Chicken Breasts in Cherry Sauce

I adapted this recipe from the New York Times Cooking Pages recipe Duck with Cherries and Red Wine Vinegar. Besides substituting chicken for duck, I also substituted Dr. McGillicuddy's Cherry Liqueur for the Cognac (it seemed like the thing to do when I found the almost empty bottle in our liquor cabinet).

I was pleased to discover that we had all the other ingredients on hand (or at least reasonable facsimilies thereof) so I didn't need to do any shopping.

I started by grinding the fennel, clove, peppercorns, and bay leaves in our handy spice grinder. Our allspice was already ground so I just added that to the mix after. The breasts were seasoned and left for several hours to meld.

I started the sauce ahead of time as well with red wine vinegar, Malbec, sugar, chicken broth, cayenne pepper, fresh ginger and salt.

Once it was time to prepare dinner it didn't take long. The chicken breasts were placed in a skillet and cooked on each side for seven minutes. I finished the sauce with butter, more sugar, whole (pitted) cherries, and the cherry liqueur. 

The chicken breasts were sliced, plated, and served with cherries and sauce. I air fried some frozen sweet potato fries as a side dish, which made for a very colorful presentation. The meal was paired with the same Malbec I used in the sauce.

Very tasty!

Maple-Baked Salmon

A most appetizing dish (mine looks even better than the NYT photo!) pictured here with Greek Lemon Potatoes

Living as close as we do to the Atlantic Ocean, seafood is a perennial favorite of ours. Living in New England also makes us big fans of maple syrup. What choice did I have than to make this? From the New York Times Cooking pages Maple-Baked Salmon was a crowd-pleaser (the crowd in this case being me and James). We also are big fans of cilantro (which I know for some is a non-starter). We loved all the flavors and will definitely make again.

Chicken Stew

 After deciding to do "something with chicken" I remembered seeing a recipe online for chicken stew. I don't remember where I saw it, but I figured that if I found any chicken stew recipe it would do. A google search brought me to Food52 "Chicken Stew with Potatoes, Carrots, and Celery". Since I had potatoes, carrots, and celery on hand I figured it was a good choice. However, I discovered that the baby carrots had gone past their prime and had a bit of a slime on them. No worries, I simply added mushrooms instead (since I already had some of those).

I seared two boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my indispensable cast-iron stew pot, and then removed them to cut into small chunks. The chicken was set aside while I prepared the rest of the stew. Diced onion and garlic were cooked along with some herbs. I used sage, thyme, and a pouch of something I found in the spice drawer called "Winter Savory" - no clue what was in it. Next the celery and mushrooms were added to the pot.

Once the vegetables were cooked I added flour and vegetable broth. The recipe called for chicken broth, but I didn't have any. The vegetable broth was left over from the weekend's salmon recipe.

Finally the chicken chunks and potatoes (cut into bite-sized pieces) went in. Everything simmered for 20 minutes until the potatoes were fully cooked.

A warm cozy dish for a cold winter's eve. Made for some dandy leftovers too.

Creamy Tuscan Salmon

A rather delicious-looking photo and recipe showed up recently on my Facebook feed from a sponsored site. When I clicked on it I got a message that the information was for "members only" with an invitation to sign up.

Nope. 

Something I know to be true is that recipes are not copyrighted so I figured there was probably a similar recipe (in fact more that one) available on the interwebs.

Yep.

A simple google search brought me to eatwell101 for their Creamy Tuscan Salmon recipe. The site says that it comes together in 20 minutes or less. I'd say it took about 25 minutes, but still a rather quick meal.

As we almost always do for seafood we started with a visit to Kyler's Catch for some fresh salmon. I followed the directions to pan-cook the fish, and  then remove from the indispensable cast-iron skillet. I  then melted butter and added the diced garlic, and then onions to sauteé. Next went in some vegetable broth and sun-dried tomatoes. The sauce cooked down a bit and then I added heavy cream and baby spinach leaves and cooked until the spinach was wilted, and then added some shredded parmesan cheese. The fish went back into the skillet with the sauce and I let it heat for about a minute more before serving. There was some leftover mashed potatoes in the refrigerator which we heated and served as a side dish. 

