would be happy to send it to you.

Also, I halved the recipe for the apple butter so that we would get only one pint or so (it is always a little off for some reason). We didn't go through the whole boiling water bath canner process as we aren't putting this away for winter - we are eating, and very much enjoying it now.

Cinnamon-Raisin Biscuits
Recipe adapted from here.

Makes 10 mini-biscuits or 5-6 regular sized ones.

1 1/4 cup flour (I used all-purpose white flour as we are still trying to finish off this lingering bag)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp organic raw sugar
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon
3-4 tbsp raisins
4 tbsp Earth Balance
6 tbsp rice milk (or other milk)
1 Ener-G egg (or other egg replacer)

Preheat oven to 400.

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

Using a fork, work in the Earth Balance. The batter should be fairly dry and crumbly.

Add the milk and egg replacer and knead with your hands until well combined.

Lightly flour a counter or some other work surface, as well as a rolling pin.

Place your ball of dough on the floured surface and roll out until 1/2 an inch thick.

Form your biscuit using a cookie cutter.

Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

You can also stick a toothpick in the biscuits to make sure they are done.

I think I may make more biscuits tonight or tomorrow so we can enjoy more of the apple butter. It is so good. Now I know what I will do if I ever go apple picking. I really like apple butter, and it, with a couple of homemade biscuits, make quite the tasty breakfast or brunch.

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty 9/28-10/04/08 and A Yummy Local Brunch

Ah, well, life gets in the way of blogging sometimes, and alas I didn't post a yummy recipe and information about the October Eat Local Challenge yesterday as promised. Work was really busy and I didn't have time to write a post over lunch. After work, I checked out a local grocer called The Root Cellar (more on that below), met Brett downtown and we headed over to a friends house for a going away party. Some friends of ours are in the process of moving to New Mexico. So there was a nice potluck, which we brought some pesto pasta with fresh tomatoes to. Needless to say, by the time we got home I didn't feel like blogging. So after I do this post, I will do a food/Eat Local post.

Brett stopped by the community garden this week and found our hot banana pepper plants doing quite well. We got a few peppers off the plants and there are a lot more little guys going on there. As is the case with Missouri weather, things are starting to warm back up after a week of very mild, fall-like weather, so I imagine the peppers are enjoying it.

Anywho, this is what we got from our community garden plot this week (we didn't get anything from our container garden).















2 Better Boy tomatoes (which are pretty good, by the way), and hot banana peppers (these were frozen so that we can still enjoy refried beans in the dead of winter). Wahoo!

This week's CSA was quite large and full of some really good looking produce. We made out great this week!















Starting from the bottom right: okra (we also got some okra from the Wednesday farmer's market - we didn't get a picture of it), banana peppers, Anaheim peppers, jalapenos, 2 apples (variety unknown), 2 small acorn squash (!!!!!), lettuce, a tomato, boiler onions (does anyone feel refried beans coming on?), and fresh basil.

This week's farmer's market booty ran us a total of $27. We are now stocked up on acorn squash - these don't last as long as some of the other varieties of winter squash, so I want to make sure that we have a manageable amount of them. We have enough delicata and butternut - but we will probably pick up a couple more of the better keeping winter squash such as the mini hubbards and buttercup squash - we'll also make sure to stock up on sweet potatoes - we'll be doing that once our winter squash selection is purchased - we only have so much room in our bags and weight we can manage on foot.















Starting from the bottom right: a buttercup squash, 2 Empire apples, 2 "Jonalicious" apples (a cross between a Jonathan and one of the "delicious" varieties), 2 Ida Red apples, 2 red Spanish onions, a dozen eggs, a large golden zucchini, 2 pimento peppers, 2 gypsy peppers, a 5 lb bag of Enterprise apples (these apples will keep in your refrigerator for up to 6 months, and they taste fantastic!), 2 white acorn squash, and 2 delicata squash (for use this week, not storage).

