Winter Squash Stuffed with Wild Rice, Kale, and Yumm! Sauce

This week's meal uses the Sunshine squash from last week's CSA. I thought it would be fun to experiment and see how Yumm! Sauce and winter squash would go together. As I expected, they go together quite nicely. If you've been reading this blog for awhile you know this girl likes her Yumm! (See examples of my obsession here, here, and here).

For this recipe, I baked the squash until tender, then scooped out the flesh and tossed it together with a mixture of cooked wild rice and sauteed veggies (kale, red bell pepper, shallot). I mixed in a generous portion of Yumm! Sauce, then stuffed this mixture back into the shell of the squash and baked it a little longer. Before serving I drizzled on a bit more sauce. Filling and delicious!

CSA Week 22:

In the box: 1 lettuce, 1.5 pounds Sweet Girl tomatoes, 1 head cauliflower, 1 1/4 pounds broccoli, 1 Delicata squash, 1 bunch kale, 1 bunch fresh ginger, 1 pound grapes.

It's great having friends who hunt and are generous enough to share a small piece of their bounty with us. A friend from work gave us a couple packages of elk and venison steaks, and another friend brought over some venison from recent hunting trip and together we made Jacques Pepin's recipe for venison steaks in sweet-sour sauce. The sauce went perfectly with the steak. The recipe called for current or raspberry jam, but we substituted apricot because that's what we had. To go with, I roasted some miscellaneous veggies (one potato from a previous week's CSA, a couple remaining carrots from last week, and the broccoli from this week).

Tomatoes: we wanted to make that tart again, but they were starting to get pretty ripe and it didn't look like I would have time to fit it in, so I roasted and froze them for later. Looking forward to lots of pasta topped with chunky tomato sauce for dinner this winter.

The lettuce was used for side salads for lunch and dinner. Grapes for snacks.

We used up a whole mess of CSA veggies in one night with these two delicious dishes: Red Lentils and Kale with Coconut, Ginger, and Crispy shallots and Curried Skillet Cauliflower with Cilantro. I love recipes where I can just tick off the ingredients I want to use up right in the title. Both of these dishes were really good, you should check them out. I'm a little picky when it comes to cauliflower, so it's a good sign when I recommend a recipe that uses it.

Winter Squash Stuffed with Wild Rice, Kale, and Yumm! Sauce
serves 2-4

Note: I chose a squash that looked like a small pumpkin so I only sliced off the very top to make a deep bowl and stuffed the squash that way. But if you have other shapes of squash it would work just as well to slice them in half lengthwise and fill them - it will be more open but just as delicious.

1 large (or a few small) winter squash (such as Sunshine, Delicata, Acorn, Butternut, etc.)
1 cup uncooked wild rice (or brown or white or whatever you have)
2 tablespoons grapeseed or canola oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch kale, chopped
1/2 cup Cafe Yumm! Sauce, more or less to taste, plus more for drizzling.

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Depending on you and your squash, you can either slice the top off and scoop out the seeds and stringy flesh before baking, or bake it whole and do that step after it's tender. The first way is a little more difficult since you are trying to cut something that is very hard, but the second way involves working with a hot squash. Either way, place it in a baking dish and bake until tender and a fork pierces the skin easily, which could be 30 minutes, or it could be an hour, depending on the size of your squash.

Meanwhile, cook the rice according to package directions, which is probably something like 2 1/2 cups water or broth, plus 1 tablespoon oil or butter (optional), brought to a boil and then simmered, covered, for about 30 minutes.

In a large nonstick skillet, saute the shallot in the oil for a minute or so, then add the bell pepper and garlic. After about 5 minutes, add the kale, and cook until wilted. Add to the pot with the rice. Don't bother mixing it together, you are just moving it for now so you can use the skillet in the next step.

When the squash is tender, remove from the oven and let sit until cool enough to handle. If you haven't already, slice off the top of the squash (or slice in half lengthwise if using an oval-shaped squash), and scoop out the seeds and stringy flesh. Once you've done that, scoop out most of the remaining flesh, without compromising the stability of the shell, and place it in the skillet. Add a bit of oil and saute for a few minutes, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Add the rest of the veggies and rice to the skillet and toss to combine. Add a heaping portion of Yumm! Sauce (I did about 1/2 cup). Season with salt and pepper.

Scoop the rice mixture into the squash shell(s), packing it down and overflowing over the top a bit. Bake for about 20 more minutes.

Just before serving, drizzle with more Yumm! Sauce.

Tomato and Tapenade Tarts

These were fun little tarts to make with the late-season tomatoes we've been getting in our CSA. The ones in the box this week were so tiny and cute I thought they would be perfect for this.

