An Autumn Recipe: Stuffed Butternut Squash

Happy weekend, everyone! The weather is wet and misty, made even chillier by gusting winds. It's a grey and homey day, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share a hearty Autumn dish that I cooked last week.

I think butternut sqaush is a fantastic vegetable and I'm really glad that it has gained popularity in the past few years. I first found this recipe while trolling on Pinterest for some low carb/paleo dinners. I'm always looking for a new way to prepare vegetables because I have one very picky husband who has the desire to eat more, but really struggles to do so. He likes sweet potato though, so I had a good feeling that he would like butternut squash, too. And he does.

(photo courtesy of http://www.forever-green.info)

I have made this recipe on a few occasions and have varied it each time. The way I made it this past week is definitely my favourite though.

You will need:
1 large butternut squash
1 large red onion
1 jar of your favourite sauce
1/2lb (about 500g) ground beef
Garlic salt or fresh garlic

Serves 2
Cooking time: 50 minutes

Start out by pre-heating your oven to 200C (about 390F). Slice your butternut squash in half lengthwise, remove and dispose of the seeds with a spoon, and place face down in a casserole dish. Add a little cold water to the dish, about half an inch - this will help keep the squash from burning and blistering. Cook on the middle rack for 30 minutes.

While your squash is baking, in a large frying pan combine 500g (about 1/2 lb) of ground beef, garlic granules and half of a red onion, chopped into thick strips. Once the meat is fully browned, add a jar of your favourite sauce and leave to simmer. I opted for a tomato and bacon sauce that I have used for pasta bakes in the past.

 When your squash is cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes.

Transfer your cooked saucy meat (keep the frying pan handy!) into a large bowl. Scoop out the flesh of your squash, leaving a thin layer so that the skin keeps it's shape. Combine the flesh of the squash to the bowl with beef and stir. Place your squash skins in a clean and dry casserole dish.

Stuff the squash generously with the mixture and place back into the oven for 20 minutes. In the same pan you used to fry the meat, carmelise the other half of your red onion.

When the squash is finished, top with the carmelised onions and serve with your favourite vegetable.

Et voilà! It's filling and warming and tastes wonderful on a crisp night with the fire going in the background! 

Happy eating everyone! xo 

The Most Adorable Devilled Eggs There Ever Were

A few months ago, Mick got me hooked on Pinterest. At the time I was really into a weight loss routine, and found the site really useful for finding healthy recipe ideas, workout routines, and those inspirational pictures. I've, er, slightly veered off that path though, and tend to use Pinterest more for unhealthy recipes and pretty pictures of places in Europe I want to visit. Ages ago, I came across a really cute idea for Devilled Eggs. I repinned and saved it for Easter. We spent the day at Mick's mom and step-dads, so I thought I'd make them up and take them over there.

Let it be said right now that I've never, in my life, made Devilled Eggs. I remember them always being present at family BBQs, wakes and pot lucks, but they always seemed to be brought by someone other than my mother. I think I've found out why now. They're really hard work.

I woke up early on Easter Sunday and got the eggs boiling. By the time the entire ordeal was complete 3 hours later, I was proud to present these little guys to Mick:

 

Oh, my, gosh! I can honestly say, because at this point I don't have children, these little chicks are my proudest accomplishment. I have never ever created anything so adorable in my 26.5 years. I have an extremely creative mind, and as a kid/teenager in art classes I was always really frustrated when I'd come up with a really beautiful idea for a painting/drawing/clay pot. I'd try and try and no matter how much work I did, the result never looked like the image I'd had in my head. This time, I actually got the result I was going for. And they tasted really, really good. Here's the recipe if you want to try them - they're a lot of work, but the reactions you'll get are totally worth it. 

-Use eggs that aren't right-off-the-shelf-fresh: you'll find that eggs that you've had in the kitchen for 5-7 days will peel much easier after they're boiled and cooled. 