So creamy and tasty (and pretty). Three people sat down for the meal and three clean-plate rangers left the table.

Ricotta Pasta Alla Vodka

This recipe turned out to be a combination of a Vodka Penne recipe that I've been using for about 25 years and a favorite from the early days of this blog Spaghetti with Tomato, Bacon, and Onions.

Ricotta Pasta Alla Vodka comes from the New York Times Cooking Pages. It is more time consuming and a bit more complicated than either of the other two recipes, and not good enough to be worth trying again. I will admit to using a bit too much of the red pepper flakes, but even had I not been heavy handed there, it would have still been just an ok dish.

I was able to use some leftover ricotta that I had from making lasagna on New Years Eve, and it didn't require me to buy any additional ingredients, an important part of my recent meal planning since I don't want to go to grocery store while I am recovering from a bout of Covid.

This was a dinner for one while the rest of my family is traveling. I made enough to have leftovers for lunch today.

Roasted Chicken Thighs in Blueberry Sauce

It looks like we are going to have a bumper crop from our backyard blueberry bushes this summer. So in addition to some refreshing smoothies, blueberry cobbler, and blueberry salmon we will be looking for some more recipes that use these summer favorites. One such recipe serendipitously showed up on my Facebook feed from the New York Times Cooking Pages. While we regularly prepare chicken breast, or a whole chicken, thighs are something we cook much less often, but Roasted Chicken Thighs with Blueberries is likely to become a favorite.

Using my indispensable cast-iron skillet I cooked the well salted thighs on a medium low heat for 15 minutes, then flipped for another five and then moved them to a plate while I used the rendered fat and a bit of water to sauté four large cloves of thinly sliced garlic. Spices were added, then 3 cups of blueberries, a tablespoon each of mustard and honey. The thighs were placed on top of the berries and then the skillet was placed in the preheated 400 degree oven.

Ready for the oven

The thighs baked for 15 minutes and came out a beautiful golden color surrounded by a deep blue sauce. Served with a green summer salad and paired with Pinot Noir Rosé from Westport Rivers Winery this meal was full of texture and flavor - tender and juicy, sweet and savory. 

On mange!

Caramelized Pork chops and Apples

 

This one came from the New York Times Cooking pages. We had some Miso sauce from previous recipes so when this one appeared on my Facebook page we put in an order of pork chops with our regular weekly delivery.  Most of this was done in one skillet, although the miso was mixed with brown sugar and cider vinegar separately before it was added. We also had a side of mashed potatoes and paired this with a Chardonnay from Westport Rivers.

Chicken Enchiladas

 

This recipe came from our Best Simple Suppers for Two cookbook. The original intention was to make it for Valentine's Day, but we decided to roast a whole chicken instead for our romantic February 14 dinner. Since this recipe called for shredding a prepared rotisserie chicken it made more sense to use the leftover chicken for this one. The recipe says this has a prep time of 10 minutes, which I found wildly inaccurate. It took about twice that long to shred the chicken, chop the onion and garlic, cook it all with the other ingredients, then divide, and assemble. 

Full ingredient list includes:

4 six-inch corn tortillas (next time I will use six tortillas)

2 T olive oil

1 garlic clove (minced)

1 small onion (chopped)

2 cups shredded cooked chicken

1 can black beans (rinsed and drained)

1 can diced tomatoes

juice of one lime

1 cup corn kernals

1 t. cumin

1 c. enchilada sauce

2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese

While sautéing the onion and garlic in our indispensable cast-iron skillet I charred the tortillas in a dry cast iron pan on the stovetop. I added the chicken and beans to the skillet and seasoned with some salt and pepper. Once the chicken and beans were warmed through I removed half the mixture to a separate bowl and mixed half the corn, half the tomatoes, half the cumin, half the lime juice, and half the enchilada sauce into what was left in the skillet and sprinkled a third of the cheese on top. Two tortillas were placed on top of this, and then the rest of everything (except the cheese) was mixed together in the bowl with the remaining chicken and bean mix, and then put over the tortillas. A third of the cheese was added, and then the other two tortillas followed by the last of the cheese. This was all baked in the skillet (with its lid) at 350 for 14 minutes. We topped our enchiladas with sour cream.

