Leek and Sweet Potato Soup

This recipe was included in our first winter CSA newsletter. It is actually a great combination (I was happy not to be including any type of squash in this soup, to be honest). I made a couple of adjustments, just to bring down the calories a little bit - butter and cream are great and everything, but maybe not for a soup I wanted to enjoy several weeknights in a row! I love soups like this that get blended because prep is so easy - you don't have to worry about your knife skills, just chop everything up and throw it in the pot!

Ingredients:
2 Tbs olive oil (original recipe calls for butter)
2 leeks
1 medium onion
1 Tbs curry powder
2 medium sweet potatoes
1 can coconut milk (I used 'lite', use full strength if you prefer)
~2 cups chicken stock*
2 Tbs hot sauce (your choice, I used sriracha)
1/2 cup cilantro
heavy cream or milk
fresh lime juice

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Wash leeks thoroughly and slice into thin rounds. Add the leeks and roughly diced onion to the pot and season with salt and pepper. While the leeks and onions are sweating, roughly dice your sweet potatoes. I didn't peel mine - you can if you really want, but you don't have to, since this will all be cooked down and then blended. Once the onions and leeks are translucent, add the sweet potatoes and curry powder and stir to combine. Then add your coconut milk and chicken stock. *The reason that I say about 2 cups above, is that you can just rinse out the coconut milk can with the chicken stock and add that to the pot. To make this veggie, just substitute vegetable stock, or water and vegetable stock cubes as called for in the original recipe. Stir to combine and bring to a simmer. Add chopped cilantro and hot sauce (I used the full 2 tablespoons, be sure to moderate this if you don't like things too spicy) and cook until the sweet potatoes are soft.

Using either an immersion blender or regular blender, blend until smooth. This is where the newsletter instructions got a little vague. It says to blend the soup base with equal quantities of fresh cream and water and that the final texture should be that of runny cream. It doesn't tell us how much water and cream should be used - I ended up using about 3/4 of a cup of milk. The reason I know that was fine is because it tasted GOOD, which should be one of your indications that you are doing something right.

To serve, squeeze fresh lime juice into the bottom of a bowl (I used a half a lime for one serving) and carefully pour soup over the juice. Do not stir. The lime juice is a kick in the pants and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It literally made my mouth water as I was eating it. I can see adding some shredded chicken to this upon serving to up your protein intake, or even topping with additional roasted vegetables or brown rice. Hope you use your in season produce to make this, it was very easy and unexpected!

The Apple Digest, or Ways To Use Up a Lot of Apples

Jenean and I went apple picking with our parents this past weekend, a traditional New England fall activity I have actually never done before.  It was fun!  And Seasonally Appropriate!  Festive, even.  The orchard, up in Amesbury MA, is a really beautiful family farm, and seemed to have about 20 varieties of apple tree growing on gorgeous rolling hills. 

Also, they had free range egg-laying chickens, and (heartwarmingly) a hot dog cart!

There were of course delicious apple cider donuts, still hot from the donut-making-fryer (which you could watch in action, plopping rings of batter into the hot fat, and after a brief float, a little metal gate flips them over, and then they float further down to a conveyer belt which dumps them into cinnamon sugar, reminding me of that Homer Price story I loved as a kid).

I went a little nuts in the orchard, and came home with nearly 10 pounds of several kinds of apples.  I assembled a list of recipes I'm going to make to use them all up, and I thought I'd share some here (since this time of year, lots of people might be in my same high-apple-to-human-ratio situation).

My list:
Tarte Tatin (haven't done this yet... I think I might not have the right kind of apples, AND I'd like to use it as an excuse to try making my own puff pastry)
Whole Wheat Apple Muffins (maybe the world's best muffins, see below)
Apple Cheddar Scones (maybe the world's best scones)
Apple Chips (see below)
Apple Brownies
Apple Pie (obviously)
Apple Brandy (My favorite way to make use of the cores and peels and scraps from all my other apple endeavors, see below!)