-I boiled my eggs for 15 minutes and then sat in a bowl of cold water to chill for another 15

-Peel eggs (enlisting your husband is good for speed, but bad for aesthetic purposes)

-Rather than slicing the eggs from top to bottom, use a sharp knife to slice the egg through the middle, about 1/4 of the way down. You want to just slice through the top half of the yolk. It's a bit trickier to get the yolk out without tearing the egg when you cut it like this, but I used a tiny teaspoon (a baby spoon would work) to loosen the yolk and pop it out into a medium sized bowl. Rinse off the eggs to get any excess shell bets or membrane off. Make sure you keep the eggs matched up and don't get tops and bottoms mixed up. 

-Add a few big globs of mayonnaise to the yolks. I'm not a big fan of measuring and like to go by taste and consistency, so just play with it. I also added some paprika and two tablespoons of sweet onion relish (made by Branston for my English readers), but pickle relish would be just as nice. I just couldn't find it here. Mix it all up with a fork. 

-For the next step, you could use a frosting squeezer type thing (I so know my baking terms), or a sandwich baggie with the corner cut off, but I just used my [clean] hands to form a oval out of the yolk and pop it into the bottom portion of the boiled egg. I had cut some little triangle "beaks" out of carrot and had those waiting, along with a bowl with a few tablespoons of ground pepper. Stick the carrots on for the beak, and use a toothpick with the tip dipped in olive oil to pick up a few flecks of pepper and stick that on for the eyes. 

-Pop the egg top on

-Set on a cute plate with some lettuce garnish to mimick some grass. I opted for a plate with a high edge so the eggs could lean against it. You could try and slice a flat bottom onto the eggs, but I couldn't be bothered.

And there you go, you've got the cutest little Devilled Eggs there ever were.

Bringing Thanksgiving to the Redcoats

What a great, full weekend we had here- visiting friends, attending parties, and for me, lots of cooking! Saturday night I began my cooking for our little belated Thanksgiving which we would hold on Sunday. It's hard to do Thanksgiving on Thursday here, because nobody has time off, obviously, since it isn't celebrated here. But that wasn't going to stop me- we pushed it to Sunday.
I did my two casseroles (sweet potato as well as twice baked potato), put them in the fridge to bake the following day, and left the turkey out to defrost.
When we woke up Sunday morning, hubby and I walked to the store for some last minute ingredients and came back to the house so I could get started on the pumpkin pie. I had ordered pie filling from amazon (not available here!) and got my store-bought crust out of the refrigerator to place in the pie dish. It was square instead of round, so I had to knead it and roll it out to make it fit the pie dish. Took care of it, placed it in the dish- looking good! Pop it in the oven to flash bake. Cool. I decided to check on it after a minute or two only to discover that the crust was slipping down the edges and settling in a pathetic puddle at the bottom of the dish. I freaked out, shouted for Mick, and got all teary. I'm not sure that it was really the crust that got me so upset. More likely it was the fact that I didn't get to have Thanksgiving with my family, didn't want to ruin the pie because it's my favourite part of Thanksgiving, and it was just a hectic morning. Back we went to the store to get more pasty ( 4!) and another pie dish, because the one at the house was shaped weird (straight edges instead of angles), which I thought added to the problem. We rushed home and I started over. It started to do the same thing, but only on one little edge of the crust, so I pulled it out of the oven and patched up the spot with extra pastry (which had been frozen and had to be thawed! Ugh!). Back in the oven to finishing flash bake and out in a few minutes. It looked pretty compromised, but it was holding together. In went the pumpkin mixture to finish baking. It all turned out fine, and tasted just like it should!
This was the only mishap of the day, apart from the store-bought apple pie that didn't want to bake. But that was okay, because we just did our dessert in two stages. Most of my Brits had never had pumpkin pie before, and they all seemed to like it. Even Mick, who had been more skeptical than the rest, said he really enjoyed it. And he is one picky man!
So thanks to my wonderful husband, his mom and step-dad, my sister in law and her boyfriend, I was able to have a Thanksgiving. And they helped make it special.
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend with your families and friends!

