Squash: Roasted and Stuffed

It's squash season and different squashes that I've never heard of before keep arriving from the farm. One got delivered yesterday called a Turban Squash. It looks more like the little toadstool guy from Super Mario Brothers, but I bet it tastes delicious... I haven't cooked that one up yet, but I did recently stuff some Carnival Squash with a tomato and spinach concoction...

This is hearty enough to serve on it's own as a vegetarian meal or will make a lovely companion to a slab of tasty meat.

Roasted Tomato Stuffed Squash
--4 tomatoes, whole
--2 TBSP olive oil
--dried oregano
--1 carnival squash, sliced in half and seeds removed
--cooking spray
--garlic, minced
--1/2 small onion, diced
--1 dry cup fresh spinach leaves, washed and dried

Using a paring knife, cut out the core of the tomatoes but only down about 1/2". Make x's on the bottom of each tomato. Coat with 1 TBSP of the olive oil and dash with oregano. Roast in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until the skins are easy to remove.

In a separate baking dish, spray the squash halves with cooking spray and simultaneously roast cut side down.

Once the tomatoes are done, remove them from the oven. Flip the squash so that it is now cut side up and continue roasting until a fork slides easily into the thickest part of the squash.

Heat a medium skillet over medium-high and add the remaining 1 TBSP olive oil. Add the onion and garlic and saute to translucency, 2-ish minutes. While the garlic/onion mix cooks, remove the skins from the tomatoes. Add the tomatoes to the skillet and mash with a fork. Add the spinach and toss regularly so spinach gets warmed and wilted but not soggy. Remove pan from heat.

Remove the squash from the oven and place on a plate. Stuff each squash half with the tomato and spinach mixture and eat everything except the squash stem and skin.

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 1 hour
Serves: 2
Calories: 272 per serving

Pretzels: An Alternative to Bread Crumbs

I picked up some awesome mustard on my recent-ish Palisade adventure. It is made with wine ,so clearly, it's extra yummy. I knew as soon as I plucked the jar from the shelf that it would taste most excellent slathered on a chicken breast and holding on a pretzel crust. Using pretzels is a fun alternative to using breadcrumbs or panko, and depending upon the texture or flavor you want can add a nice little bit of extra oomph.

I was experimenting with size here, so I must admit that I should have ground the pretzels down a little more. The larger chunks managed to stay on the chicken okay, but got browner more quickly so I didn't have an even golden color all around. (More like some, ahem, umber or sepia colors...)

Mustard Chicken With Pretzel Crust
--4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
--1/4 cup of your favorite mustard (use a dijon, honey, beer, or brown mustard, not yellow mustard)
--2 TBSP milk or milk substitute
--1 cup of pretzel crumbs
--parchment paper

Remove any remaining skin or fat from the chicken breasts. Wash the chicken breasts and pat them dry. Place the pretzel crumbs in one bowl and the mustard in another. Whisk the little bit of milk/soy milk/rice milk/? milk into the mustard.

Use one hand to put the chicken into the mustard and coat it evenly. Using the same hand, place the chicken into the pretzel crumbs. Use the other hand (dry hand) to spread the pretzel crumbs evenly over the chicken, flipping it over if necessary to ensure the chicken piece is completely coated. Place the chicken on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and repeat with the remaining chicken pieces. Using the parchment paper will help to keep the chicken from sticking to the pan and make it easier to plate later on.

Bake in the oven until the juices run clear and the crust is browned (40-ish minutes). Remove from the parchment paper and plate it up!

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 50 minutes
Serves: 4
Calories: 291 per serving

Fabulous Fall Colors, Fantastic Fall Vegetables

We're knee deep in Autumn; by now the leaves have changed to a rainbow of colors and are falling all around us. Halloween brought critters in costume, marching through piles of leaves and pumpkins, and wandering away full of sugar. It's my favorite time of year for many reasons, but not the least of which is I get a cheap thrill out of eating food that matches the landscape around me. The Fall food color-scape is a bevy of rich jewel tones--vibrant reds, brilliant yellows, energetic oranges.

Root vegetables and those that grow low to the ground thrive this time of year, so fill your plates with potatoes, beets, carrots, squashes, and onions. Today's recipe throws another fall flavor--apple--into the mix and gives this dish even more depth. I served mine with some roasted chicken over brown rice but you could easily make this a vegetarian meal or a Thanksgiving side dish as well. Even better, roast a chicken in the middle of this sea of root vegetables and baste with extra apple cider.

Apple Cider Roasted Root Vegetables
--5 whole garlic cloves
--1/2 large onion
--2 medium sized beets, washed and greens removed
--1 honey crisp or gala apple, cored
--5 small potatoes (or more if you use fingerling potatoes)
--3 medium-large sized carrots, scrubbed and greens removed
--fresh sage
--(optional) 4-5 small tomatoes
--2 TBSP olive oil
--salt & pepper to taste
--4 TBSP apple cider

Roughly chop all the vegetables (except for the garlic, leave that whole) and the apple into chunks. If you opt for small tomatoes, leave those whole (as pictured) so the skins come off easier. Using your hands, rip the sage into large pieces.

