Month: November 2018

S’Wonderful: Cauliflower, Potato and Cheese Soup

S’Wonderful: Cauliflower, Potato and Cheese Soup

Soup is hot! Fortunately for us all, soup recipes seem to be having their moment. There have been any number of interesting and innovative soup cookbooks published in recent years. I know I’ve added Anna Thomas’ Love Soup, Barbara Abdeni Massaad’s Soup for Syria and…

Double Chocolate Banana Cakes

Double Chocolate Banana Cakes

  These sweet little cakes are perfect. They are single-portion size. They pair beautifully with homemade vanilla ice cream (See ice cream recipe here.) They are beautiful. And then, there is the combination of quality chocolate (Barry Callebaut chocolate)  and ripe bananas–a sure-fire winner on…

Squash, Apples And A Little Sage Advice For The Holidays

Squash, Apples And A Little Sage Advice For The Holidays

 

Best wishes from those of us here at Blue Cayenne (that would be me and Juliet)  for a happy Thanksgiving. And, if the going gets tough around the table tomorrow, you might do well to remember the sage advice of Oscar Wilde: “After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”

Here is a late entry for your holiday table.

I saw this recipe in the September/October issue of a great healthy-cooking magazine, Eating Well. The idea of roasting squash and apples together and then topping them with roasted pine nuts and dried cherries seemed like it would be a perfect dish for the holiday table. I tweaked the recipe a bit by drizzling on some of the left-over cranberry sauce I had in the refrigerator from the gingerbread recipe I recently posted on Blue Cayenne. The squash and apples tasted great and were beautiful to look at, too. A winner, I think.

Here is the recipe for the cranberry sauce I used in this recipe: Cranberry Sauce. There are, by the way, several excellent recipes for cranberry sauce on Blue Cayenne. You can find them herehere, and here. Incidentally, the recipe for Not My Mother’s Cranberry Relish  is one of the most popular recipes I’ve posted on Blue Cayenne.

Squash and apples
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Ingredients

  • 1 medium acorn squash (I used a medium peeled butternut squash)
  • 2 medium apples
  • 3-5 T extra-virgin olive oil (I used 5 T.)
  • 3/4 t. ground cinnamon (or more)
  • 1/2 t. ground allspice
  • 1/2 t. ground coriander
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1/2 t. ground pepper
  • 1/4 C. dried cherries
  • 1/4 C. toasted pine nuts or pepitas
  • Garnish with cranberry sauce and chopped parsley

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare a rimmed baking sheet by lining it with foil.
  2. Roast pine nuts (or pepitas) in a cast iron pan on your stove top. Be careful. They can quickly burn. Set aside.
  3. Peel and halve the squash and scoop out the seeds. I usually put hard squashes in my microwave for a couple of minutes before I try to peel them. The microwaving makes things a bit easier and safer. Core (don't peel) the apples. (The Eating Well recipe suggested using apples that hold their shape when roasted such as Pink Lady, Braeburn, and/or Winesap.) Cut the squash and the apples into 1-inch wedges.
  4. Put cinnamon, allspice, coriander, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Whisk in the oil. Pour this mixture into a large zip lock bag. Add the squash and apples to the bag and shake the bag to coat the vegetables with the marinade. Leave the bag on your counter to marinate the vegetables while you are doing other jobs in the kitchen. My squash and apples were left on the counter for a couple of hours.
  5. Spread the oil-coated vegetables on your prepared baking shet. Roast until the squash and apples are tender. This took me about 40 minutes at 425 degrees F.
  6. Remove from the oven and arrange the roasted vegetables on a large pretty plate. Drizzle with cranberry sauce and sprinkle the roasted pine nuts and dried cherries on top. Garnish with chopped parsley. Serve slightly warm.
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https://bluecayenne.com/squash-apples-and-a-little-sage-advice-for-the-holidays

Sticky Cranberry Gingerbread

Sticky Cranberry Gingerbread

  Santa’s in the house (or, at least, in the neighborhood). It’s time to get your gingerbread on. This recipe is a riff on traditional gingerbread. It has generous dollops of fresh cranberry sauce stirred through the batter. What you get is a taste of traditional…

Of Cabbages, Kings and Flying Pigs: Creamy Cabbage and Potato Soup

Of Cabbages, Kings and Flying Pigs: Creamy Cabbage and Potato Soup

The time has come, the Walrus said,       To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —       Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot —       And whether pigs have wings.          …