I think I'll probably run out of apples before I get through all of these.  Incidentally, the first thing on my list should be to eat these raw!  Apples straight from the tree are so juicy and crisp and flavorful, eating them on the spot, in the orchard was maybe the most delicious snack ever.  And slicing them on top of peanut butter toast, with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a drizzle of honey seems like an undeniably great breakfast.

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins
(from King Arthur Flour, by way of smitten kitchen)

These are SO MOIST, and so tasty.  And there really isn't too much sugar, and the chunks of apple are big enough that you really get a juicy tart hit from them throughout.  They come together in about 20 minutes of prep time, and bake up in about 15 minutes.  They keep super well, and are nearly as good on the second and third days, especially if you toast them a little to crisp up their tops.

Ingredients:
4 oz (1 cup) whole wheat flour
4.5 oz (1 cup) white flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk, sour milk, or a half-and-half mix of yogurt and milk (my go-to)
2 large (or 3 medium) apples, peeled, cored and chopped into chunks (1/2 inch cubes or even a little bigger)

Preheat oven to 450.  Combine and sift or whisk all the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt).  Cream the butter with the white and brown sugars until fluffy.  Add the egg and beat until combined.  Add the buttermilk/yogurt-and-milk, and mix briefly.  Add the dry ingredients, and mix on low until just combined.

Fold in the apple chunks and scoop into muffin tins (greased, or sprayed with baker's spray, or lined with paper liners).  I got 20 standard muffins from this batch, and filled them right to the top (this batter is thick enough that you can get away with over-filling).

Sprinkle the tops with a little brown sugar (or cinnamon sugar, if you'd rather!).   Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 400 and let them go 5-10 minutes more.  7 more minutes was exactly right for me.  Cool briefly in the tin, then turn out to a rack to cool completely.

Apple Chips
(various internet sources)

I was so excited to find out you can make apple chips (or apple rings) without anything at all besides sheet pans and an oven!  You don't need any ingredients except for the apples themselves.  These make a great snack with popcorn and tea.

Ingredients:
2 apples

Using a melon baller (or an apple corer, if you have one!) scoop out the core of the apples, but no need to peel them.

 
Have two sheet pans lined with parchment or silpats.  Slice the apples into rings as thin as possible.  I used a super sharp knife, but if you have a mandoline slicer big enough for your apples, go for it.

Try for about 1/8 of an inch thick.  (The main thing is to try to keep all your slices pretty similar in thickness, but even that isn't too big a deal - you can remove them as they crisp up and leave thicker ones in longer.)

Lay the slices out on the sheet pans so they don't overlap. 

Bake at 225 for 2 hours, flipping after an hour, then reduce the oven to 200, and leave for another 3-4 hours, until they feel dry and crisp (if you underbake them, you might end up with semi chewy apple rings, which isn't the worst thing that could happen).  Alternatively, you can easily get away with slicing these, throwing them in a 200 oven right from the start, and leaving them all day while you're at work, and have beautiful apple chips waiting for you when you get home (I tested it at 8 hours at 200 degrees, no flipping, perfect apple chips).

Let cool before storing in an airtight container.  These keep well, but they're so crispy and delicious (practically potato chip texture!!) and guilt-free as a snack that we haven't been able to keep them around for long.  I've seen some recipes suggest a sprinkle of cinnamon or even sugar, but they're so good without any addition, so I like to keep them simple.

Apple Brandy
(adapted from a recipe in Put 'em Up! by Sherri Brooks Vinton)

I make this using the saved and frozen scraps from many apples baked into other things.  The freezing step actually aids in releasing more apple juice and flavor into the brandy, I think (I tried it once with unfrozen apples, and it just wasn't as good).