Place all the vegetables and the sage into a plastic bag. Pour in the olive oil and shake vigorously to coat all the vegetables. Sprinkle a little salt and crack a little black pepper into the bag. Again, move the items all around so the salt and pepper do a little disco on the mixture.

Pour the contents of the bag into a glass oven-safe dish. Pour the apple cider evenly over the mix. Bake at 400 degrees until vegetables are tender, tomatoes are soft and skins come off easily, and potatoes begin to get a lovely brown crust (45-ish minutes). It's okay if things are a little pink, that's just the beets sharing the love.

Eat!

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 55 minutes
Servings: 6
Calories: 189 per serving

Pita Pear Pizzas

If we're lucky, we'll still have some delicious pears for a few more weeks. Pears, like grapes, do best in wine country climates like the Pacific Northwest (or the Western Slope in Colorado), where the combination of hot-cold and wet-dry work together to create supple sweet luscious fruits. Beyond being eaten plain--like an apple--pears work well in hearty salads, warmed as a compote, or baked and softened as a side or dessert.

Or, in our case, on a pita bread pizza! When my friend Cha-Cha and I get together it usually means business. But as two busy girls on the go, we were both exhausted from our respective workdays and wanted something healthy and filling to mow down on as we sunk into the couch to become zombies in the warm glow of the television. Cue the pizza idea--and one that works well with kids or adults alike because of the versatility. When making a mini-pizza you can make it anything you want. I of course, had to make ours a little fancy...just like us.

Pear Pita Pizzas
--2 round whole wheat pitas
--2 TBSP tomato paste
--1/4 cup grated cheese (mozzarella or a pizza/Italian blend)
--2 pieces of bacon
--sliced mushrooms
--1 pear, sliced or chopped into chunks
--fresh spinach leaves
--crushed red pepper
--2 TBSP feta crumbles
--balsamic vinegar
--olive oil
--black pepper

Place the pitas on a cookie sheet. Use a spoon to coat the top of each pita with the tomato paste. Feel free to season with oregano, pepper, or whatever your heart desires. Sprinkle with some of the grated cheese, but leave enough to put a little more on top.

Chop the bacon into smaller bits and fry over medium heat (I use scissors to easily chop mine) to desired crispy-ness. Drain on paper towels and place on the pizza.

Add the sliced mushrooms and pear pieces, evenly distributing the ingredients both around the pizza and between the two pizzas. Top with some spinach, the remainder of the cheese, the feta crumbles, and a few healthy dashes of crushed red pepper flakes. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (just a little as it goes a long way) and a few cranks of fresh black pepper.

Heat in the oven at 300 degrees for 10 minutes or until shredded cheese is melted and pizza and ingredients are warm throughout.

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 2 pizzas
Calories: 477 per pizza

Simple Treat From The Mid-East

I feel a bit brain dead sometimes and need easy, tasty food that serves many purposes and isn't total garbage. Oh so many times how I've succumbed to the "grab n' go" and ended up later with a tummy ache or belly swollen with too much salt or grease. Last weekend I had some veggies to use up and wanted something fast and light but satisfying. So I made fattoush. How to make Fattoush? Well, according to Wikipedia, "To make fattoush, cooks use seasonal produce, mixing different vegetables and herbs according to taste...The vegetables are cut into relatively large pieces..."

Sounds easy enough.

Perhaps you don't eat a lot of Middle-Eastern cuisine and you aren't familiar with fattoush? It's a vegetable-based salad (sans lettuce) that tastes great over couscous (as pictured above) or inside a pita. It's vegetarian, vegan, dairy, and gluten-free (and probably a whole lot of other things too...). After eating some for my lunch, I took the rest of my fattoush to a Sunday afternoon gathering of ladies, each of whom scooped some up with a pita chip as a nice snack.

Fattoush
--1 large cucumber
--1 large heirloom or beefsteak tomato (or 2 romas)
--1 bell pepper
--fresh parsley, cilantro, or mint (I used cilantro)
--TBSP olive oil
--TBSP lemon juice
--dash of salt and pepper

Truthfully, it's just as easy to make as Wikipedia makes it out to be. First you wash and chop up the cucumber and put it in a decent-sized mixing bowl.

Then you remove the seeds from the pepper, chop it up, and add it to the bowl.

Then rinse and repeat with the tomato, chopping it up and adding it to the bowl.

Mince the fresh herbs and add them to the mix. Pour on the olive oil and lemon juice and stir like crazy to mix the whole thing up. Season with a dash of salt and some freshly cracked black pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 10 minutes
Serves:1 salad
Calories: Under 300 for the whole thing

Stuffed Peaches Won't Disappoint

Here's another recipe that came out of my Palisade peach adventure. But this one has a much larger story than just, "Hey, I have some peaches. Cool..."