Centerpiece

My mom's side of the family always had gherkins and olives out on Thanksgiving. It wouldn't have felt legit without them!

My pie didn't look all that great, but it tasted perfect :)

I think I did Mama proud!

Pretty table

I know this is an awkward picture, but I swear- my husband does know what a camera is. He just hates them.

The turkey!

Truckin' Along...

Hello, all!

Not much to report around here. Mick and I are still house-sitting for his dad. During the day I help with the phones for the business and pretty much take it easy. This is due to what I’m pretty sure is a pinched nerve. I was having really random and harsh stabbing pains in my shoulder due to certain movements. This would then send a tingly, pins and needles type feeling down my right arm and into my fingers. Yesterday the stabbing pain was gone and I was left with a constant muscular ache from always having my shoulder tensed. And a few pins and needles. Today I’m feeling pretty much back to normal- whew! I think sleeping with a hot water bottle two nights in a row helped a bit! And thank goodness, because sleeping on my back was getting old.


Something about being in this village makes my creativity go all aflutter. I’ve been writing, cooking, and taking pictures. I think it’s just because everything is so picturesque.

The weather has been rainy, and every day the trees seem more yellow/orange/red than the day before. I can tell it’s trying to get colder, but the sun isn’t quite ready to go away for the winter. One day it’s in the high 50s, the next, in the mid 60s. One day the sky is blue, the next, grey. I guess that’s what autumn is, though- the gradual change and earth’s time to be a bit fickle about just how it wants to be.

Funny moment of the week-
Mick and I had finished dinner last night and were watching some television. We heard this really weird rubbing/scratching sound coming from downstairs. We'd heard it a couple times throughout the day but it never lasted long enough to figure out what it was. We went downstairs after it had stopped. You should know right now that I married the biggest scaredy cat of all time, though I'm only slightly better. Anyway, we got to the front door and it started again. We looked at each other in half amusement, half terror. I thought I heard a cat meow but we weren't sure. I figured it was probably the cat scratching at the door but it didn't seem to be the right sound. We decided I should text my father-in-law.

Me: Does Sox ever scratch at the front door?
Him: Yes, sometimes when he wants in or out.
Me: Are you sure it's not an axe murderer?
Him: Could be, but he tends to smash through the door.

I've been giggling about that all day.
And yes, we opened the door and Sox came struttin' in.

 I guess I’ll leave you with some pictures, as always!

Wrotham Church. It's old. And Mick used to sing there when he was wee. In the choir. Haha.

Fall colors at the park.

My father-in-law has this tree in his garden that's completely bursting with apples. The branches are really heavy and the weight of the apples is bending them down towards the ground. I've been instructed to use as many of the apples as possible, so we've been feasting on homemade, homegrown cinnamon apples. Yum!

My favorite Halloween movie of all time ever ever ever. And popcorn made on the stove with nothing but kernels, olive oil and a pan. This is new to me, and I'm so excited that I made it all by myself. Silly, I know. But every time I do it I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway when he finally makes fire and puffs his chest out proudly and cries, "Look what I have created! I have made fire! I!!!! (gesticulating madly) Have made fire!!!" It's the little things, you know?

This is Sox, my FIL's (way easier) cat. He's pure evil. But he's cute because he sleeps funny, with all his feet piled on top of each other. I'm not even really sure how it's physically possible, but he does.

Chicken Tortilla Soup with Pita Bread

Soup is good food. And I think it's often under-appreciated. Hearty, warm, filling-- fantastic.

The lack of Mexican/ Tex-Mex food in England is starting to take a toll on me. A couple weeks ago I made soft tacos for dinner and last night I made Chicken Tortilla Soup. I know this isn't authentic Mexican food, but the flavors and influences are there and I miss them.
So- here's what I did. Again, pretty much all made up in my head. Or, going with the theme, my cabeza.

