Breakfast of Champions

The best Friday nights are followed by simple, delicious Saturday morning breakfasts.

I doubt anyone needs instructions on how to cook bacon and eggs, but here's how they happen around here:

Put some bacon in a hot pan to fry:

Meanwhile, prep and cook your eggs. I augment basic scrambled eggs (eggs over easy for the Darling Devoted Husband when I'm feeling generous and skilled, which isn't that often, and wasn't today) with whatever I have on hand. For the DDH, this usually just means cheese:

For me, this usually means cheese (obviously), but also whatever interesting vegetables we have on hand. In the summer, it's tomatoes and jalapenos every day. In the winter, the pickings are slimmer. We had some spinach that I forgot to put in a pot of soup earlier in the week, and some leftover chopped onions from the same soup:

Add a dollop of milk for fluff and mix them all together:

I decided the DDH's eggs needed more cheese on top:

And they cooked into a beautiful, cheesy, scrambled mess:

I put my eggs on, and added some of those onions I found to the bacon, 'cause why not?:

Whenever I attempt to make an omelet, I end up with scrambled eggs, but sometimes, when I try to make scrambled eggs, I end up with an omelet:

Sprinkle some more cheese on top for good measure:

And voila: Eggs and bacon, a breakfast worth waking up for:

Butternut Squash, Chicken, and Rice

At some point back in those distant, glorious early fall days, the farmer's market was just rolling in butternut squash. A surplus of product, you may remember from your Economics 101 days, usually drives prices down. Penny-pincher that I am, I stocked up.

Right about that time, however, a combination of crazy new work schedules, lack of foresight, and general stupidity meant that most of those butternut squash are . . . still sitting in the garage, looking a little moldy 'round the edges.

Having established that I am something of a penny-pincher, moldy edges failed to deter me from cooking up this tasty dish. Admittedly, this was a month or two or three ago, and I still have more squash sitting out in the garage (discounting the pumpkins scattered throughout the house, which I suppose also ought to be cooked eventually), but I just found a new butternut squash soup recipe I need to try--and really, a slip of mold or squash rot here or there never hurt anyone, right?

To reassure those of you (such as my mother) who are genuinely worried for my (or perhaps the Darling Devoted Husband's) gastrointestinal health, obviously I chopped off the moldy edges. Any squash flesh which has turned brown or otherwise looks inedible is discarded. I promise, next year I shall figure out a better way to preserve the harvest's bounty than sticking it in the garage.

To begin, peel and chop into roughly one-inch pieces a butternut squash:

 

Chop two or three boneless, skinless chicken breasts into one-inch pieces. Then, gather your other ingredients. Rice, pine nuts, chicken bouillon cubes, and water:

 

  

Cinnamon, turmeric, ground ginger, cumin, and paprika:

  

Brown onion and garlic in a pan:

  

Add some pine nuts to toast:

  

Add the butternut squash, chicken, chicken broth, and spices:

  

Cover and let simmer until squash is tender and chicken is cooked through. Meanwhile, cook rice in water or broth in another pot. 

When the chicken is cooked and squash is tender, remove lid and allow mixture to cook down a little while you toast the remainder of the pine nuts:

  

 And add them to the rice (here, creamy arborio rice):

  

Serve the chicken and squash mixture over the rice.

  

The squash seems like it would be out of place with these bold spices, but it fit in surprisingly well. Even the DDH liked it, and he's really not a squash fan (another reason they're still languishing in the garage). In fact, now that I look at the pictures, I think I may go make it again.

 

Never Eat Yellow Snow

But the white kind makes delicious ice cream.

Last night, Tulsa had a cheery little ice storm; nothing major. The office still expected me in this morning; the pet store still wanted me at noon. Unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps), it began snowing this morning and has yet to stop. Long story short, the pet store closed at three this afternoon, and after a half-hour white-knuckle driving experience, I made it home safely by four, a good four-and-a-half hours earlier than I usually arrive.

The Darling Devoted Husband, having the good sense to work at a sensible office that was closed all day, had been prowling around for several hours already. He suggested we go see a movie. I told him he was crazy. He wanted to walk somewhere and go find dinner. I told him he was certifiably insane. Somehow, I ended up volunteering to make a vast assortment of food.

I mixed up the ingredients for coconut bread in the bread machine. Breakfast tomorrow, check. The DDH made brownies (delicious, delicious Trader Joe's truffle brownies). Dessert tonight, check. I made sweet potato fries, green beans, and pork chops: a dinner, I thought, capable of satisfying the most restless and hungry husband. Somewhere in here I also feed the dogs and the rabbit.

