Hold the Meat – this butternut squash risotto will save your Thanksgiving
Ugh. Thanksgiving. I’ve never been much of a fan of this holiday. After all, when you’re not eating turkey, what’s the point? I know, I know, being thankful, family, blah, blah, blah. The thing is, I can do that without fighting traffic and spending all day in the kitchen. Fact: one of my favorite Thanksgivings was when my friend Elizabeth and I stayed in New York instead of going home and had grilled cheese at a diner and watched Harry Potter on IMAX. That’s how it should be done.
However, this year I am doing more of a traditional Thanksgiving, so I’m trying to figure out things to cook. Luckily, Elizabeth sent me this AMAZING recipe for butternut squash risotto. I made it last week, and it was a huge hit. The recipe yields something like 10 servings, and it was gone in like a day and a half. Of course, the whole “10 servings” thing is really if you’re using it as a side dish, but it’s rich and filling enough that it can easily be a main dish befitting a certain November holiday.
Heidi Swanson’s Tassajara warm cabbage salad – Recipe Test Drive
You only think you know how good this recipe might taste. I’m pretty good at reading recipes, in that I can tell not only what a recipe will taste like, but also what to alter to make it better.
I left this one completely alone.
My carnivorous husband, who moans and groans when I serve a vegetarian dinner, said he’d eat this dish as a stand-alone meal. He just offered that information, mind you, he was not asked.
Are you convinced yet?
Carrot and snap pea salad
Want to know a little secret? It’s a weird one: Keith doesn’t like cooked carrots, not because of the taste, but because he is convinced that they give him a stomachache. Sure, I could make rollicking fun of him (sometimes I do) but instead I always look for ways to use carrots raw so that he can enjoy them.
This year, our CSA farm has a plentiful carrot harvest (which is a good thing because the tomatoes got the blight). We always munch on carrot sticks, often dipped in hummus or nut butter, but we have so many that I’ve had to get a bit creative. I did cave and make a cooked carrot thingy with chick peas (I promise I’ll post it), but for the most part, I’ve been respectful to my husband’s weird carrot issues. After all, we have no mayonnaise in the house because of my mayophobia. What a marriage.
Steak sauce with onions and mushrooms – World’s Easiest
I love those moments of divine inspiration, when creativity and knowing what tastes good together meet in a conspiracy of brilliance and a new dish is born. That happened to me tonight when preparing a steak sauce for our grass fed beef tenderloin that Keith grilled — to perfection I might add — and we served with oven baked French fries, sweet and sour cabbage wedges and my gourmet mesclun salad (another World’s Easiest recipe).
We’ve test-driven Rachel Ray’s balsamic onions and steak sauce, and while delicious, this is so much easier and less time consuming and just as flavorful. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you how I did it, it is so ridiculously easy.
Heidi Swanson’s Double broccoli quinoa – Recipe Test Drive … sort of
I recently highlighted Heidi Swanson’s recipe for double broccoli quinoa in my Recipe Roundup column. I mentioned that I’d like to try it sometime but using roasted broccoli instead of steamed.
Yeah, this post isn’t about that, because I did use the steamed. I did, however, add, subtract and substitute a few things to tailor this recipe to our family’s tastes. I’m not sure I can scream loudly enough what brilliant taste buds that Heidi Swanson has. This recipe was bursting with flavor and I loved every single bite. And there were a lot of bites, because I overate immensely.
Black bean, corn and tomatillo salad
Tomatillos are a very special fruit / vegetable (you know, that no man’s land of classification, like the tomato). I think of them as lemony tomatoes, and although they are traditionally used in Mexican cooking, I think they can transcend to any style of cooking were you want that tart little punch.
I chose to use our 8 little fresh tomatillos in a black bean / corn salad that I whipped up and served alongside Southwestern rubbed salmon. It was an easy meal to prepare (yeah, I used a premade rub for the fish, but I’m still able to sleep at night) and was a hit with the young and old in our family.
White bean and potato saute with leeks and capers
I know I really like almost every recipe that I create, and I’m not ashamed to tell you so. But this one — oh, this one! — is something special. Creativity hasn’t been my strong point in the last couple of weeks and I had been feeling a little guilty about not creating many original recipes. I pulled out all the stops when I made tonight’s dinner … and it was worth it.
The white beans and potatoes make a hearty dish, while the leeks, capers, currants, pine nuts and cumin give it some personality. I served it with some grilled sausages to please my carnivores, but it stands alone as a satisfying vegetarian entree.
Most Commented (Past Week)