And I mentioned earlier a trip to a local grocer called the Root Cellar. I had been there a couple of times before, but never really looked around to see what they had to offer. I had sometime before I met Brett downtown and popped in to have a look. I am much more confident about being able to eat locally over winter than I was before - I still think it is going to be difficult, but I think going to the Root Cellar will really help. I found Missouri grown black turtle beans, pinto beans, apple cider vinegar, wheat berries - all sorts of things. When we run out of bulk beans we will have to try these Missouri grown ones, I've never seen Missouri grown beans like this before! Wahoo!

Here is the loot that I ended up getting. All local, of course.















Starting from the bottom right: shiitake mushrooms, 2 ears of sweet corn, yellow and purple wax beans, broccoli (!!!!!), and white sweet potatoes (!!!!!!!!!!).

I've been wanting to try my hand at making tortillas for a couple of weeks now. Last weekend, I was sick and didn't really feel like cooking anything of note - let alone making tortillas from scratch. This week, the things I got from the market are not really conducive to tortilla making - the fresh stuff I need to utilize fastest doesn't require tortillas, and we still have some store bought ones we need to eat. A lot of excuses I know, but I will eventually try making my own tortillas. In fact, if by the end of November, you all haven't seen a post about me making homemade tortillas, please call me out on it.

I guess the next best thing is making something else I've been wanting to for awhile - so for dinner tonight, we are going to do a take on Jessy's (from Happy Vegan Face) Broccoli with Spicy Peanut Sauce. We are going to make her sauce by the recipe, but we are going to use lots of different veggies - 'cause we have them around. I will post about how it turned out...sometime - I'm behind on food posts (as usual), so it'll get done, sometime... ;-)

Anyways, Brett had to get up bright and early to take a final for one of his classes. He got a high A on it, and I thought he should be rewarded with a nice meal - not that I ply him with food, if I did that I would be baking cookies non-stop, but it was really just an excuse for me to get in the kitchen. I had also just seen Laura's (from Peace by Pastries) recipe for oven fried okra, and had also been inspired to buy some lovely looking okra from the Wednesday farmer's market. Brett was really interested to try it. We don't eat fried foods very often at all, but I thought this was a special exception. I've had fried okra before - and know how good it is, but Brett hasn't, so I wanted to show him how good it could be.

So for brunch I made (obviously) fried okra, corn on the cob (which we ate with a little Earth Balance and salt), and fried white sweet potatoes.

The white sweet potatoes are more savory than orange sweet potatoes - I thought they had an almost carrot like flavor, but regardless, they were really good.

Enough of the yappin', here is the picture and the recipes.

Just a reminder of the local booty legend:
no asterisk = grocery store
* = farmer's market or The Root Cellar
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden
**** = the non-profit buying club, Blue Planet or Purcell Mountain Farms















J's Easy Fried Okra
2 cups of okra, washed and sliced into 1/2 inch coins *
1 cup of flour
dried basil
dried thyme
dried oregano
garlic powder
black pepper
salt
egg replacer for one egg, or an egg *
rice milk
safflower oil

Heat a few inches of safflower oil over medium-high heat.

Get out two small bowls.

In one bowl combine the flour and seasonings. In the other bowl combine the egg replacer or egg with the rice milk.

Dip okra coins in egg/milk mixture, then roll in flour mixture.

Drop (carefully) in the oil and let fry for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. You will have to do this in batches.

Once okra are golden brown, drain on a paper towel.

Fried White Sweet Potatoes
2 small white sweet potatoes, washed and cubed *
garlic powder
dried oregano
dried basil
black pepper
salt
2 tbsp safflower oil

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add the potatoes and boil for 5-6 minutes. Drain the water.

Heat the safflower oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the potatoes and seasonings and fry for 10-15 minutes or until done.

This was definitely not the healthiest or lowest calorie meal one could have - but the occasional indulgence is a nice thing.

I'll be posting again here in awhile.