What you'll need:
3 cans of cream of tomato soup
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 packet taco seasoning
Cumin
1 Cup rice
2-3 diced chicken breasts
1/2- 1 onion
Mozarella Cheese (grated)
Tortilla Chips

Preheat oven to 350F (180C)
In a large saucepan, empty 3 cans of tomato or cream of tomato soup. Add about a pint of vegetable stock (you can use canned, I use granules and boiling water). This helps thin out the tomato soup a bit. Heat on a medium flame. Add in a generous helping of cumin. Then, empty a packet of your average taco meat seasoning. The only one I've been able to find here is Old El Paso, but Mission or Taco Bell would even work, whatever you can find in the store. Mix in well. Add two cans of diced tomatoes.

While that is heating (try not to let it come to a boil and keep stirring), prepare about 1 cup of dry rice in another pan. I used a bit more than a cup for three people and had a bit left over, it's up to you. If you have a steamer, you can use that as well. Let that set up and set to one side.

Check on the soup mixture. Taste it and add more cumin if you want, possibly a bit of paprika.

Pop your pita bread in the oven, directly on the rack. Keep checking on it so it doesn't get too crispy or burnt. I did one pita for each person.

I bought pre-cut chicken breasts, but you can buy your own breasts if you want and slice them up yourself. Make sure they're in about 1 inch cubes or smaller. Fry them in a pan with diced onion. Mick is my designated onion dicer because my makeup gets everyyyyyywhere if I try to dice an onion. PAINFUL. Let the chicken cook fully and set to one side.

Make sure your soup mixture is good and hot.

Spoon a glob (however much you want) of rice into the bottom of a large soup bowl. Set the chicken in the bowl is well (I divided the amount evenly amongst the three bowls). Ladle the soup mixture on top and fill up the bowl. Break up a handful of tortilla chips and sprinkle over the bowl. Sprinkle a generous amount of shredded mozarella and enjoy! Oh, and don't forget about your pita bread!!!

And! I remembered to take a picture of the finished product!

Tonight is steak fajitas and nachos. Woooot!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Okay, time for another recipe! I tried this one last week and I thought it was pretty darn good. Stuffed Bell Peppers! It's taken most of my life for me to learn to appreciate the bell pepper. The crunchiness, the bitter flavor of the green or the sweet flavor or yellow and orange, the earthy red. I think my favorite thing about them is how much color they can add to the most plain and simple dishes.

I mostly made this recipe up as I went, but I did look a few things up online (temperatures and cooking times, etc.)

Preheat oven to 350F or 180C.
Here's how we start-- Wash and slice the top of your peppers (4-5 peppers) off and set to one side- save these! Remove the membrane and seeds from the inside of your peppers as best you can. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and using a slotted spoon, add your peppers. Let them sit in the boiling water for about 3-5 minutes, just long enough to soften them. While these are boiling, fill a glass baking dish with about 1/8 inch of water. Remove your peppers from the pot and let them sit in the cold water. You will cook them in the water at the end. While those cool down, get started on your filling... Start by using the tops of your peppers that you set to one side. Cut around the stem and chop up as much as you can salvage. You can also use an extra pepper if you have one handy- I didn't. Also dice an onion and a tomato.
Brown 1 pound of ground beef in a pan. Add your chopped peppers, onion and tomato. Add about 1 tablespoon of cumin, as well as 1 teaspoon of paprika. I love adding garlic salt to just about everything I cook, so I added that as well. Cook all of this until your veggies are soft and your meat is done. Using a spoon, fill up your peppers with the meat mixture and pop in the oven at 350f (180C) for about 15 minutes. Remove the peppers and add a sun dried tomato to each, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Pop back in the oven for 5 more minutes, then ready to serve.

I served mine with couscous, though some people actually use rice or couscous with the meat mixture. I'm going to try this next time.

I'm also going to really start trying to remember to take pictures of the finished product for you. I always think of this as Mick is coming into the kitchen and grabbing his plate, but he never has his phone on him and I never use mine in the kitchen. And he's always too hungry to find his phone and snap a photo for me. Tonight is Chicken Tortilla Soup with Pita Bread, which I'll chronicle tomorrow WITH A PICTURE!