1 quart of frozen apple scraps (OR 3 whole apples, cored and diced, according to Vinton)
1 (750 ml) bottle of brandy (not top quality... not even particularly good!)
1/4 sugar (optional)
1 cinnamon stick (optional)

Combine everything in a large glass bowl or jar (save the brandy bottle for later).  Cover, and stir once a day for 2 weeks.  Strain and funnel back into the bottle.  Delicious as an after dinner sipping drink, but would be a great addition to caramel sauces, whipped cream, chai, a pan sauce for pork chops, etc.

What to do with an excess of CSA Vegetables? Pickles!

I hate to complain at all about the abundance of beautiful fresh vegetables we get in our CSA every week, but sometimes it's all you can do to keep up. Right when you think you're doing a great job of eating everything up, another box comes along and throws another 57 zucchinis into the mix. I was in DIRE straights a few weeks ago - 2 weeks worth of beets, green beans and yellow squash. I knew there was no way for me to eat all of those veggies before a) they went bad and b) I got a new stash of vegetables. What to do in this conundrum? Pickles!

I knew before the summer even started that at some point I wanted to pickle beets and green beans. I never thought of pickling squash, but a quick Internet search showed me that it's been done before! I thought the squash would turn out spongy or mushy, but it is quite crisp and delicious. The great thing about pickles is that you can use any flavors you like and adjust your recipe to suit your taste whether it is for sweeter or more sour pickles, to add spice or interesting flavors like curry or lavender.

*One note - I made these as refrigerator pickles although you could easily go through the canning process to make them shelf stable. If you are going to can them, it's important to remember to use really only the freshest fruits or vegetables - any blemishes or rotting on the food can spoil your whole batch once it's canned.

Pickled Green Beans

Ingredients:
2 lbs. fresh green beans, trimmed and cut to fit your jars
1 white onion, peeled and cut into thin slices
Lemon zest, 4 inch piece of peel for each jar
1 Tbs sugar
1/4 cup salt (kosher is fine)
2 cups boiling water
2 cups white vinegar
4 garlic cloves (or more!)
2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Mix the green beans and onions together. Bring water, vinegar, sugar and salt to a boil, making sure the sugar and salt dissolve. In the meantime, assemble your jars - place a piece of lemon peel and a garlic clove in each jar and distribute the mustard seeds and red pepper flakes among the jars. You may want to use more than what is listed above - I did!

Pack the jars tightly with the green beans and onions and then carefully pour the hot water/vinegar mixture into each jar. If you are canning them, you will want to leave about an inch of head room. If you're just putting them in the refrigerator you can fill to the top. This recipe filled 6 8oz jars.


Pickled Beets
*I left my beets raw, although all recipes I saw called for cooking them first. I wanted them to have a crunch, but you do what you think you'd like best.

Ingredients
5 lb beets, cut into quarters or eighths, depending on the size of your beets.
7 peppercorns
2 cinnamon sticks
3 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 1/2 cups sugar

Combine water, vinegar, sugar, peppercorns and cinnamon sticks in a pot and bring to a boil; stir occasionally to ensure the sugar is dissolved. Pour this mixture over your beets in a large bowl and let sit until they cool. I didn't put these in jars right away, instead once they cooled I just put them in a large plastic container and refrigerated for a week. Once they were pickled, I distributed into smaller containers, but again, unless you're going for shelf stable, any air tight container will do in the fridge.


Sweet and Hot Curried Squash Pickles
*From The Splendid Table

Ingredients
3 lbs. yellow squash or zucchini, sliced into thin rounds
2 onions, thinly sliced (recipe called for red, I had white)
3 to 4 hot chiles, whatever you have, thinly sliced into rounds
1/4 cup kosher salt
2 3/4 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup sherry
1 1/2 cup orange juice
2 cups sugar
2 Tbs curry powder
1 1/2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp ground allspice (recipe called for whole)
1 tsp ground cloves (recipe called for whole)
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

In a large bowl, combine squash, onions, chiles and salt. Let them stand for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Drain and rinse to remove the salt.

