Risotto with Butternut Squash and Rosemary

As the weather cools, it's time for some warm comfort food. Perhaps some risotto?!?!?!

For risotto, you need Arborio rice, a short grain rice that is conducive to the creamy delicious rice dish. To make risotto, use this recipe here. The only change I made this time was to stir in some chopped, fresh rosemary in the beginning while I cooked the onions, then another small pinch at the very end. This gives the rosemary a chance to create two layers of flavor, a deep, embedded flavor and a bright, green, piney flavor at the end.


To kick up the risotto, I took a butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced it, about 1/4 inch pieces. Toss with olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and put into a preheated 450 degree oven until tender and golden. I think it was about 20-30 minutes, I wasn't really paying attention.


Tiny orange jewels. Little pieces of candy really. The flavor was mild, earthy and sweet. Soft and tender. Really delightful. These roasted pieces of butternut squash would be good with any number of dishes. But for this meal, I had plans.


While the risotto was cooking, I seared two seasoned chicken breasts. When they were done cooking, I used some shallots, a bit more risotto, Chardonnay and chicken broth to make a wonderfully rich pan sauce that was spooned over the sliced chicken. Together with the Risotto and Butternut Squash, this was a wonderful, nearly perfect autumnal meal! I choose to spoon the butternut squash over the top of the risotto, instead of stirring it into the risotto. Two reasons; 1) once cooked down, the small squash left us with about a cup of cooked squash, not very much and considering I made probably twice as much risotto as I needed, 2) I wanted to save the second half of risotto for some treats later this week. Do as you wish!

Soup and Bread

In continuing the cheap dinners, I made bread and soup. All with items we had on hand, unplanned! No shopping list for these items. Rosemary from the garden. A squash from the last farmer's market...everything else was here.

Rosemary & Caramelized Onion Focaccia and Butternut Squash & Apple Bisque!

A great fall meal.

My first note...I LOVED the bread. The soup was great, but it was missing something...and I know what it was. Continue.




The bread is super easy. Flour, water, yeast, olive oil. Mix, rise, stretch and dimple! Then you add some rosemary and caramelized onions on top with a little sea salt for flavor and crunch.


Back until golden and delish. I would have liked a little more topping, but as it was, I loved it. We ate half a pan the first night and the next day ate almost the rest of it!


The outside bottom crust gets crispy from the olive oil, almost like a pizza crust. It's amazing and paired perfectly well with the soup...


Butternut Squash & Apple Bisque. This was really good, but I felt something was missing. It wasn't salt or flavor, everything was there. I think I figured it out after the fact. I need a hint of some acid. Next time a little apple cider vinegar, I think that will give the POP I was looking for.




Rosemary & Caramelized Onion Focaccia
Recipe adapted from Epicurious.

Ingredients
1 (1/4-ounce) package active dry yeast
5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus additional for kneading
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 small to medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Special equipment: a standing electric mixer with paddle attachment and dough hook
preparation

Stir together 1 2/3 cups lukewarm (105 to 115°F) water and yeast in bowl of mixer and let stand until creamy, about 5 minutes. Add 5 cups flour, 1/4 cup oil, and 2 1/2 teaspoons table salt and beat with paddle attachment at medium speed until a dough forms. Replace paddle with dough hook and knead dough at high speed until soft, smooth, and sticky, 3 to 4 minutes.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in 1 to 2 tablespoons more flour. Knead dough 1 minute (it will still be slightly sticky), then transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and turn dough to coat with oil. Let rise, covered with plastic wrap, at warm room temperature, until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Press dough evenly into a generously oiled 15- by 10- by 1-inch baking pan. Let dough rise, covered completely with a kitchen towel, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Saute onions in 2 tablespoons olive oil until soft and they start to caramelize. Stir in the rosemary with the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, let cool.

Make shallow indentations all over dough with your fingertips, then sprinkle the onions and rosemary, letting them pool in the indentations. Sprinkle sea salt evenly over focaccia and bake in middle of oven until golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Immediately invert a rack over pan and flip focaccia onto rack, then turn right side up. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Spaghetti

I've had a spaghetti squash sitting on my pantry since late October or November. I finally cooked it up the other day. The sauce and final treatment wasn't very good, so I'm not going to share, but I wanted to share with you my technique for cooking a spaghetti squash.

To start you need to slice the squash in half from pole to pole (top to bottom). Scrape out the seeds and stringy membrane. Once cleaned, I like to brush or rub some olive oil into the squash and season liberally with salt and pepper. This time around, I wanted to try something extra. I smashed open a garlic clove and tossed it into the center of the prepped squash. The garlic will roast and the aroma will give a hint of garlic to the squash.


With the garlic clove inside, I flipped the squash halves over onto a parchment lined baking sheet and placed them in the oven (375 degrees) for 45-50 minutes, until tender.