'Til next time.

J's Spicy Mexican-ish Brunch Hash

I made this for brunch over the weekend. It was very easy and very tasty - an excellent way to enjoy the abundance at the farmer's market. We are really trying to relish in it while we can. We are going to attempt to eat as locally as possible over winter, but it will be more difficult. Tomorrow when I post a "mini round-up" of how folks are doing in the Unplug Yourself initiative, I will outline our goals for eating as locally and sustainably as possible over the winter. I am also pondering a "what's local on our table" either page or element on the sidebar for easy viewing of what we are eating locally each week. Would anyone be interested in this element or page?

Anyways, there are a lot of peppers in this, so it might seem like it was really spicy, but it wasn't too spicy for Brett to enjoy. He's lucky I didn't add that second habanero, I wanted to, but thought I was pushing my luck with the one.

As those of you who have been following this blog know, we gave up avocados back in June for Chile's Quit Now Challenge. Since then, the only time we have had avocados has been when we go to our favorite local Mexican restaurant El Rancho, or when my dad brought a bunch down with the (apparently dying) avocado tree. In doing the challenge, the idea wasn't to give up avocados completely but rather, to become less reliant on them, and I think we very much succeeded. I bought an avocado this weekend for the first time since before the challenge in June. I thought it would really round out the brunch hash and would also be a really nice treat. So this meal includes guacamole!

Just a reminder of the produce legend:
no asterisk = grocery store
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden

Well, here it is!


J's Spicy Mexican-ish Brunch Hash
4 small new potatoes, cubed *
2 white mushrooms, minced
1/2 a zucchini, cubed ***
1/2 a yellow summer squash, cubed **
1 red bell pepper, seeded and minced *
1 poblano pepper, seeded and minced *
1 habanero, seeded and minced *
1/2 red onion, minced *
4 cloves of garlic, minced *
2 Roma tomatoes, chopped ***
2-3 tbsp fresh cilantro, minced (or 1 tsp dried) **
chili powder
cumin
Mexican oregano
black pepper
salt

guacamole
homemade salsa

Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Add the potatoes and cook for about 6-8 minutes. Drain potatoes.

Meanwhile, heat a couple of tablespoons of safflower oil in a large skillet. Add all the veggies except the tomatoes and cilantro and cook for 10-15 minutes, adding the potatoes whenever they are done.

Once veggies begin to soften, season to taste and add the tomatoes. Cook for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Stir in the cilantro.

Garnish with guacamole and homemade salsa.

We also at a few tortilla chips with our meal.

I don't fuss over brunch very often, we generally eat veggie bagel sandwiches and fruit, but every once in awhile a nice cooked brunch sounds good.

'Til next time.

Yummy Blueberry Crisp and Notes on the New Challenge

Oh my! Both Brett and I agree that what we just had was perhaps the best brunch food we’ve ever tried. I made Linday’s (aka The Happy Herbivore) Easy & Fat Free Blueberry Crisp. It was simple, pleasing to both Brett and my tastes, did not contain processed foods (unless you consider whole wheat pastry flour processed, which I do not), and it was fat free.

There is a whole world of possibilities with this too, pretty much any frozen fruit I could think of would probably taste fantastic in place of blueberries, but blueberries rock, so I just followed the recipe.

It was seriously good; it had me when I smelled it coming out of the oven. I wish I had a picture of Brett, with blueberry sauce dripping down his face, mouth half full, saying ‘you can make this whenever you want.’ Hehehe.

I hope my pictures do it justice. Seriously everyone who reads this blog, go out and make this, it takes like 10 minutes to prepare, 10 minutes to bake, and your mouths will thank you for it, your partner will thank you for it (if you don't have one, thats just more for you! hehe). We ate the whole thing!

I thought I would explain a couple of things about my new personal challenge – trying to reduce my use of tofu and seitan (we don’t actually eat tempeh, but it is part of that ‘holy trinity’ so I had to include it), and get our nutrients from whole foods as much as possible. We have never actually tried most of the other faux meats or ‘meat alternatives’, and don’t plan to so those will not be found on this blog either.