In a medium saucepan, bring all the remaining ingredients to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and let simmer for 3 minutes - stir to make sure the sugar is fully dissolved. Pour the hot liquid over the squash and allow it to cool to room temperature. Once these were cool, I transferred to plastic containers to refrigerate. They are good within a few hours but develop a more intense flavor if you can leave them longer. I was highly skeptical that these would be good - but they are! Nice and crisp with a great flavor.

So now instead of drowning in fresh vegetables, I'm drowning in pickles! But I've been able to give a lot away as gifts and the stress of wasting my beautiful veggies was definitely minimized! (Thanks to Lainie for these muy romantica pickle pictures.)

Gelato al Limone

Here's a lost post from about a year ago that never made it out of the draft state!  Just as relevant today (though my most recent use of my ice cream maker was mango frozen yogurt, which you can find a recipe for here, if you're so inclined)... but anyway, here's that year-old post:

OMG, You Guys. Lemon gelato.

I don't use my ice cream maker as often as I'd like, in fact I think I didn't even use it once last summer, and I only just brought it out of the freezer this past week, but I intend to make up for lost time and make a lot of gelato for the rest of the summer (also sorbetto). Possibly weekly.

I saw a lot of recipes on the internet (some using just milk, some with egg yolks, various amounts of cream, etc) for lemon gelato (this is the simplest, and it actually seems both amazing and ridiculously effort-free, I might try it next) but I ended up adapting this one. 

My main change was a kind of chemistry experiment - I know from some sorbet recipes I've made (and from Cook's Illustrated) that adding a little alcohol of some kind keeps frozen desserts from getting too hard once they spend a day in the freezer (a problem I ran into this past weekend making a ricotta gelato recipe from a Mario Batali cookbook, a type of gelato thickened with cornstarch instead of eggs).

Anyway, I didn't have quite as much lemon juice as the recipe called for, and I wanted to see if I could avoid the rock-hard-the-next-day problem, so I filled out my scant lemon juice with some triple sec (a citrusy liqueur, you could use Grand Marnier or Cointreau if you were fancy enough to have it in the house). It worked beautifully! The day I made it, the gelato was almost as soft as soft serve, after the requisite 2 hours in the freezer, and the next day it was totally scoopable, actually legitimately gelato textured like you'd get at a gelateria.

Gelato al limone
makes about 2 quarts
adapted from a recipe on tasteofhome.com

1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
4 lemons
5 egg yolks
triple sec or any other citrus or lemon flavored alcohol product
2 cups heavy cream
vanilla and lemon extracts (optional)

Using a vegetable peeler, peel zest in big strips (avoiding the white pith) off three of the lemons. Add the zest to a medium-large heavy bottomed pot along with the milk and sugar, and put over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a heat proof spatula to help the sugar dissolve. 
Heat to 175 degrees (if you don't have a thermometer, it should just start to steam on the surface, not bubble or boil at all).

While the milk/zest mixture heats, beat the egg yolks lightly in a 2 quart metal bowl and prepare an ice water bath in another larger bowl (preferably metal, and big enough for the 1st bowl to snug down into later).

Squeeze the 4 lemons of their juice, into a measuring cup* - you should ideally have about 1/2 cup juice. Add triple sec to bring the volume up to 2/3 cup.

When the milk is hot, slowly whisk it into the yolks, a very little bit at a time. If you rush this tempering process, you'll have lemony scrambled eggs, so take your time. Once you've got about half of the milk mixture beaten in, you can go ahead and add the rest more quickly.

Return this milk/egg/zest mixture to the pan, and put it over medium heat, stirring, until it reaches 160 degrees. 

If you don't have a thermometer (get a thermometer!) it should coat the back of a spoon at this point. Pour it back into your smaller metal bowl, and place that bowl in the ice water bath. Stir until fairly cool, if you have time (if you don't, you'll have to leave the finished mixture in the fridge a lot longer before you can put it in your ice cream maker, 6-8 hours, as opposed to the 3 hours I did).