The squash is tender when a knife slides easily and smoothly into the flesh. That's a little devilish. Where's Dexter when you need him? Anyway, allow the squash halves to cool for a bit, covered with foil.


When you can handle the squash, take a fork and start scraping out the cooked strands of the spaghetti squash. You can serve with butter, a lite tomato sauce, an herb flavored broth or any number of other pasta sauces. I like to keep the spaghetti squash topping on the lighter side. I wouldn't use most types of cream sauce or full bodied marinara sauces. I feel they would dominate the dish and you'd lose the subtle, lightly sweet flavor of the squash.

Enjoy!

Spaghetti Squash

This is a photo-less post.
Until my camera is fixed or replaced,
please bear with me.

Last night's dinner was a yummy success.

Yesterday I went to a farm stand near work to see what they might have in terms of pumpkins. Nothing. Big fat zero. Well, that's a slight lie. They had some, but they were too giant, too marred and pitted, or just down right rotten. And you all know this right, the carving pumpkins are not ideal for cooking. They have had the flavor breed out of them, are tough and fiberous. So, no pumpkins.

But, they did have spaghetti squash and white sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes I'm going to use on Friday night. I purchased two spaghetti squash, one for last night and another for later.

I also had some very lean pork chops. So...

Pork Chops with Spaghetti Squash and Tomatoes

Start prepping your squash. Cut off the bottom and top, discard those parts. Then, prop the squash up on its bottom and cut from the top to the bottom, giving you two large halves. Scoop out the seeds and discard. The seeds and fiberous inards of the squash are easily removed, they almost peel away in one large piece.

Drizzle a little olive oil on the inside of the squash and season liberally with salt and pepper. Place cut-side down on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and roast in the oven for 45 minutes at 375 degrees.

When roasting is complete, allow the squash to cool for a minute before taking a fork and scraping the spaghetti strands out of the fruit. Yes, fruit! Reserve the cooked spaghetti squash for use in a few minutes.

Season the pork chops with salt and pepper and other flavors you prefer. I've been using an old peppermill to grind fennel seeds and dried rosemary into a great seasoning for pork. It's equal parts of each and I used probably 1/2 tsp for four small chops.

Saute in one teaspoon of olive oil until they are golden brown and just cooked thru, about 8 minutes total--this depends on the thickness of your chops. When done, place on a warm plate.

In the same pan pour in one teaspoon of olive oil and when hot, toss in 2-3 finely chopped garlic cloves. Almost immediately (when you smell the garlic cooking), pour in 1/4 cup of dry white wine. Add 1/2 cup of diced tomatoes (I used canned tomatoes that I drained). Season with 1/2 teaspoon each of dried oregano and dried basil. Season with salt and pepper. Pour in any accumulated juices from the pork chops. Stir and simmer until most of the wine has evaporated. Carefully fold in the reserved spaghetti squash, heat thru. Serve with pork chops.

This was delicious and fairly fast; outside of the roasting of the squash. It was also pretty healthy. The pork chops were very lean and with the exception of about 2 additional teaspoons of olive oil, no fat. Lots of good fiber, lycopene, beta-carotene and other vitamins. And filling!!!

Squash It

Time to make the Spaghetti Squash...

This was a small to medium sized squash, no soft spots...a few blemishes, but nothing structural. The squash should feel very solid and heavy for it's size, not squishy or light weight.

First: Preheat your oven to 375. Then, slice off the vine end, then cut in half, end to end. The squash is hard to cut. Use a very heavy duty knife and becareful! I inserted the tip of the knife in the middle of the squash and rocked the knife until it was most of the way through the fruit.

Once you've split the squash in two, scoop out the seeds using a heavy duty spoon or ice cream scoop. Discard the filling.

Clean!

This is optional, but encouraged; drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Place the fruit, cut side down on a foil or parchment paper lined baking sheet. Toss in the oven for 30-40 minutes until tender. Let rest of a few minutes before the next step. If you don't want to tackle slicing the squash in half, you can just prick it several times and bake it whole; extend the time in the oven to an hour.

Using a clean kitchen towel to protect your hands from the heat, nestle the squash in your hand and rake a fork over the inside, separating the spaghetti strands.

Clean out both halves. Toss lightly to ensure separation.

Plate up. I made some little chicken scallopini and a pan sauce of shallots, sage and butter. Drizzle the sauce over the chicken and "spaghetti."

Delish! The squash has a little bit of an strong al dente texture, a crispy, julienned vegetable. But sweet. The baking of the squash draws out the natural sweetness, later enhanced by the butter and sage. Sweet!

Gourd-geous

Spaghetti Squash

I used to grow spaghetti squash, but it's been probably 20 years since I've had it. Tonight was a fun reminder.

Stay tuned for how I prepped it.