A spicy, flavorful meal with a lot of texture. We both liked this, although it wasn't especially simple. It had a lot of ingredients, a lot of steps, and created a lot of dishes. We will likely have this again, but I will save it for a weekend meal next time.

Spinach Lasagna

Our only child came to visit for Christmas. Although he is not a vegetarian, he said he hadn't been feeling it for beef or poultry recently, so for our (otherwise landlocked) Chicagoan we planned a variety of seafood and vegetarian dishes for his visit (more recipes to follow).

Lasagna is a dish we've traditionally enjoyed for the holidays. I used to make the very time-consuming "Everyone's Favorite Lasagne" from 365 Ways to Cook Pasta on Christmas day before we started having Christmas dinner with friends, who also always made (vegetarian) lasagna. We had no idea at our Christmas dinner of 2019 what was to come in 2020. There were of course no get togethers the following Christmas, and the next year our hosts moved out of state. If we had known that there would be no more holiday gatherings at their home we might have done something special in 2019, but alas, here we are. In honor of Christmases past I made a spinach lasagna adapted from another recipe in the the 365 Ways Cookbook.

The recipe calls for spinach lasagna noodles, which I have never been able to find in my local stores, so I used regular egg lasagna noodles, and used actual spinach leaves between the layers. 

Additional ingredients include:

Olive oil

1 garlic clove

28 oz. can plum tomatoes (pureéd)

15 oz. ricotta cheese

1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese

a bit o' nutmeg

1 egg 

fresh basil 

1 lb. mozzarella (shredded)

While the noodles cooked I sliced and sautéed the garlic in the olive oil. When the garlic was browned it was discarded and the puréed tomatoes were added to the skillet and cooked down for about 20 minutes. Salt and pepper we added to taste.

The egg, nutmeg, Parmesan and ricotta were whisked together in a separate bowl.

The lasagna was assembled thus:

A small amount of the sauce was spread on the bottom of the lasagna pan and four noodles were placed on top. A quarter of the remaining sauce was spread over the noodles and they were sprinkled with basil leaves and a handful the fresh spinach leaves. Another layer of four noodles was placed on top and then layered with the ricotta mixture, some more basil, and another handful of spinach. Another layer of four noodles was topped with the mozzarella, more basil, and more spinach. A final layer of noodles was topped with the rest of the sauce. 

The lasagna baked in a 350 pre-heated oven for 45 minutes, then rested for 15 minutes before serving.

We all enjoyed this, especially our adult child who ate 2/3 of the leftovers for a midnight snack! The taste of the fresh basil came through along with the cheeses. The texture was perfect. Although a bit complicated it was less work than the "Favorite Lasagne" recipe which calls for a long-cook meat sauce. We will add this one to our family "comfort meal" repertoire. 

Red Wine Cookies

I saved this recipe earlier this year when it showed up on my Facebook feed expecting that at some point I would have an open, but unfinished bottle of red wine. Although an unfinished bottle of wine is a rare event at our house, it does occasionally happen. We actually ended up with two open bottles at the same time when we had one at each of our houses. Since the recipe indicates that you can use any type of red wine we figured mixing would be fine. Once we had both bottles in the same place I began the process of reducing the wine, following the instructions to use the same pan in which I first melted butter until foamy.

I also mixed the wet and dry ingredients separately (as indicated), and then together which really made for a lot of dishes. The beach house has a rather small dishwasher so we had to wash these in two rounds, as well as wash the cookie sheet by hand, a difficult task in the rather small sink that goes with the rest of the rather small house.