Once cool, I poured the mixture into a bowl with a spout to make adding it to the ice cream maker later a bit easier - I strained out the lemon zest pieces at that point.

Stir in the lemon juice/triple sec, the 2 cups of cream (I think this could be light cream, half and half, or even just more whole milk potentially, I plan to experiment with this more) and the vanilla and lemon extracts (1 tsp of vanilla, 1/8 tsp of lemon only).

Cover and refrigerate until very cold (or else your ice cream maker insert won't have enough cooling power to freeze it all the way). Freeze according to your particular ice cream maker's instructions, and then transfer to a container and put in the freezer for a couple of hours before serving.

Unfortunately, we somehow ate all of this gelato before I managed to take a pretty picture of some of it in a bowl or cone.  I will make more very soon so we can get a picture, just for the sake of thoroughness, of course.

*when I made mine I had only 3 lemons, which produce about 1/3 cup of juice. I had Jenean's bottle of key lime juice in my fridge, so I topped the lemon juice off with key lime juice up to 1/2 cup, and then added triple sec up to 2/3 cup.

Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

This is a classic from our childhood, modified just a little. The basic idea is that sometimes it's so hot that you don't want to cook any more than to boil some pasta, and if you have some tomatoes (regular or cherry or grape), you're most of the way there.  I made this on a hotter-than-hell type day just after I got done running a week long summer chamber music festival, and these were grape tomatoes leftover from our opening orientation crudite platter.  I had been so busy planning SICPP for so long (there's my excuse for the 2+ months since our last blog post!) that there was practically nothing else in my house to eat... this kind of turn-practically-nothing-into-something dish is my favorite way to cook.  Makes a great cold leftover meal too.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound dried pasta (pieces work best)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 pints grape or cherry tomatoes, or 2 pounds regular tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
fresh basil (if possible), sliced into ribbons, OR fresh parsley (if you have it), chopped
1/2+ cup grated parmigiano (plus more for serving)
zest and juice of 1 lemon (optional)

TO DO:

Set a big pot of water to boil for the pasta. Have 3 tablespoons of salt ready to throw in there when it comes to a boil.

In a microwave safe glass bowl large enough to fit a pound of cooked pasta, combine the good quality extra virgin olive oil and the garlic, which you can either press through a garlic press, chop small, or mash to a paste with some coarse salt and the side of your knife. Microwave for 1 minute.

If you're using grape or cherry tomatoes, all you have to do is slice them in half, and add them to the warm garlic oil. If you're using whole tomatoes, it's good to cut them in half around the equator and squeeze out the seeds before dicing them and adding them to the oil (if you want an extra layer of fussiness, as some in my family are inclined towards, you can peel big tomatoes). Add salt and pepper to taste, and the lemon zest and juice if you want it. If you have time, it's great to leave this to marinate ("to let the flavors marry" as our dad likes to say), but if you're in a hurry, it's not necessary.

Stir in the grated cheese (if you have the patience to use the fine grating side of your cheese grater, that's best for this, but microplane grating will do - just be sure that if you're measuring 1/2 cup, you pack it in to measure it (microplaning makes billowy piles of cheese that look like more than they really are).

Cook your pasta (salting the water once it comes to the boil), drain it well, and throw it into the bowl with the tomatoes/olive oil/cheese etc. Throw your fresh basil or parsley on top, toss around to combine, and serve, with extra cheese if you like.  Confession - I didn't have any fresh herbs, and was too tired to go to the store, and used a dried Italian Seasoning mix - it wasn't bad, but FRESH BASIL IS THE BEST, BELIEVE ME.

