Easy Delicious Winter Squash

Winter squash season is fast coming to a close. We have been having warm weather and I am thinking more about planting winter squash, than fixing it. I think I will save the space in my garden and enjoy the many types of delicious winter squash that will show up in our Farmers Market this coming fall.
However I recently made this easy & tasty version of winter squash; which I wanted to share with the C&R gals. It is a change from the standard brown sugar & butter version I've always made. The recipe features thyme & garlic, two of the best friends a veggie can have.

Here is all you do:
Cut winter squash into serving size pieces; drizzle each with olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Drizzle a baking dish with more olive oil. Make small piles of fresh thyme springs and peeled whole garlic cloves and place a squash piece upside down on each pile. Bake until tender in a 350 degree oven, (about 45 minutes.)
Serve right-side-up with the thyme & garlic on top. You will be surprised at how much the flavors blend.

With that I say "so long" to winter cooking and roll out the Bar-B-Que!

The Cuisine of Ecuador Comes Home

Installment #1 - POTATO SOUP (LOCRO)

One of the tastiest and most common traditional

foods that I enjoyed in Ecuador was potato soup.

I already knew that potatoes originated in South

America, but have since learned that they came

specifically from the highlands of Ecuador and Peru.

In my quest to recreate foods of Ecuador I did

some exploring on the web. The best site I found

was:

http://www.recipehound.com/Recipes/ecuador.html

Here is my adaption of the Potato Soup (Locro)

recipe from this site.

4 tablespoons butter or oil

1 1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 medium onion, finely chopped

4 cups water

3 pounds potatoes, chopped into small cubes

2 cups milk (You can use any milk substitute)

1/2 pound munster cheese, grated

Avocado wedges

tomato, skin removed and quartered

salt & pepper

In a large, heavy saucepan melt the butter and stir

in the paprika. Add the onion and saute over

moderate heat until the onion is softened. Pour

in water and add potatoes. Bring to a boil and

then lower to a simmer. Cook over low heat,

uncovered, stirring occasionally. When the

potatoes are almost done, add the milk and continue

to cook, stirring more regularly, until the potatoes

begin to disintegrate. You may now want to use a

heat defuser. At this point you can decide to blend

the soup (Great use for that awesome hand-held

blender!) or leave the potatoes chunky. Season

to taste with salt & pepper and serve immediately.

Place an avocado wedge and a tomato quarter

into each bowl of soup. Sprinkle on grated cheese

or serve it on the side. ENJOY!

Additions to my previous post:

1) All cafe' con leche in Ecuador is served with heated

milk. It is wonderful, and even without a microwave

I have been heating the milk for my coffee most

mornings since I returned home.

2) I forgot to mention our second dinner in Quito. That

night we ate at our hotel, Rio de Amazones. The hotel

had two restaurants, one quite posh and the other an

Ecuadorian Denny's (actually called La Canoa.) This

is where we had supper after our trip to the cloud

forest. Again I went for "traditional food", so I had the

goat stew (seco de chivo.) The quality of the food at

this place was a cut below anywhere else we ate, but

this stew was quite good. I have seen seco de chivo

recipes on line, so now I just need to find a source

for goat meat.

Carmelized Onion & Mushroom Za

The term Za annoys me to the max...I just couldn't resist.
Since meeting and marrying Andrew I have slowly but steadily been implementing a systematic desensitization program to mushrooms and onions.
I can say that I've been completely successful with onions. While he won't order french onion soup, he'd probably eat it if I made it, and he eats onions in any form with impunity. Mushrooms have been less successful, in part because while I enjoy mushrooms, I rarely cook with them.
Last night the tide has turned. I made this dish...persuaded Andrew to try it with the mushrooms (I chopped them big so he had the option of taking them off) and he said, "I'm glad you convinced me to leave the mushrooms on." He didn't bat an eye at the slurry of onion that coated the pizza - like I said, onions have been conquered.

Here's the recipe:
One recipe for thin crust pizza dough from Red Plaid or Bittman (same recipe, I think) with 2 Tbs sugar added.
Follow recipe for thin crust - Red Plaid is quicker b/c it has less rising time, but if you have time, rising improves dough. Bittman has loads of pizza info
Rub crust with olive oil, bake crust half way, and then add:
- 1 Recipe of Bittman's Caramelized Onion
(caramelized as long as possible to make Onion Jam - one very large red onion worked great and I added a splash of apple cider vinegar and 1 tbs brown sugar 1/2 way through cooking)
- 1 recipe of Bittman's sauteed shitake mushrooms (sauteed with olive oil, garlic and parsley)
- 1 package of hot cooked Capicolla (prosciutto would work just fine)

Bake for remaining time, keeping an eye on things. Meat should start to crisp, but nothing should burn.
Once out of the oven, immediately shave large (quarter size) pieces of Parmesan cheese over pizza with a carrot peeler. (For really melted cheese you can do this when you add everything else.)
Serve up and enjoy!