Just cut puff pastry dough into rounds, spread on a thin layer of olive tapenade, and place a pile of tomatoes on top (cherries or small regular). As you do all this you leave a border around the edge, which puffs up when you bake it to create a rim around the tomatoes. Then you dot it with a little more tapenade and a dollop of marscapone cheese and bake it for a little longer, until the creamy cheese has melted into a delicious sauce spreading out over the tart. Yum!

Joe said he would have liked it with or without the cheese, and the more tapenade for him, the better. I personally liked how the creamy flavor of the cheese complimented the salty olive tapenade.

These can be made into small or large tarts. Ours were pretty good sized, kind of like a personal pan pizza. We also made roasted delicata squash in the shell, topped with butter and brown sugar. I ended up eating only half of my tart, and the other half reheated very well and made a great lunch the next day.

CSA Week 21:

In the box: 1 lettuce, 2 pounds Sweet Girl tomatoes, 1 bunch French Breakfast Radishes, 2 pounds carrots, 1 leek, 1 1/4 pounds broccoli, 2 pounds red potatoes, 1 Sunshine squash, 4 Sweet Italian peppers, 2 pounds Liberty apples

The lettuce made great salads all week to go with dinner or lunches. Some of the tomatoes and carrots were used as toppings. We haven't had salad greens for a few weeks so it was a nice change of pace.

We ate the radishes with hummus (found some great single serving packages at Costco - very handy to take to work AND the hummus is actually quite tasty).

I stir-fried the red peppers, broccoli, and some of the carrots to go with potstickers (another great Costco buy). Super easy meal. 

Joe saw the leek in the box and immediately claimed it to make one of our favorite fall/winter meals: baked sweet potatoes with leeks and Gorgonzola (actually, the cheese I bought this time was a local one called "Oregonzola", haha).

I used the Liberty apples to finally make a batch of apple butter this year. I had been trying to make time to do it for weeks. I used the recipe from Canning for a New Generation. I love the flavor and texture of this batch compared to the one I made last year. The only disappointing thing is that even though I doubled the recipe (and thus making an already time consuming task even more so) for some reason I was only able to fill six half pint jars instead of twelve like I was expecting. I must have let it cook for too long at some point in the process so it reduced way too much. The directions in general were a little vague for me, a person who gets so freaking paranoid when it comes to preserving food that half the time I just scare myself out of doing it altogether. It sucks because I was hoping to have enough to give it to friends and family for the holidays. I don't know if I will have time to make another batch. Pity party for me. :-(

We didn't get to the Sunshine squash yet. They last a long time so I wanted to focus on using up the produce that would spoil sooner.

Tomato and Tapenade Tarts
adapted from Best Ever Three and Four Ingredient Meals
serves 2-4

Notes: I bet this would also be good with basil pesto in place of the tapenade. Feta instead of marscapone would be good too, though it wouldn't be as creamy when it melts.

1 package puff pastry, thawed if frozen (I used Pepperidge Farm brand, one package was 1.1 pounds)
1/4 cup black or green olive tapenade
1 1/4 pound small or cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Light oil a large baking sheet and sprinkle it with water.

Lightly flour a clean counter top and roll out the puff pastry. Cut out rounds of dough, using a bowl or plate as a guide. I found it was easiest to make two tarts using an 8-inch plate as my guide. The original recipe suggests making four 6 1/2 inch rounds, but their package of puff pastry was larger than mine (1 1/4 pounds, or 500 grams). I am not experienced enough with puff pastry to know if it would work to take the extra scraps and just form them into another tart.

Transfer the pastry rounds to the prepared baking sheet. Using the tip of a knife, mark a shallow cut 1/2 an inch in from the edge of each pastry round to form a rim (Basically you are drawing a smaller circle inside the round that will mark the area you will place the filling. The border will puff up as the tart bakes).

Reserve half of the tapenade for a later step. Divide the rest evenly among your tarts and spread it out into a thin layer, staying inside the marked rim.

Slice about half of the tomatoes in half or quarters, depending on how large they are. Cherry tomatoes just need to be sliced in half. Pile all the tomatoes, whole and halved, on the pastry, again keeping them inside the marked border. Season with salt.

Bake for about 20 minutes. The pastry should be well risen and golden. Divide the remaining tapenade among the tarts, doting it randomly over the tomatoes, Spoon a dollop of mascarpone onto the center. Season with freshly ground black pepper. Bake for another 10 minutes, until the mascarpone has melted into a sauce.

Serve warm. 