VARIATIONS: throw some broccoli florets or cut up green beans in with the pasta for the last 4-5 minutes of cooking; throw some green peas into the pasta water right before draining; add some chopped up leftover cooked chicken or some chickpeas for extra protein; when tossing in the herbs at the end, add some fresh arugula or spinach; add some drained capers and/or chopped briny olives, and swap the parmigiano for feta or ricotta salata.

easy chicken thighs with couscous and spinach

This was so fast, and it's all so simple and delicious... and it was pretty cheap too.  A $2 package of chicken thighs from whole foods (our meat csa membership has lapsed... not sure how we feel about it), $5 worth of baby spinach, $1.25 worth of cous cous, and there's enough for two dinners tonight and a lunch tomorrow.  It was easy to make it all simultaneously too, I'll put a chronology at the end of the post.

for the Chicken:
-bone-in skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed of bigger fat pockets (sorry that's such a gross thing to say, but it's so worth it)
-your favorite spice rub (I had a cajun style mix Axel F's wonderful mother gave me, to which I added cumin, smoked paprika and a little allspice)
-salt and pepper
-oil

Pat the thighs dry and season generously on both sides with salt and pepper and your spice rub.  Leave them to marinate if you have time, I probably left them about 30 minutes (while I prepared other things).  Drizzle on just a little oil and make sure it coats both sides.

Line a sheet pan with oil and put a rack on top of the foil (if you have one, ok to skip it if not).  Put the thighs skin side down on the rack.

Preheat your broiler on high for at least 10 minutes, and make sure your oven rack is as close to the broiler as possible.  Put the chicken in, and let it broil for 5-7 minutes (until it takes on plenty of good color, even a little black in spots).  Flip the thighs over to skin side up, and broil another 5-8 minutes until the skin is crisp and dark brown, again a few black spots are great (my thighs were relatively small, so 5 minutes per side was plenty).

for the Spinach:
-3/4 to 1 pound baby spinach, nice and clean
-3-5 slices bacon (thick cut if possible, I love this kind for cooking with*), chopped
-3-5 cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled and chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper

In a large frying pan, fry the bacon in just a little bit of olive oil until nice and crisp, stirring occasionally, about 10 to 15 minutes (start it on high heat and then reduce to medium.  You can pause the proceedings here if the rest of the meal isn't ready, it comes together in about 2 more minutes from here on out.  Just before you're ready to eat, put the heat on high under the bacon and add the chopped garlic.  Stir around till you can smell it, about 30 seconds.  Add the spinach, season with salt and pepper and toss around until all the spinach wilts, another minute.  For an almost as delicious vegetarian version, just use more olive oil, fry the garlic briefly and add the spinach.  Even faster.

for the Couscous:
-2 cups couscous
-3 cups water or stock (I used some vegetable stock I had in the freezer)
-2 tsp salt
-3 tbsp butter
-1/4 cup chopped or sliced or slivered almonds

In a small saucepan, melt the butter.  Add the almonds, and let them cook together till the butter browns and the almonds turn deep golden.  Set aside.

In a large saucepan that has a fitted lid, combine the couscous, salt and water/stock.  Cover and bring to a boil over high heat.  Stir it once, turn off the heat, re-cover the pot, and let it sit for 10 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed.

With a fork, fluff up the couscous.  Pour the browned butter and almonds on top, and stir gently to combine.

Chronology (probably 30 minutes from start to finish):
1. prep chicken and leave to marinate on the rack.
2. chop bacon and garlic.
3. start bacon crisping up in a big frying pan
4. start browning the butter with the almonds
5. preheat broiler to high
6. measure couscous and salt into big saucepan and add water/stock, bring to boil, etc
7. put the chicken under the broiler
8. add garlic to now-crisp bacon, then spinach, etc
9. turn chicken and cook till done, while you stir the butter/almonds into the couscous
11. eat

