Butternut squash and split-pea stew

I made this recipe tonight, and as usual, it was fantastic. I clipped it out of Sunset Magazine a few years ago because I love butternut squash, and it sounded interesting. I make it at least a few times each fall. It is so flavorful and unique.

I halve the amount of butter used to save some calories, and I don't believe that it detracts from the taste. The star anise are a bit pricey, but not any more than the meat for a similar sized non-vegetarian dish would cost.

It also goes pretty quickly, after you get the squash cooked. Earlier in the afternoon, I cut the very top off a big squash (to vent) and put it in a glass baking dish with half a cup of water, covered loosely with plastic wrap. 15 minutes in the microwave and I was able to easily slice the skin off with a knife and chop the meat. I left it in a bowl on the coutnertop covered with the plastic wrap.

Yum yum yum!!

Cookin up a storm

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This has been a good weekend for producing tasty treats in the kitchen. First I made pumpkin chocolate chip bread on Friday night, after I devoured a bunch that the snack mom served on Thursday morning.

Last night was chili night, with cornbread from scratch, my own chili seasoning and tomatoes from my store. For some reason it seemed better than usual. Maybe the white beans?

And right now I'm eating a dish that I just dug up on the CSA web site. I don't know why I always worry about what to do with "all these beets" from the CSA. After I cooked the ones for this recipe, roasting as directed, I could have eaten a whole serving of it without anything else. The recipe probably didn't need the raisins, and I skipped the pine nuts because I didn't have them, but the beets made it so flavorful that it didn't matter.

Pizza dough

I just made a batch of pizza dough from a Wolfgang Puck cookbook Linda loaned me. I like to make it well ahead of time and put one pizza's worth of dough in the fridge and the other pizza's worth in the freezer. It's easy then to take it out of the fridge an hour or so ahead of dinner, knead and stretch it, and put on some toppings. The dough is sufficiently superior to store-bought to make it worth the effort of home-making.