Eat Denver is an organization of independent restaurateurs in the Denver area. This group takes the idea of being a localvore to a different level--eating local can be about supporting your neighborhood restaurant too. The organization does a few events throughout the year, including something called Harvest Week. During Harvest Week, these chefs create dishes using only locally sourced products. Sort of a think local, eat local, act local, kind of triple threat. One of the dishes that I had the pleasure of eating was at one of my favorite restaurants--Rioja.

Chef Jennifer Jaskinski (Chef Jen to her employees) doesn't need me to sing her praises. Her food has been written up in the likes of GQ, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine, just to name a few. But that won't stop me from signing her praises. No. Because during Eat Denver's Harvest Week I ate something at Rioja that was so rich, so delicious, so beautiful, that I almost cried. Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic, but damn, was that sucker good. Chef Jen served a grilled peach stuffed with honey scented goat cheese and crispy pork belly, topped with micro-basil. It was absolutely as good as it sounds.

And so, now that I've had a taste, I just can't get enough. But, since Harvest Week only happens one week out of the year, I've had to recreate my own little piece of heaven. Thanks Chef Jen for the blissfully sweet idea! I made these as an hors d'oeuvre for a party, so adjust the recipe depending upon how many hungry faces you need to feed...

Rioja Inspired Stuffed Peaches
--peaches, sliced in half and pitted
--plain goat cheese/chevre
--honey
--balsamic vinegar
--bacon strips, cut in half
--micro greens or broccoli sprouts

After removing the pits from the peach halves, use a spoon to scoop out a small concave bowl in the center of each peach half. Using a new clean spoon, fill each peach bowl with a spoon-full of goat cheese. I made one 4oz. log last for 15 peach halves, so remember that a little goat cheese goes a long way! Place the filled peaches into a baking dish. Drizzle each peach half with a light line of honey and balsamic vinegar.

Place the bacon strips on a foil-lined cookie sheet in the oven. Bake at 375 degrees until the bacon is crisp and evenly cooked. The foil will make it easier to pull off the pan. Cooking it in the oven helps keep the bacon from curling up and also allows the fat to drain away.

Bake the peaches in the oven at 375 degrees for 8 minutes. Remove and top each peach with the crispy bacon. Place back into the oven for a few more minutes, until the peaches are softened *but not soggy* and the goat cheese is warmed.

Remove to a plate. Top with the micro greens and serve!

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 20 minutes
Serving: 2 peach halves
Calories: 304

Party With Some Peaches

"Palisade is the peach capital of Colorado," tells the Palisade Chamber of Commerce website. But beyond peaches, you can also find apricots, okra, plums, honey, and wine. Oh yes. Palisade is the promised land for lovers of fresh fruits, vegetables, and winos alike. So, to pay homage to the Presidents of the United States of America (the band, not the men), I went to the country and ate a lot of peaches. And then...I brought back a whole case of peaches to cook with.

I took a third of these and froze them--so you can expect some delicious peach pie or cobbler recipes later in the season when you're craving that fresh-tasting fleshy goodness. But what to do with the rest? I declare this week is peach week here at Bacon & Other Bad Habits. So, Viola!, here is one of the recipes that I cooked up as a result of my peach adventure.

This pork chop with peach and sage compote might seem like one of the simplest recipes. And it certainly isn't complicated. But don't confuse a simple preparation with a lack of flavor. The sweetness of the peaches combines with the fresh sage to compliment the pork without overwhelming it. In short, this recipe is easy and really f-ing tasty; a powerful combination don't you think?

Pork Chops With Peach & Sage Compote
--4 boneless pork chops
--olive oil cooking spray
--garlic salt
--black pepper
--4 fresh peaches, pitted and chopped (I leave the skins on mine but if the texture freaks you out, remove the skin)
--fresh sage leaves, ripped into chunks

Rinse the pork loin chops and pat dry. Cut away any additional fat or skin. Crack black pepper onto one side of the chop. Follow up with a dusting of garlic salt. Using your fingers, press the spices into the pork. Flip the chops over and repeat.

Heat a cooking-spray-coated skillet over medium-high heat. Sear the pork chops on both sides to lock in the juices. Turn the heat down to medium and cook the chops for 5-ish minutes on each side. Remove from the heat to rest.

Add the chopped peaches to the same pan. You won't need to add any cooking oil or spray, just let the peaches cook/simmer in their own sweet juices. Add the ripped sage leaves and cook, stirring often, until the peaches are softened and warmed and the sage begins to get crispy on the edges. Add the pork back into pan and cook until the pork is heated through. It should be a pale pinkish white when you cut through the thickest/middle part of the chop.

Serve these guys alone or over a serving of rice.

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 4
Calories: 274 calories (recipe above, does not include addition of rice)