*I'm getting no money for this recommendation, I just thing Trader Joe's Bacon Ends and Pieces might be the world's best bacon product.  It's usually super thick meaty slices, and so cheap ($3 for a whole pound)!  It's not good for when you want to fry in slices for breakfast, but it's perfect for cooking a bit at a time into recipes, and one package is enough bacon for baconing up 3 or 4 different dishes.  It's great having it in the fridge for adding a little richness to a veggie pasta dish, or to make spaghetti carbonara, or a quiche, or anything bacon is good in (which is almost everything).

butter-roasted butternut squash, quiche, and fast fake aioli

I have to share with you this insanely delicious, absurdly simple way to cook winter squash.  Once again what I'm giving you is a recipe adapted from a Mark Bittman recipe (he calls it Roasted Winter Squash Slices), and I'm sure you get it by now - Bittman makes great, simple recipes we should all cook all the time... but I feel the need to share this in particular because the recipe says "oil or melted butter" and if you're anything like me, you usually opt for oil when given the choice between the two, especially for oven roasting.  But I'm here to say, forget the oil for once, TRY THE BUTTER!  It is COMPLETELY different from roasting in olive oil.  The butter - it browns! and turns nutty and fragrant in the oven during the roasting time, and I've never tasted more complex, rich, delicious squash flavor.  I'm also going to tell you about a version of a crustless spinach quiche my friend Emily recommended (which she adapted from a recipe on Smitten Kitchen), and which we ate together with the squash for a very delicious eat-the-rainbow type vegetarian meal.

Butter-Roasted Winter Squash

(this works well with a sturdy squash you can peel and cut into slices, like butternut, i.e. I don't think acorn would be ideal here.  However, delicata would totally work because you can eat the skin, plus it makes pretty flower shaped slices).

1 winter squash, peeled, seeded and sliced somewhere between a 1/4 and 3/8ths inch thick
3 tbsp salted butter, melted
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375.  Brush a sheet pan generously with some of the melted butter using a pastry brush.  Lightly butter both sides of each slice of squash, again with the pastry brush, placing them on the sheet pan as you go.  Sprinkle the tops with salt and pepper.

Roast in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, flipping halfway through.

That's it.  And now...


Spinach Quiche Minus The Hassle of Pastry Making

1 tbsp melted butter
3/4 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
4 to 6 eggs
salt and pepper
1/4 to 1/3 cup milk or cream if you have it
10 oz package of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed out very throughly
3/4 to 1 cup frozen peas, thawed (optional)
1 russet potato, microwaved for 3 minutes or until cooked through (optional), peeled and diced
4 to 6 scallions, sliced thin
1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar or other melty cheese (jack or swiss or PEPPER jack! etc)

Preheat oven to 375 (at this temperature, you'll have to bake it a relatively long time, probably 45 minutes, but I chose to do it at that temperature so it could bake along with the squash; if you're in a hurry and this is all you're baking you can put the oven up to 425 and it will probably only take 20 minutes or so).

Brush a pie plate with the melted butter (ok if the excess pools up in the bottom).  Combine the panko and the parmesan, and sprinkle them into the pie plate, tilting to coat all the buttered surfaces with cheese and breadcrumbs (ok if more sticks to the bottom than to the sides).

In a large bowl beat the eggs with the salt and pepper.  Add the milk or cream (you could also add a little sour cream - amounts are very flexible).  Add the spinach, peas, potato, scallions and cheese, and stir to combine.  Pour into the pie plate, and put it in the oven.  Mine took the better part of 45 minutes to get fully cooked all the way to the middle.  You can just check with the tip of a knife starting at about 35 minutes.

Let it cool a bit before serving.  It's good hot, warm... leftovers were delicious cold, even. 

You could serve the quiche with a super fast fake aioli for a dipping sauce (spanish tortilla style):

Super Fast Fake Aioli

1/2 cup Hellman's/Best Foods Mayonnaise
1 medium to small sized garlic clove, finely minced (I grate mine on a microplane zester)
juice of half a lemon (less even, maybe a quarter)
1/4 extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Mix the mayo, garlic and lemon juice.  Whisk in the oil a little at a time.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.