Gorgonzola Ravioli with Hazelnut Cream Sauce and Radicchio

I had a coupon for this good brand of ravioli so I picked up a package to try. While I've made my own ravioli before, convenience foods are nice sometimes too. I wanted to make some sort of sauce to go with it. After floating the idea of a Gorgonzola cream sauce, I realized that might be too much cheese. I decided liked the idea of a hazelnut cream sauce, so I went with that. The bitter radicchio and the creamy pasta and sauce make a great combination.

This was very quick to make and we loved it! I was meeting a friend for Zumba later that evening and I was able to cook, photograph, and eat with time to spare before I had to leave.

CSA Week 20:

In the box: 1 radicchio, 2 pounds Sweet Girl tomatoes, 2 pounds carrots, 1 bunch beets, 1 pound yellow onions, 2 pounds Sierra Rose potatoes, 1 Delicata squash, 2 Sweet Italian peppers, 1 pound Canadice grapes, 2 pounds Winter Banana apples

One night we made a simple pasta dish - a recipe that Joe found somewhere on the web years ago. We make it quite a bit, just going from memory now, and varying it based on what we have around. It's basically sauteed onions, garlic, capers, yellow or red bell peppers, and kalamata olives, tossed with cooked farfalle and topped with Parmesan. We used the sweet peppers in place of the bell peppers, and added beet greens. I forgot that even the beet greens turn everything pink, but it still tasted great. I roasted some of the tomatoes to go on the side.

The rest of the tomatoes and onions were used to make delicious poached mahi mahi in ravigote sauce, recipe by Jacques Pepin. His recipe calls for salmon, which would have been wonderful, but I had some mahi mahi in the freezer that I decided to use instead.The sauce is so easy. You just chop and add everything to a bowl, stir it together, and that's it, no cooking required. Since poached fish is pretty plain, you definitely want a topping with a lot of punch like this to give it flavor.

Next, we made a recipe I saw over on Chef Dennis' blog: Apple Beet Compote with Fennel and Candied Walnuts. This recipe materialized when he was trying to use what he had on hand one night. I had apples (the Rome apples from last week) and beets from this week, so I decided to make it too. I didn't have fennel, but that was ok. I followed his directions exactly. I served my compote over bulgur wheat. He suggested adding crumbled gorgonzola, and I loved that idea so I bought some...but then I totally forgot to use it! Arg! Oh well, it was still delicious, and after dinner we quickly found ourselves back in the kitchen, running our fingers around the skillet to soak up the sugary-butter mixture from the candied walnuts. Mmmmm. Yep, we have no self-control when it comes to butter.

I made a potato soup in the slow cooker using some of the carrots, some potatoes from last week and most of the ones from this week. I used this recipe. It is a very filling and satisfying soup, especially because I used regular instead of fat-free half-n-half.

We haven't eaten the Delicata squash just yet.

I was a little nervous about eating an apple with the word 'banana' in the name, but I assure you, they don't taste like bananas. It must refer to the color. They are nice and sweet. The grapes were petite but  had a nice tartness to them. I have been eating the rest of the carrots with hummus for snacks.

Gorgonzola Ravioli with Hazelnut Cream Sauce and Radicchio
Inspiration for the hazelnut cream sauce was found here
serves 2

Notes: We used Rising Moon Organics Garlic Gorgonzola Ravioli made with Spinach Pasta, but there are a number of different flavors of ravioli that would complement a hazelnut cream sauce. I think butternut squash or pumpkin would be awesome.

1 (8 ounce) package ravioli (such as gorgonzola, pumpkin, butternut squash, etc)
1 head Radicchio
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the cream sauce:
1/3 cup dry roasted hazelnuts
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt to taste

Garnish with: 
Crumbled Gorgonzola
Chopped hazelnuts
Chopped fresh herbs such as sage, basil, or parsley

Preheat the broiler.

Slice the radicchio in quarters lengthwise and place cut side up on baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Cook the ravioli according to package directions.

Meanwhile, start the cream sauce. It will make a prettier sauce if you can remove the papery skins from the hazelnuts. I used this tool which worked really well, but it would probably also work to wrap them up in a kitchen towel and roll them along the counter.

Process nuts in a food processor until they become pretty fine crumbs. Toast in a small saucepan over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Lower heat, then add the butter, stir until melted, then add the cream. Stir to combine, and cook until thickened, 5-10 minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. Set aside.

Broil the radicchio until the edges of the leaves look a bit charred. Remove from oven, when cool enough to handle, thinly slice crosswise.

To serve, pile some radicchio into the bottom of a rimmed soup bowl, then top with ravioli. Drizzle the cream sauce over the top. Garnish with crumbled Gorgonzola, chopped hazelnuts, and fresh herbs. Serve immediately.