I sit down to enjoy some champagne after my meal, drowsily contemplating a brownie. The DDH decides he needs vanilla ice cream to go with this brownie. Having established that traveling anywhere to acquire said ice cream would prove him mentally unstable, he decides to make some. Using snow. Which, admittedly, we have in vast quantities. Picturing a long, complicated, and rather unsanitary process, I consider killing him. Having decided that would be rather messy and probably take as much energy as making this snow ice cream, I settle for just being not particularly supportive.

Surprisingly (to me, anyway, as the DDH's brilliant schemes usually turn out to be time-consuming and complicated affairs), making snow ice cream is a quick and easy process.

All you do is mix together half-and-half, vanilla, salt, and sugar:

Then add snow (we used snow from the hood of his car so as to avoid any stray bits of grass and dirt):

a cup or two at a time:

 

until you reach your desired consistency:

Ideally, you top this with a warm brownie (or warm gooey brownie mess, if you prefer, and I do):

and eat it immediately.

It was pretty good. Really liquidy, but delicious with the brownie. It was fast and easy enough to make even when tired from a day fighting traffic and weather, and actually sort of fun. It reminds you why you liked the snow when you were a kid.

But the yellow snow--it's not lemon flavored. Really.

Sausage Spaghetti

This is dinner tonight--a super fast, delicious, cheap meal, especially good in the winter (we're supposed to get the county's first freeze of the season tonight!). I predict the DDH will like it, though he's in class right now and hasn't eaten it yet. He likes a good tomato-and-meat pasta sauce, though, and this is delicious!

I defrosted a big kielbasa in the microwave, sliced it up, and browned it to bring out the flavor:

In retrospect, doing this with garlic would probably be even better.

Boiled up some pasta water and cooked the pasta until al dente:

Dumped a can of diced tomatoes (in retrospect should have drained this first), a can of tomato sauce, the three or four remaining little fresh tomatoes from the garden (chopped), one of the last little jalepenos (chopped), some frozen shredded zucchini (don't tell the DDH), basil, oregano, and a bit of salt into a sauce pan and heated it all up:

Mixed it all together, and ta-da! dinner in less than 30 minutes, including defrosting the sausage:

I think I'm going to go get seconds now. ^_^

Butternut Squash Soup

It's that time of year now where I start making a lot of soups, many of them featuring various winter squash. My squash experiments, most of which tend to be vegetarian, are bravely tolerated by the Darling Devoted Husband, a bona fide "I'll take some bacon with my pork chop, hold the green beans" carnivore. He professes to like this soup, however, though like most pureed soups it's not very substantial-feeling and does best accompanied by or as an accompaniment to something you can chew.

The recipe is from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything.

Heat three tablespoons butter in a deep saucepan on medium. When it melts, add 1 pound butternut (or other winter) squash, cut into 1-2 inch cubes; 1 pound crisp tart apples (such as Granny Smith), peeled, cored, and roughly chopped; and 1 large onion, roughly chopped:

Cook, stirring, until the onion softens, 5-10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, I cooked up 4 cups of stock (because bouillon and broth base are cheaper than canned stock, I have one of those on hand in chicken and one in beef. The problem of course is that I have to remember to boil up the appropriate amount of water instead of just tossing in a can of liquid. Worth it, though):

I think I used chicken, but you can use beef or vegetable; use the latter and the soup's vegetarian.

Once the onion was softened and the broth was ready, I added the stock, 1/2 cup dry white wine (I may have tossed in cooking wine, in which case I didn't season with salt earlier, or sherry; I don't remember), and 1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon (or 1 tsp. fresh):

Turn the meat to medium-high and bring to a boil:

 

Turn the heat down to low, partially cover:

 

and cook for about 30 minutes or until squash is very soft. Cool slightly, then puree. I used my handy dandy immersion blender, but you could also pour it into a blender or use a food mill (honestly this looks very tedious. I suppose there is a point to food mills and maybe some time when you would want them and not anything else (a power outage, perhaps?), but I am just saying that I love my immersion blender. Maybe the food mill rices things. That would be handy, I guess). Once it's nice and smooth:

 

you can either refrigerate, covered, for up to 2 days (reheat before proceeding) or cook gently over medium-low heat until heated through; do not boil. Stir in 1 cup heavy or light cream:

 

until well blended and cook, stirring, until hot, about 1 minute. Ta-da! Butternut squash soup:

 

It really makes a lot, so unless you're having a party, I suggest freezing some of it before you add the cream and just keeping what you're likely to eat within a week out--adjust the amount of cream used as necessary.

On this occasion, I also cooked up some chicken breasts in a pan with the extra diced apple and some more onion:

 It made a very tasty dinner, and the soup served as a good lunch for several days, accompanied by salad and/or chips or whatever I could rustle up for crunch. The soup's a great fall standby: not too difficult or time-consuming but warming and full of fall flavor: apples, squash, and cream. Yum!