Fall bounty

As a Halloween baby, it figures that I own pumpkin cookware such as a pumpkin-shaped spatula and cookie cutters…but now I get to add a pumpkin pot to the list! A Le Creuset pumpkin pot!  This turned into a delicious fall meal: pot pie and a collard green salad!

Pattypan

The CSA this week brought a whole bunch of exciting new things, including a pound of squash; we decided to switch it up and take the pattypan (flat-shaped) squash, for some added excitement.  After seeing a zucchini tart recipe with ricotta cheese, I was really thinking that the squash-ricotta combination would be perfect, especially on a hot day like today.  Aside from using the pattypan like any other squash, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.  A quick google search revealed the exciting opportunities for stuffed squash, but I couldn’t find exactly what I had in mind (ricotta, but not all mushy  cheese filling).  This didn’t stop us.  We pulled together our mental picture as best we could, and turned out a pleasing pattypan preparation.

Wild mushroom barley soup with ham bone

Based largely off of ib‘s favorite mushroom barley soup (Please to the Table, p. 86), we made a lovely winter meal. The leftover ham bone (and some ham left on it) from our greenmarket ham for jambalaya added a nicely complementary base to this hearty soup.

Fat Tuesday jambalaya

Inspired by todays Mardi Gras festivities, we decided to try our hands at jambalaya even though neither of us are sure we’ve tried the real thing before.  Needless to say, some recipes we found made it sound delicious.  We pulled together our jambalaya from a mixture of recipes, using one mostly for its seasoning suggestions, since we didn’t have “Creole seasoning”, and the other more for its simplified procedure.

Italian basics

Ever since this Smitten Kitchen post, we’ve been looking forward to a night of pasta with tomato sauce for its rave reviews and absolute simplicity (3 ingredients, no prep work!).  Since no dinner could be quite that simple, we experimented with a calamari appetizer as well.

Spinach and cheese strata

Of course, it was only after slaving away New Year’s Day morning, trying to prepare for our brunch (with lw‘s help), that we noticed Smitten Kitchen’s advice on how to host brunch (and still sleep in).  While that post was no longer of any use to us (for the time being), we were fascinated by SK’s new favorite egg dish, the spinach and cheese strata.  We figured that preparing it Saturday night was a perfect, hassle-free way to get started on a busy Sunday.

Indian Daal and Sweet Potatoes

Inspired by a Bittman piece on dal in the Times, we couldn’t resist—and we found ourselves with more than we’d bargained for!  I thought we needed something besides dal for dinner (I didn’t know what I was thinking, I hadn’t tried this dal before!) so we looked up recipes that use sweet potatoes, since that was really the only other thing we had on hand, and ended up with some tasty curried sweet potato.

Pizza leftover-bagels

The best part about making all of that wonderful brunch food is enjoying the leftovers for the entire next week.  Especially the bagels, which we enjoyed in epic pizza bagel fashion.

Tortilla…the spanish kind

Based on Bittman’s recipe for Spanish tortilla (and a small misread of the fritatta recipe), we threw together a simple eggs-for-dinner meal.  We sauteed sliced CSA potatoes with s&p and then onion, orange bell pepper, mushrooms, and CSA garlic.  We were out of olive oil so substituted peanut oil with good success.  These veggies were mixed with 6 beaten eggs and < 1/2 C parmesan cheese (from the fritatta recipe, but worked really well here).  After a few minutes on the stove and ~10 minutes in a 375oC oven, the tortilla was cooked and delicious.  Next time, some fresh herbs might brighten things up a bit, but you really can’t fail with this standard tortilla recipe.

Fall tomato soup + grilled cheese sandwiches

The fresh heirloom tomatoes at the USQ farmers’ market were irrisistable—time for some always satisfying tomato soup with grilled cheese.