Poached Pears

I'm on a roll here, sharing all my dishes! I bought these really cheap pears at Haymarket and I figured they might not be the best pears ever so I wanted to do something safe with them. I also remembered seeing recipes for poached pears that looked really good. So I looked some up, threw some stuff in a pot, and boiled it for a while. I really wasn't sure how it would come out but it was SO GOOD! I ate them on yogurt for dessert and again for breakfast, but next time I want to put them either on ice cream or on pound cake with chocolate sauce.

I used these instructions from David Lebovitz as a guide. In the broth I put white wine, sugar, water, cloves, allspice, and a cinnamon stick. I think I simmered the pears for about 40 minutes, and I added dried cherries near the end. I highly recommend it!

Roasted Cauliflower

Cauliflower is one of those vegetables I always assumed I didn't like, but lately I've discovered it's actually really good! I got one in my CSA last month and I made this really simple roasted cauliflower - you basically just put olive oil and lemon juice on it, roast it in the oven, and then dump lots of parmesan on top!

Apple Bread

The other apple product I made a few times was apple bread. I got the recipe from a friend so I don't know where it came from originally. The recipe makes two loaves but I only have one loaf pan so I halved it each time I made it. I also didn't take a picture and now the apples are gone, so all I have to show is the recipe. It is really good, with chunks of apple in the batter and cinnamon sugar on top!

Combine:
3 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Combine in lg. bowl:
3 eggs
1 c veg oil
2 c sugar
1 T vanilla

Stir flour mixture into wet ingredients.
Fold in 3 c chopped apples.
Pour batter into 2 greased, floured loaf pans.
Combine 2 T sugar and 1 T cinnamon and sprinkle on top as topping.
Bake 60-70 min at 350.

Apple Cake

Fall in New England means apple picking, and every year I end up with more apples than I know what to do with. This year thanks to a groupon we picked a whole bushel, literally, which is two huge bags. So in addition to the usual apple crisps, I looked around for some different apple confections. Smitten Kitchen's apple cake uses 6 apples so making it a couple times definitely helped use up the stash. I put a lot less sugar than it said and it was really good!

Chicken, Lemon, and Dill with Orzo

Fresh off my last post, I was inspired to shared today's dinner with you too. I made Chicken, Lemon, and Dill with Orzo. I made a 3rd of the recipe and it came out pretty good. It looked like the EDF picture, shown here, and tasted fine, but honestly I didn't love it. It was just sorta bland and I think I'm over casseroles for the moment. I want my food separate.

Mushroom & Black Bean Tortilla Casserole

Hi Ladies! I'm back! I've been noticing the resurgence of posts and been meaning to post myself AND I've been trying to cook more - as in trying to cook new recipes more often, rather than just throwing together easy things around the house. I stopped getting EDF back in March, but there are SO many recipes I flagged and never tried. I'm going to try and work my way back through them and I might start my subscription up again, just because I like paging through them for ideas and its SO cheap.

I'm still not in the routine enough to remember to take pictures, but I did make Mushroom & Black Bean Tortilla Casserole last night and it was pretty good! Incredibly easy. I did all of the prep quickly and put it aside. It then just needed to go in the oven for 15 min when we were ready to eat. I also didn't want to make so much so I sorta halved / sorta didn't halve the recipe. I used half the oil, two-thirds the amount of mushrooms, all the beans, a smaller dish, and however much I needed of everything else to make it work. It fed two of us with a smaller third serving leftover.

I'll let you know what I make next!

Squash soup!

It's FALL!!

Tis the season for beautiful soups. Here's the first one (of many) that I will be making this fall. I give you, Alton Brown's Squash Soup.

A few small changes from me:

1. I have no idea what sort of squash I used because in Switzerland, each kind of squash is just called courge. I have identified pattypan, spaghetti and potentially pumpkin, but these slices of "courge" that they sell in the store is still a mystery to me. It was a brilliant orange and baked up beautifully in the oven. It certainly had a sphaghetti squash like stringy consistency (not solid like a Japanese kaboucha or a pumpkin.) Very strange.

2. I used chicken stock that I had made myself. I'm starting to do this more often because a) it's easy and freezes nicely b) chicken stock has a ton of salt and preservatives and c) whole chicken is cheaper and more fun to cook with.

3. I left out the ginger despite having some, and the soup was still great.

I thought this recipe was a good starting place because it's JUST squash and a little cream and butter. Looking forward to seeing what celery, onions, potatoes and other things do to it!