This recipe demonstrates the importance of having a well-stocked pantry. You don't want get caught with leftover red wine and find that can't make cookies out of it because you are lacking the rest of the ingredients.

The cookies were rich, chewy, and not too sweet.

Crab-stuffed flounder

Well, it's already been a week since National Crab-Stuffed Flounder Day. It was fortuitous that it fell on a day we were already planning on going to Kyler's Catch to fetch some seafood for dinner. We were aware that crab meat these days is crazy expensive and so we were in fact prepared to pay the $17 for 8 ounces. Nevertheless, this of course put a bit of pressure on the chef-of-the-day (Pam) to get preparing the meal right. 

I used this recipe from The Nibble with the following adjustments

• We used sole which is not exactly the same as flounder, but it was recommended by the folks at Kyler's, whose advice we heed.
• I did not use celery (we didn't have any).
  
• I used dry parsley.
• I absolutely did not use plain breadcrumbs. I only use panko.
• The filets weren't big enough to roll with the crabmeat inside, so I made fish sandwiches instead.

Ready for the oven

We very much enjoyed this meal. And it really wasn't difficult. Looking forward to enjoying this again when the price of crab is more reasonable. 

Dinner by the sea

Yummy Haddock

James was scheduled to row with his rowing club on Thursday night, so we drove down to the sea together with the intention of picking up some fresh fish at Kyler's Catch for Pam to prepare at our beach house while James got his exercise. Little did we know that the row had been canceled earlier in the day. While James was disappointed when he arrived at the marina, we did not despair. We still had fish to enjoy, plus which it was also National Cream Cheese Brownie Day!

We went to our classic 1980s era Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook for a fish recipe and selected Baked Fish with Mushrooms (because we had mushrooms). The recipe also called for bacon (which was also on hand). We decided to substitute the shallot we had for the green onions. 

The first step involved cooking the bacon - a rather straightforward instruction. Unfortunately, our electric stove has three different sized burners nested in concentric circles, with each having settings from Low to High which are all part of a single dial. The "low" setting on the smallest burner (which I did not intend to set) is next to the "high" setting for the middle burner (which I did intend to set). I put the bacon in the skillet, turned the dial, and waited wondering why the two slices wouldn't cook at all. I eventually discovered the problem and reset the dial, but what I didn't realize was that the middle sections (the only part getting any heat) of each slice had in fact started to cook, so that when the rest of the bacon was heated it heated unevenly. By the time the ends were cooked the middle sections were burned. They looked like long figure 8s. I threw out the burned parts and used only the ends.

After removing the bacon I sautéed the chopped shallot and the chopped mushrooms in the bacon fat and added 3 T. butter and some dried oregano. The fish (Haddock) was placed in a baking dish, topped with the mushrooms, shallot, butter and oregano and baked at 350 for 15 minutes. The bacon was crumbled and added to the top. We served with a spinach salad and paired with a buttery Chardonnay.

Cream Cheese Brownies: The secret is to 'spray with spray'

I don't always celebrate the food holidays I learn about on National Day Calendar. I imagine I would "fall away to a ton" (as my grandmother used to say) if I did, but I could not resist National Cream Cheese Brownie Day. I started with a recipe I found on spendwithpennies.com, but had to make a few substitutions, so my revised recipe follows:

For the Brownies:

12 T unsalted butter

1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 c. cocoa powder

1 1/4 c. sugar

2 eggs

a dash of vanilla extract

1/2 t. salt

1 c. flour

For the Cheesecake Swirl

1 8 oz. package cream cheese

1/4 c. sugar (I had used up all the granulated sugar we had in the brownie mix, so I had to crush up a bunch of sugar cubes)

1 egg

a dash of vanilla extract

The instructions specifically said to "spray a 7x11 pan with baking spray". I ended up using a 9x13 pan because I didn't have the size recommended. Fortunately I did have plenty of my eponymous baking spray.

I melted the chocolate chips and butter together in the microwave (stopping every 30 seconds to stir). Cocoa powder, sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla, and flour were added and mixed together to form a batter which was poured into the well-sprayed dish. I also saved out 1 dollop of the batter as indicated in the recipe.