Graham Crackers & Mojito Pie

Imagine Lemon Meringue Pie. Now substitute lime juice for the lemon juice in the filling and replace 1/4 cup of the water in the filling with rum. Cook several sprigs of mint in the filling as well.

Ali & I had the idea for making a mojito pie. You can see from the photo that this pie was actually made.

We felt that our creation should have a graham cracker crust; and we didn't want to go out to buy soy free graham crackers, so we decided to make our own.

Exploring on the web we found a delicious recipe for perfect graham crackers. It turns out that graham flour is just whole wheat flour, although a slightly coarser grind. These crackers tasted so much like the real thing and were fun to make. Thank you to 123chef for posting this recipe on the website Chef Talk.com (forum.) Here is the recipe with a few modifications from us.

Home Made Graham Crackers

(makes enough for 2 pie crusts, or one crust and lots of delicious munching)

2 1/2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup (4.5 ounces) graham flour (whole wheat)

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon (2 ounces) brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3 ounces unsalted butter (or palm oil shortening)

1/2 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup water

1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all the ingredients in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Mix until smooth and well combined, scraping down the bowl. This makes a very easy to handle, non sticky dough. Divide dough in half.

Pat out one portion of dough on a piece of parchment, to the size of a large, thick pancakes.

Lay another piece of parchment over the dough and roll it out with a rolling pin, until about 1/8-inch thick. (I think ours were a bit thicker, but baked up fine.)

Peel off the top parchment and transfer the bottom parchment with dough onto a baking sheet. Cut dough into squares with a knife or pizza cutter. Do not separate squares.

Bake for about 10 minutes and then check the cracker for doneness, bake for another 3-6 minutes. The crackers should be golden brown. Repeat with other portion of dough.

Place baking sheet on a cooling rack. Once cool, the graham cracker can be broken into squares, or crushed into crumbs for pie crust.

Eating My Way Through Ecuador

FIRST STOP QUAYAQUIL

Well, this is it! My very first post to a blog. Since food was such an amazing part of my trip (March 29 to April 10, 2010) to Ecuador and the Galapagos, it seemed like a good subject to begin with.

Above you see the lunch we had at the Hostel Macaw in Guayaquil, on our first full day in Ecuador. I loved how many different vegetables we had.

We had some good beer as well! This Pilsner brand of beer (made in Ecuador & the only kind we were ever served) was really quite tasty in spite of its light color.

That evening, still in Guayaquil, we had our "Welcome Dinner" at "Lo Nuestro, Cafe y Restaurante." There was a wide selection of traditional Ecuadorian food, a wonderful atmosphere and my meal was DELICIOUS! I had pork chops in tamarind sauce (now there's something I should try and find a recipe for!) The pork chops were sliced very thin and the meat melted in my mouth. Needless to say the flavor of the tamarind came through loud and clear.

At the end of the meal we were serenaded by two wonderful guitar players and this incredibly "Evita-esque" singer with an amazing voice.

NOW ON TO THE GALAPAGOS!

On Wednesday morning, 3/31, we flew to the tiny island of Baltra in the Galapagos. The airport is here because this is where the US military built it during WWII. After getting our official paperwork to become certified visitors to Parque Nacional Galapagos Ecuador, we took a 2 minute bus ride to the harbor, were picked up by a "panga" (zodiac) and motored out to our home for the week - Yate' Daphne.

The panga always "docks" at the stern of Daphne. After taking off our shoes and stowing them in the cubbies, we stepped up about 4 steps and we're in the dining room! On this first time aboard we were met by Romero (barman/busboy) and cold glasses of iced tea (sans ice.)

After getting assigned our cabins and washing up we had lunch! (our second lunch of the day because they also fed us on our flight over from the mainland.) My journal only says that the meal was excellent, that it was the size of a dinner and that there was flan for dessert (not as good as Suzi's, but yummy.) I do think we actually had lasagna.

I did not have a single bad meal aboard Daphne. My only disappointment was that I had the stomach flu and missed one dinner and one breakfast. Here are some food photos from the Daphne:

The dining room

Our cook, Chico!