I am doing this for a number of reasons, first off, I really like the idea of living as close to nature as possible for someone who lives in a moderately sized modern American city. This means if given the choice between getting my protein from tofu or a dried bean, I’m going to go for the dried bean. Secondly, tofu is a processed food, seitan is a processed food, tempeh isn’t as much, but still, even though there are far worse processed foods out there, and I don’t chastise anyone for eating these things, I am not truly a huge fan of any of them, and Brett is most definitely not. And besides, I will use them from time to time, there are certain dishes we like very much, in which tofu or seitan is an integral part.

This also brings me to another point, Brett is very interested in getting into whole foods, growing foods, processing our own foods, as am I, and I would like to nurture this. And he really likes the idea of getting more protein from beans and lentils. We will, as usual, be having a container garden on our modest apartment deck. But this year, we are also going to have a Community Garden Plot (I love little ‘ol Columbia, MO), so we can produce more of our own food, being able to garden in actual earth will open up possibilities beyond a wide variety of peppers, which is what our container garden is generally relegated to.

But I have to be honest; there is only so much I can do. I have a full-time job like most people, I do enjoy doing things beyond making food, and if I tried to make everything from scratch, well I wouldn’t have enough time to do it, that would be a full-time job in itself. And Brett's just not really into cooking, and I have no problem with that. So I will use some minimally processed foods fairly often, and even some very processed foods from time to time. What I define as minimally processed foods are things like non-dairy milks, pastas, whole grain tortillas, canned tomatoes in their various shapes and forms, jarred vegan pasta sauces, soy sauce, mustard, peanut butter, applesauce, premade granola bars, you get the point. The more processed items that I will still use on occasion will be things like picante sauce, flour tortillas (I’m still searching for a good whole grain burrito tortilla replacement), vegan cheeses, Veganaise (very sparingly), and Brett will probably never ever, ever let go of the Newman O's.

If I have my way and get the Uncheese Cookbook soon, you may see the processed vegan cheeses being used much less as well.

This may be a challenge as I’m going to have to stretch my comfort zone with reference to spices, cuisines, vegetables, etc. There are a huge variety of beans, lentils, and other legumes available to me at my modest Midwestern grocery store, many of which, I have never worked with. There are grains I have never worked with. I’m pretty excited, I love a good challenge.

'Til next time!

Pancakes, Scones, and Risotto

I have been seeing pancakes all over the vegan blogosphere, and I found myself constantly drooling over the delicious variety that is the pancake, so I finally made my contribution to the International Vegan Pancake Lovers Movement. I made Veganomicon's Blueberry Corn Pancakes and since neither Brett nor I are huge fans of plain maple syrup (we can definitely do it in things), I made a simple Blueberry Sauce to go on it. The sauce turned out much better than I had anticipated, Brett and I both thought it would be good on vanilla non-dairy ice cream, on a pound cake (there is a V-Con recipe for pound cake I have been eyeing), and probably lots of other things.

Simple Blueberry Sauce

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

1/2 cup water

1/4 organic sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

cornstarch or arrowroot mixed with water

In a saucepan, heat all ingredients until warm and beginning to bubble. When nearing time to serve, add the cornstarch or arrowroot mixture and bring to a boil, stirring frequently, until to desired consistency. Serve warm over everything!

I have been interested in making scones for a little while, so I decided to look around see how difficult it would be to make and veganize a scone recipe. There were some recipes for scones in V-Con, but no flavor combinations that really sent me, and I didn't have any of the needed ingredients on hand. I found a very non-vegan blueberry scone recipe, which I modified the hell out of.