The cheesecake topping was made by mixing the cream cheese with the sugar and mixing by hand. The recipe says to use an electric mixer, but we don't own one. Next I added the egg and the vanilla extract and stirred until well mixed. I poured the smooth cheesecake batter on top of the brownie batter already in the pan, then plopped the reserved brownie batter on top of that and used a knife to swirl everything together. This baked at 350 for 25 minutes. It cooled a bit before we sliced it, but it was still warm and creamy when we ate it. So good. Not too sweet with a wonderful mouth feel, warm and chocolatey.

Seedy Salmon

We've gotten a bit lax in our dinner planning the past few weeks. At the height of the pandemic we had all three daily meals planned for 7-10 days out. This week we've found ourselves asking "what's for dinner?" at least twice. Last night was one of those nights, but fortunately we had plans to be in Fairhaven for  Veteran's Day which meant that we could make a stop at our favorite fishmonger Kyler's Catch where we picked up some salmon to make Crispy Salmon with Mixed Seeds from the New York Times Cooking page. 

The unseasonably warm weather here in New England meant that we still had fresh mint growing on the side of our house, we also still had a bit of parsley growing on our back porch, which was good since this recipe called for fresh herbs. 

I chopped some of the herbs and mixed them with a cup of plain Greek yogurt, along with some lemon zest and salt. A small bit of this was placed in a separate dish and then mixed with 1 T. of sesame seeds, 1 t. cumin seeds, and 1/2 t. fennel. I spread this mix onto the flesh side of the fish and placed in our indispensable cast iron skillet with some lemon-infused olive oil, skin side down, over medium heat. It cooked for about 12 minutes, and then I flipped it, which caused the skin to peel off the bottom. It still took a few more minutes to cook through. Salmon often has a thick spot in the middle that takes longer to cook than the rest of it. I cut the fillet in half to help it cook a bit faster. 

This was served with brown rice, lemon wedges, and the rest of the herbs and yogurt on the side.

Salmon in cream sauce with tomatoes

We do love our fresh scallops from Kyler's Catch Seafood. Usually James is in charge of cooking them, but I gave it a try last week with this lovely recipe from the New York Times Cooking page. James demonstrated to me how to remove the "foot" (a chewy muscle) from each scallop before cleaning.

I started by sauteeing the onion in butter in our indispensable cast-iron skillet, and then added the seasonings. Fresh chopped tomatoes procured from the Fairhaven Farmer's Market were added. These cooked for about 8-9 more minutes. Next I added some white wine and cooked for about 5 more minutes then added Worcestershire sauce and heavy cream. I continued to cook until it thickened. Scallops were added last and cooked for about 5 more minutes.

This fairly easy, although it did require a bit of stirring and watching. Scallops can be easily overdone and then become too chewy.

Honey Chicken

One lesson I have learned over my years of preparing new recipes is that it is not enough to simply ensure that I have all the ingredients (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) before starting; it is imperative to read the instructions as well. Woe has been begotten on more than one occasion when I discovered that I should have started preparing the food hours before I actually did. So I am pleased to report that I was successful in my preparation of this tasty recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages. A marinade of sherry, honey, line juice, crushed garlic, cinammon, salt, and pepper was easily mixed and poured over the whole, fresh, cut up chicken we'd recently procured from Maribett Farm. The chicken marinated in the refrigerator for about 8 hours and then was placed in the oven for 50 minutes at 350 degrees. As the recipe instructed I basted often and was pleased with the juicy, tender, savory, and sweet meal that resulted. I served this was mashed potatoes on the side and a Chardonnay to complement.

Gochugaru Salmon with Crispy Rice

When this recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages showed up on my Facebook feed along with a colorful photograph I decided to find out what Gochugaru was (a Korean pepper spice) and find out where I could get such in order to prepare this dish. My husband and adult child went looking locally, both online and irl but struck out, so we resorted to Amazon. The spice arrived just in the knick of time before we left for a long weekend at our near-the-beach house. The salmon was (naturally) purchased at our favorite fishmonger Kyler's Catch Seafood Market. 