Happy eats!

Epic Pork Chops

Another recipe for you! Tried this one out and it was to die for. Mick is tired of hearing me talk about how proud I am of myself for making it but boo! It was Epic, and that's what we're going to call it. Epic Pork Chops. In fact, if the pig we got the chops from knew how tasty he would be post-mortem, he'd have walked around looking pleased with himself. Something like this

So, here goes.
Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Place your pork chops into a glass rectangular dish. Dissolve a beef stock cube in one cup of boiling water, add 1/8 cup of Worcestershire sauce, and about 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar. Stir it all up until the cube is dissolved. Pour over the pork in the glass dish. Let it sit for a few minutes while you slice up some mushrooms. As many or few as you like (I like lots!) and whatever kind you like. Toss in a pan of hot butter (about 1/3 of a stick). Add garlic cloves or garlic salt and marjoram. Dice up an onion and throw that in as well. When the onions have sufficiently sweated and the mushrooms have shrunk to about half their size, pour the mixture over the pork and stock. Pop in the oven for 45 minutes. I served it with rice and carrots and runner beans.
The best thing about this is that the chops were really tender and really juicy. I don't usually go nuts over pork chops because they're often dry and tough, but these are amazing!

Something I'm Good at

I was raised by women who were amazing cooks. First of all, my mom. We always had wholesome, filling dinners growing up and mom worked really hard. Of course there was the one night a week when dealing with three kids and a husband working away from home would just make her too tired, and so we'd have pizza. Mom makes amazing meatloaf, spaghetti, roast beef and pork, all kinds of great stuff. There was also my Grandma Flo (mom's mom). I will never, ever forget the sweet tartness of her lemon meringue pies. And my Grandma Helen (dad's mom) does fantastic cookies, beautiful turkeys and stuffings. And there's Peggy, a dear family friend who is more like an aunt than anything. Peggy is gifted. Her apple pies (often made from her own apple trees!) are to die for and were even featured in her local newspaper.

Growing up around all of this, I hoped that I'd pick something up, and I seem to have gotten lucky. I'm still learning, but I must be doing something right, because my soon-to-be mother in law asked me a couple weeks ago if I'd do the cooking in the evenings. It works out well for now, because Mick is busy working all day, and so is she. While I keep myself busy during the day (exercise and little chores, wedding planning, writing, etc) it just makes sense that I would do the cooking.

I always hate on cooking shows when people say "Oh, I don't follow recipes, I just cook by FEELING." I think it sounds so cheesy, but to be honest, I think that's how I cook. I get ideas from my favorite show of all time ever, Come Dine With Me, and from things my mom made growing up, and just from my imagination. Now, I know a lot of my friends who read this are either working or stay at home moms who have A LOT to do and can't really find the time to plan out a new menu for every night. That's why I thought I'd share some of the really simple but yummy dishes I've been making.

Stuffed Chicken Breast
This one is my favorite, and I keep adding on it. The first time I made it, I slit a pocket down the side of each chicken breast and stuffed it with little chunks of cheese (I prefer camembert or brie, but any soft, sticky cheese like these will do. I find that if you use a smoother cheese like cheddar or mozarella, that it runs out of the chicken breast while in the oven). Then I get a little block of chicken stock (Knorr works well) and put it in a small bowl and pour just a tad of boiling water over it. Let's say 1/4 cup- just enough to dissolve it. I then add some garlic salt and Italian seasoning to the mixture and mix it up. Then I place the chicken on some foil on a pan, drizzle the Knorr mixture over the top of each breast, making sure to stick some in the cheese pouch. I bake them at 400F for 20-30 minutes and they are realllly good and moist. The second time I made them I added a few little leafs of spinach into the pocket with the cheese. Next time I'm going to add sun dried tomatoes. Very yummy!

