Butternut Squash Crumble

I found this recipe on Boston.com, and decided yesterday's rainy, windy night would be the perfect time to try it. I am a squash fiend, so I was very excited to try this recipe. It's like an apple crumble you might make, except savory.

You can view the recipe here:

Yes, it does have a good deal of parmesan cheese and butter. The recipe came out great, although I would not call it light. It was very filling in the belly. I took a shortcut and used already cut up butternut squash. I found it well worth the extra money. My only other critique was that I didn't mix the crumb topping as well as I could have, so I ended up with some spots that had a sand-like consistency.

I am eating it now for lunch, and I can attest that it does well as leftovers!

Dried Fruit Pork Chops

A little late but I wanted to post this. We've been cooking a bunch lately but mainly just making the rounds through the recipes we already know and love. My recipe repertoire has expanded so much since we started GastroFabulous, it's really amazing!

Anyways, we had a nice Valentine's day with my mom and Oscar (the dog) and we made these pork chops with a nice red (seasonal) sauce of red wine with dried cherries, cranberries, plums, etc. It came out too salty though, I think the result of the chicken stock plus the added salt. Next time I wouldn't add any more. Other than that, it was pretty good, and easy.

Alfajores

Today I made these alfajores, apparently an Argentinian cookie. I had never heard of them but they have dulce de leche which I've always loved. I started yesterday, I made the dough and attempt #1 of the dulce de leche. The cookie dough seemed too crumbly so I added extra butter which helped only a little. The dulce de leche I completely botched - burned it and made a huge mess. So, day 1 was not a success.

But the next day I kept at it. I tried to roll out the dough like the instructions say but it was not happening - way too crumbly. Instead I just shaped it into patties by hand, and that actually worked fine. The baking instructions worked perfectly. I bought a new can of sweetened condensed milk and tried the dulce de leche again. This time I kept a close eye on it and it came out fine. Not great I think - I've had it darker and more flavorful - but still good. I made dulce de leche one other time but I can't remember how it was. So, day 2 - things are looking up!

Finally I paired up the same-sized cookies, spread the dulce de leche, and sandwiched them together. They are quite tasty! But, when they sit there the dulce de leche kind of oozes out and gets messy. I'm bringing them to a friend's house later and I think it'll be quite sticky by then. But, they taste good, so overall a success.