This was pretty quick to make. The most time consuming part was waiting for the rice to cook. We only had brown rice, so it took a bit longer than the white rice that the recipe calls for. Once the rice was cooked it was "crisped" in the same pan that the fish cooked in, and then the same pan was used again to make the sauce.

As promised in the original recipe this had a sweet, fruity taste. We all enjoyed this meal and will definitely make again. We will also look for other recipes using this spice.

Quiche La Poodle

Notice: No actual poodles were involved in this dinner. Rather ... 

As regular readers of Nueva Receta will have realized, we often let the National Day Calendar inspire our culinary choices. The pandemic has affected this tendency in two somewhat contradictory ways. We are more likely to have spare time to browse the site, but we are also less likely to dash out to grab ingredients for a last-minute recognition of a made-up holiday. (Additional notice: all holidays are made up, but that is a discussion for, well, another day.)

Fortunately, Pam noticed National Quiche Lorraine Day before I set out for our weekly grocery run, so I I managed to get all the bacon and chives needed to do complete the main version found on the Simply Recipes Quiche Loriaine page. Writer Elise Bauer suggests several options for the crust (including a crust-free variation), so we of course turned to Deborah Madison's tome for a basic recipe.

The "we" in the previous sentence is a bit different this time -- our wonderful kid Harvey is here for a long visit. Since he watches British baking shows a lot, I pressed him into service! He made the pie crust with both wheat and white flour, salt, butter and a tiny bit of ice water. We put it in the fridge in our Pyrex pie plate, because I have learned that even on a mildly warm day, "room" temperature is the wrong temperature for a pie crust. I sat down to read the recipe with more care, and realized that we needed to put the pie in the oven earlier than I thought -- Bauer calls for it to bake for 40 minutes ahead of the filling. We came pretty close to this by the time we had other ingredients ready; we ignored the suggestions for pie weights, foil (which I do not even understand), and whatnot. The crust was beautiful, though Harvey thought it not quite as thin and uniform as he would have hoped.

I started cooking the bacon in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. In just the past year I have finally gotten good at this -- starting at medium high and gradually reducing the heat, removing each piece to drain when it reaches perfect doneness. While I did this, Harvey made the custard -- whisking five eggs very fresh from our friends at Maribett farm (the recipe calls only for three) and then adding the seasonings, milk, cream, and chives.

I shredded cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses together (Gruyere would have been even better, but we already had a lot of cheese in the house and decided we should use some of it) and put a small amount in the bottom of the crust. I then cut the bacon into 1/2-inch bits and distributed it evenly in the crust. We carefully poured the custard over this and put it in the oven. I turned around and discovered I had left most of the freshly-shredded cheese on the Gilligan (our kitchen island). I panicked a bit, because it should have been in the pan before the custard, so that the entire pie would be cheesy. Harvey advised calm, and suggested it might even be nice to have the cheesiness concentrated at the top. 

So I carefully added the cheese and set the oven timer for 30 minutes. At that time, the top looked perfect as Harvey had predicted, but I could tell that the custard was still a bit jiggly. Worried about over-cooking the top, I reduced the heat from 350F to 325F and set the timer for 15 more minutes. 

#RoundPieSquarePhoto

The ding-ding sounded again just as Pam finished a (rather dumb) Zoom meeting -- perfect timing! And this was the perfect meal to enjoy on our deck with some apple sauce on the side and Chardonnay in our glasses.

We followed this with some raspberry Entenmann's in honor of the attainment day of Pam's father Jack, who would have been 99 years old.

So what about that poodle, anyway?

I played the B52s song at the start of preparing this meal because it was not just a day to celebrate eggy custard pie (aka quiche), but also National Rescue Dog Day -- and this is a song about the singer's complicated relationship with his dog. As the people belonging to a rescue dog, we can certainly relate!