Every lunch started with soup

Romero sets out lunch

Getting our breakfast

A small lunch when I'm getting over the stomach flu

Our Farewell cocktail, a Caipirinha

Our last night's dinner

The farewell desert

Just in case you thought that the only ones eating in the Galapagos were the lucky folks on the Daphne, here are some of the locals chowing down!

Land Iguana rolling a cactus fruit to get rid of the spines in preparation for eating

Not so little sea lion getting lunch!

A BIG baby Darwin finch gets a snack

FINAL STOP QUITO

It was hard to say good-bye to the Galapagos,

a truly MAGICAL place. However, to ease our

transition we had three nights in Quito, the

Capital of Ecuador. The first night we went

to a restaurant near our hotel that featured

Ecuadorian cuisine. One dish our guide

had told us about was "cuy" or Guinea Pig.

I realize this may seem gross, but "when in

Rome." I did order the Cuy, but my mistake

was to get the fried rather than the roasted.

Suffice it to say that I have eaten

"Kentucky Fried Guinea Pig" - ick!

Probably my favorite meal of the whole trip

was a lunch we had on our visit to the cloud

forest. This is a high elevation rain forest

about two hours from Quito. Not only did

we walk through some amazing forest, see

stunning flowers and beautiful hummingbirds

(ten species in all) but we had this delicious

lunch.

This is rainbow trout from a local trout farm.

One of the best pieces of trout I have ever

had (and I've had my share!)

Ice cream for dessert! (yep, always dessert)

The hummers had plenty to eat as well!

On our final full day in Ecuador we took a tour

of the old city in Quito and went to visit the

equator. This was another day of two dinners,

one at lunch and one in the evening!

Here are the photos of our lunch at a lovely

restaurant at the equator:

As always, the starter of plantain chips,

popcorn & roasted corn. This time lupine

seeds as well!

Empanadas

Potato soup

And then...the main course!

That night we had our farewell dinner at

another very nice restaurant:

Since we had such a substantial lunch, I went with a light supper of fish.

However I did start out with some shrimp ceviche' that was killer!

Again we had amazing musicians at our table.

The next morning we flew back home.

So many things about this trip were amazing, and the food was right up there!

Adios mis amigas! Next installment, my

adventures with Ecuadorian cooking here at

home.

Rose Window Easter Almond Citrus Cake

I found this recipe on the back of some "Sugar Zulka" found in the baking section of our local market.  We've been enjoying it in coffee and tea too.
This was one of our desserts at Easter - hence the name Easter cake.
I made a few modifications, but everyone who likes almond agreed that it was tasty and my brother-in-law, the former chef, said it is the best dessert he's had in months!

I'll type the original recipe & put my modifications in parentheses.

- 1/2 C All-Purpose Flour
- 1 t Baking Powder
- 12 T Unsalted Butter
- 3/4 C Sugar Zulka (I used their product, but I think any course sugar in the raw would work)
- 12 T Almond Paste (I just used a tube...It may be a little less than 12 T)
- Grated Zest of 1 Orange
- Grated Zest of 1 Lemon
- 1/2 t Almond Extract
- 1 t Kirsh (I used Grand Marnier instead - hence the name "Almond Citrus Cake.  Lemon or orange extract would probably work too.)
- 1 t Vanilla Extract
- 5 Eggs

Topping:
- 2 T Apricot Jam (I used a little more than this.)
- 1 T Water (Why use water when you can use Bourbon?  I used Bourbon, enough to make the ratio work)
- 1/4 C Toasted Sliced Almonds (I didn't do this b/c I desperately wanted to use my lattice cutter that I purchased with April's birthday King Arthur's Gift Certificate.  I rolled out marzipan and cut it out and laid it on top of the jam/bourbon combo, with a rather gorgeous effect, if I do say so myself. Hence the Rose Window part of the name.)

Preheat oven to 325 F
Butter a 9" round cake pan & line with parchment paper (I forget the parchment paper, but it would have been cleaner if I had.)

Sift flour and baking powder together and set aside, Cream butter & sugar on medium, scraping down the sides of the bowl, until light & fluffy (3-4 minutes).
Add almond paste, zests, almond extract, kirsch (or whatever) & vanilla.  Beat until light & fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl (2-3 minutes.)  Add eggs and beat until smooth and lump free.  (The original recipe doesn't mention adding the flour mix, but I added it here and beat until smooth and lump free.)

The pan will be very full, but shouldn't run over.  Bake until cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick comes out clean 40-50 minutes (50 for me)

Transfer the cake pan to a wire rack and cool for 1 hour.  Turn the cake onto plate, brush with the jam mixture (I heated mine in the microwave) and sprinkle with toasted almonds (I skipped this in favor of my marzipan topping.)