The scones didn't end up with the nice sheen that non-vegan scones do as I couldn't figure out how to veganize the egg wash. I read online that Ener-G doesn't really work for this, so I just tossed a bit of confectioner's sugar on top. But even without the sheen they turned out pretty good. I might add a bit more sugar next time, but they go great with a cup of coffee or tea. I also stuffed a couple with some extra blueberry sauce I had, 'cause as I said earlier, the stuff is good, use it on whatever you can think of!

I adapted the blueberry scone recipe from here.

Vegan Blueberry (and Blueberry Sauce filled) Scones

2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup organic sugar

1 tbs baking powder

6 tbs vegan margarine

1/4 cup soy buttermilk (1/4 cup soy milk with either 1 tsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice) 1/4 cup soy milk

egg replacer for one egg

1/2 cup blueberries

Blueberry Sauce (optional)

confectioner's sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together flour, sugar and baking powder. Cut vegan margarine into dry ingredients until the mixture is very course. Add blueberries and mix.

In another bowl, combine soy buttermilk, soy milk and egg replacer mixed with water. Stir into dry ingredients until moistened. Knead briefly on a floured surface. Do not overwork the dough. Shape dough into a round, 1/2 inch thick. Cut round into 6 wedges.

If filling scones with Blueberry sauce, take a wedge and stretch it out a bit more. Using a spoon, create a nice indentation in the center of the dough and spoon in a bit of the Blueberry Sauce. Pull up the surrounding edges (as best as possible) and try to seal the scone, if you can't get it completely sealed, no worries.

Bake on a lightly greased baking sheet for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Since the recipe for the Blueberry Scones only made 6 scones, I decided to make a small batch of Oatmeal Cinnamon Scones, which I found here. I halved the recipe so it would only make 4, and topped it with a simple Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Topping, which I topped the scones with when there was only about 5 minutes of baking time left.

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Topping

3-4 tbs brown sugar

3-4 tbs whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 tap ground cinnamon

1-2 tbs vegan margarine

In a small bowl, mix together all ingredients except vegan margarine. Using a fork, slowly add margarine until the mixture resembles a course crumble.

This must look like a lot of work, having made two different types of scones. But truth be told, I was only in the kitchen for a total of an hour making these. I spent the good portion of my day relaxing, playing basketball on the Playstation with Brett, reading, and listening to interesting social commentary podcasts. I like simple recipes that are not too involved (I will do the involved things sometimes, but mostly I like it simple), and really don't ever spend more than a few hours in the kitchen over the weekend and no more than an hour on weekday nights. I am living proof that you can eat homemade foods made from high quality whole foods and not slave for hours a day in the kitchen, except those rare times when you want to.

On another side note, am I the only one who enjoys cooking and serving of good food to others more than actually eating it myself?

Anyways, for dinner, I made a Butternut Squash and Sage Risotto from an old issue of the Vegetarian Times (I cut the recipe in half as there are only two of us). You can find this recipe online here. This is the first time I have worked with squash at home and its fairly easy. I was happy to find an organic butternut squash at the grocery store, but wasn't too happy to see that it came all the way from Mexico, I like my food to come from as close as possible to reduce the environmental impact and increase the freshness and therefore taste of my food, but if you want to eat sometimes you don't have much choice.

What I can say though, in regards to preparing larger squash, is that I really need to get a good chefs knife as squash can be hard to cut, due to their size, with a sub par knife. But once you get it into manageable sized pieces, it's a breeze.

This recipe was very good, and I will definitely make it again. It was savory and filling. I liked the chard cooked in the broth with the rice (Brett really dug Arborio rice). I couldn't find plum tomatoes at the store, so I got organic fire roasted diced tomatoes instead and it added a nice smoky element to the dish. The only thing I will do differently next time is use a bit less sage. Both Brett and I agreed that, as is, it was a bit "sagey" for our tastes.

I will leave the blogosphere with a picture of my lovely organic (though well traveled) squash, as well as the risotto and I'm off to enjoy a beautiful sunny 60 degree day here in Mid-Missouri.

'Til next time!