Like a party on your plate!

Groundhog's day (or Woodchuck Day, or Marmot Day, or Whistle Pig Day) is also Candlemas. We celebrated with a recipe from The Wicca Cookbook. I selected Blood Orange Mahi Mahi (for which I actually used tuna steaks from Kyler's Catch). The most difficult part of this was making the salsa, which really wasn't hard at all, it just took a lot of ingredients and a lot of chopping and dicing-more time consuming than difficult.

The salsa consisted of: 

1 sectioned blood orange

one half of a decent-sized chopped red onion

1 cubed avocado (James found a perfectly ripe one at the grocery - dark green skin, and lovely "Grinch green" inside)

1 t. dried cilantro

1 minced jalapeño pepper

juice of one lime

The tuna steaks were cooked in a skillet on medium heat for about 5-6 minutes per side. The recipe said to sauté in olive oil. Lucky for me I had a big bottle of Blood Orange Fused Olive Oil from Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium. The recipe also called for salt and pepper for seasoning. I used coconut-infused black sea salt and lemon pepper, which really was the right thing to do. In addition to the salsa, the steaks were sprinkled with some crumbled feta cheese.

A beautiful presentation with an explosion of colors. The bite of the red onion and jalapeño complemented the sweetness of the orange and the creamy avocado and salty feta perfectly. This may become an annual tradition.   

Arabian Squash Casserole

In the spirit in which this blog was originally intended I got out my classic Moosewood Cookbook and found a recipe that I had never prepared before. 

The recipe calls for 4 cups of cooked squash or pumpkin (mashed) but I must admit to using two cans of pumpkin rather than getting a squash and cooking it. The rest of the ingredients include:

1 T. olive oil

1 1/2 c. chopped onion

1 t. salt

Chopped red and green bell peppers

4-5 cloves of garlic (minced)

black pepper and cayenne pepper (to taste)

1/2 plain yogurt  (I used Greek)

1 c. crumbled feta

chopped walnuts for topping

Once the onions, peppers and garlic were sauteéd in the olive oil I mixed all the ingredients together (except the walnuts) in one bowl, transferred the mixture to baking dish, and topped with the walnuts. This baked for about 35 minutes at 375. I served it with some additional Greek yogurt for topping and pita bread on the side.

The recipe says that this makes 4-5 servings, which is about right. Since there were only two of us we had plenty of leftovers. I made this on a Friday night, and we had some (but not all) of the leftovers on Sunday night. Meanwhile James had some dental work on Monday and he cannot have nuts for a few weeks, so I had some again for lunch on Monday. There is still about a serving left, which I think I will wait a few days before eating, as I am getting a little bored of it.

A Sweet, Creamy New Year's Day Soup - and it has bacon!

I googled New Year's Recipes on New Year's Eve and found The Pioneer Woman's website. From her list of 35 recipes I selected Butternut Squash Soup. I actually made it on New Year's Day, even though it says it's a New Year's Eve recipe. I also only made a half batch since the pandemic had only the two of us celebrating the start of 2021 together. I carefully added all the things I would need to make this soup to the shopping list of things James was going to procure, including the titular butternut squash. However, when he came home I discovered that he had neglected to buy one. Although we avoid multiple trips to the grocery store these days, he went back for this most important ingredient once we determined that it was indeed on the list!

As per the instructions I caramelized some chopped onions in the drippings left when I cooked the bacon then added the chopped pieces of squash to the pan along with some salt, chicken broth and water. I cooked everything on the stovetop until the squash was soft. Once I could cut the squash with the side of a fork I asked James for help transferring everything to our blender where it didn't take long at all for everything to purée. Once that was done it went back to the pan where we added some heavy cream and maple syrup. I split into two big bowls, and we topped with the crumbled bacon. So good, especially with homemade biscuits!

This is easily made vegetarian by skipping the bacon and cooking the onions and squash in olive oil and substituting vegetable broth for chicken broth. I image you can skip the cream and make it vegan as well.