Shepherd's Pie

I guess technically it's Cottage Pie (Cottage Pie=ground beef, Shepherd's Pie=ground lamb). But either way, it's really easy and really good and filling. Fry about 1lb of lean ground beef in a skillet. Add pepper and any other seasonings you like to flavor your meat. Fry until cooked all the way through and drain off the fatty juices. You will also need mashed potatoes- instant work great, but home made are always better. It's up to you. Either way, prepare your mashed potatoes and get some peas and carrots to boil for a few minutes. Next, you layer it all up. Meat goes on the bottom of a large glass dish. I like to sprinkle some cheese over the meet- this isn't traditional in English cooking, but I find it helps the whole mixture to stick together. Next I layer in the carrots and peas, and finally the mashed potato. You can sprinkle some peas or add carrots to the top to make it pretty if you like. Put it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 375F to melt the cheese and get it nice and gooey.

Asian Chicken

This one was kind of a mistake- I had planned to do it with salmon but the little shop around the corner was out so I resorted to chicken breast. Fill a glass dish with about half a bottle of soy sauce and place the chicken in it to marinate for as long as possible. A couple hours is okay, but I'd put the chicken in the dish and place it in the fridge first thing in the morning if I were you. Also, sprinkle some ground ginger on the breasts (of you can cut up fresh ginger root and toss it in the soy sauce, if you like) Next- carrots. Slice about 4 carrots really thin and put them in another dish with as much soy sauce as you think necessary. Sprinkle more ground ginger in. Stir the carrots a few times. They only need about 2 hours in the marinade as they absorb the soy sauce much more quickly. When the chicken is done marinating, place each breast on a separate sheet of tin foil large enough to wrap the breast in. Place a serving of the carrots on top of the chicken and make a pouch out of the foil. Wrap it all up and place the breasts on a baking tray. Bake at 400F for 20-30 minutes. Unwrap and serve. I served this with rice.

No Sauce Sausage Pasta
This is a great light pasta option. It's not heavy with sauce, very yummy! Slice 4 herb (or spicy, if you're so inclined) sausages into circles and place in a pan to cook in olive oil. Throw in sliced mushrooms, tomatoes, and plenty of basil. I also like to throw in a yellow or orange pepper for color and flavor. Fry it all up until the sausage is cooked through. Boil up your favorite pasta and serve the sausage mixture over it with some olive oil. Voila!

Try some of these out and let me know how they work for you. I'll be sure to share more. Tonight is mushroom and sprout stir fry with noodles and diced steak!

Today I ordered the party favors. Mick and I did our Intent to Marry thing on Tuesday. We took the train to Crawley, the closest registered office (because I'm a furrrrnerrr we had to go to a special kind of office to do it all). I thought we'd just sign some papers and they'd post them on the wall, but in fact it was a bit more official than that. The lady greeted us and took our documents (Mick’s passport and a letter from his bank just to show the address he lives at is the same as mine, my passport containing my visa, and a letter from Mick’s mom saying I’ve lived with them for over a month and one from Mick, too) and went into her office. Then she called me back into her office and talked to me while Mick stayed in the waiting room. She quizzed me on my own information- full name, date of birth, occupation. Then the same stuff about Mick. Then she dismissed me and called Mick in to do the same. Then I was allowed in. We signed the papers, and were excused. She will post the paperwork to us after it has been visibily posted in the office for 16 days. Once everyone is sufficiently satisfied that we’re not previously married, related, or sworn to celibacy (hehe) we can get married. And, just so you know, we are none of those things.

We found a wedding photographer for a really decent price. We will be meeting up with her in a couple weeks when we are back in Kent. Woot!

The rabbit’s run came yesterday. We set it up in the grass and let them run around for a couple hours. They were exhausted when we brought them back in. They were literally just running around in circles and jumping all over the place. We wanted to let them out again today, but it’s been dreary and rainy all day. Hopefully we can let them out tomorrow and I will take pictures.

Okay, that’s all for now. Hope everyone is well!