Butternut Squash Lasagne

Mariana -- when you say we could be better bloggers, I'm assuming you're mostly talking about me as I've been a terrible, horrible blogger -- even though I checked and this isn't actually my  ONLY post in December, despite your claim.  But I know I'm in no position to be defending my blogging -- I should be aspiring to higher things or rather higher number of posts.  I'm hoping this will change in the upcoming weeks and am optimistic about this for a couple of reasons -- I've not only finished my classes AND internship, but am excited about my new camera (!) and even more excited about putting it to use with all the recipes I've been storing up in the past couple of months.  

It's not exactly that I haven't been cooking, but most of the stuff I've made has either been non-blog worthy or a pure mistake.  Like the first time I made this lasagne (for a potluck, of course.  Whoops).  I guess that's what I get when I try to improvise a recipe.  The second time  I corrected most of the initial mistakes -- mostly an overwhelming and unprecedented, at least in my lasagne making experience, dryness.  This version, however,  is rich and delicious though it's the kind of thing I  only make for a special occasion, blog post or potluck when I knew I wouldn't have leftovers enticing me in the fridge.  But even my mostly meat-eating, guest post writing, non-butternut squash liking brother claimed to it enjoy it, which as far as I'm concerned is a pretty big endorsement.  

Butternut Squash Lasagne

This recipe is tasty as-is, but it's also worth experimenting with to tweak it just to your liking.  For example, I'll probably lighten the bechamel sauce the next time around.

Ingredients

Caramelized Onions

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 large white or yellow onions, sliced in 1/4 inch rings
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• A circle of parchment paper cut to fit over the skillet you use for cooking the onions.

Butternut Squash Filling

• 2 pounds butternut squash
• 5 ounces goat cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Bechamel Sauce

•  1/4 cup unsalted butter
  
• 2 shallots, minced
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 1/2 cups non-fat milk
• 1 1/2 cups cream
• 1/8 tsp or more freshly grated nutmeg
• The zest of 1 lemon
• Salt and pepper to taste (you can use white pepper if you are fussy about the color of your bechamel sauce).

1 package lasagne noodles (1 pound)

Preparation

Caramelized Onions

Over medium heat, melt the butter for the onions in a large skillet.  Once the butter is melted, add the sliced onions and stir to make sure they are coated in the butter.  Add salt and pepper.  Place the circle of parchment paper over the onions, reduce the heat to low (or medium-low if your oven doesn't run as hot as my mom's).  Cook, stirring occasionally till they are caramelized and delicious -- this takes about an hour.   I suggest getting started on the other components while the onions are cooking.    

Butternut Squash Filling

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Slice the butternut squash(s) in half, remove seeds, and brush with olive oil.  Place the squash halves on a baking sheet and bake until a butter knife is easily inserted into the flesh.  This took me about 30 minutes, but cooking time varies depending on the size of the squashes -- check frequently to avoid overcooking.  Remove from oven and let cool until you are able to handle them without burning yourself.  Scoop out the squash and place in a medium bowl.  Once you have removed all the squash, add the goat cheese and mash (with a fork or potato masher) until there are no lumps.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and set aside.

Bechamel Sauce

Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan over medium-low heat, being careful not to burn it.  Toss in the finely chopped shallots and cook, stirring frequently, until soft and translucent -- depending on the heat of your stove top this should take between 5-7 minutes (again, if you are concerned about maintaining a pure white color of the bechamel sauce take care not to brown the shallots.  I'm not fussy about this sort of thing).  Add the flour and cook for 3 minutes, stirring continuously -- I've heard this step is important to get rid of any flour-y flavor.  Carefully add the milk and cream, whisking to combine with the flour mixture.  Keep your eye on the temperature at this point -- the goal is to maintain the mixture at a simmer -- adjust between medium and low as necessary.   Whisk very frequently until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes.  Set aside.

Put on a large pot filled with salted water for the pasta and bring to a boil.  Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package.  

Once the pasta has been cooked and drained, you can start assembling the dish.  Lightly oil the bottom of a 9 x 13 lasagne dish.  Place a layer of noodles, followed by an even layer of about about 1/3 of the bechamel sauce, 1/2 of the squash mixture and 1/2 of the onion mixture.  Add another layer of noodles -- again topped with 1/3 of the bechamel sauce and the remaining squash and onions.  Add one final noodle layer and top with the remaining bechamel sauce.  If you'd like, sprinkle with a touch of remaining goat cheese or mozzarella you have lying around.  Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees, removing the foil in the last 15 minutes.  Let cool slightly (about 10 minutes or more) before serving.  

Halfway Cookies

We could be better at the blogging, but it was the end of the semester and then recovering from the end of the semester, right? I've mainly been eating a lot of apples, raw, and squash, roasted. It doesn't make for the most interesting posts. But wait, just you wait, until I post what I'm making for Christmas dinner—one of the things we're waiting for me is to decide.

One of the things that forced me to make something that wasn't a cut-up apple or roasted squash was a cookie exchange that I went to in the beginning of December. There were a lot of things to consider: I wanted a cookie that was special in the face of tons of other cookies, but didn't want to spend a lot of time on it. And the speculaas recipe I made didn't make quite as many cookies as I thought it would. And I had seen this thing around:

You like that? It's a pretty indecisive cookie, wanting all the classicness of a chocolate chip cookie but with the flash and bling of a layered something. You separate the eggs and the yolks go in the bottom while the whites go on top and the end result is a kind of a deconstructed chocolate chip cookie: all the butteryness of a cookie, then a chocolate chip layer (which could stand to melt a touch more), and then the fluffy goo of sugary egg whites. Or, it might just be twice as much work to make a cookie that tastes like a chocolate chip cookie but feels different in your mouth.

Halfway Cookies
adapted from various interweb sites

2 c. white flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. butter, at room temperature
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. + 3/4 c. brown sugar (one part goes to the yolks, the other to the whites)
2 eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 tbsp. water
1 tsp vanilla
12 oz. chocolate chips

Set your oven to 350º. Grease one of those 9" x 11" baking pans.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, and 1/2 c. brown sugar until it's fluffy. Then add the yolks, water, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Now add the flour and mix until it's fully incorporated.

Spread this bottom mixture into the pan, make it flat. Then sprinkle the chocolate chips on top, pressing them slightly into the dough.

Now for the whites: in a clean, dry bowl, beat then with the 3/4 c. brown sugar until soft peaks form. Spread this on top of the dough/chocolate mixture.

Some recipes will tell you to spread WAX paper on top. What they mean to say, however, is use wax paper if you would like your house to smell like burned wax paper. If that's what you like, I'm not going to judge, but I suggest using parchment paper. Just lay a piece on top of the whole deal and this will sort of flatten out the whites and, more importantly, keep them from burning.

Bake 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven, peel off the paper, and you'll get this:

So unassuming from the outside. At first, I thought this was too sweet from me—which, maybe it was, and I've reduced the sugar slightly here. But I was a little sad that I gave away my own cookie from my own cookie exchange bag, especially since I gave it to my friend Chloe who had the exact same cookie in her bag. And a little sad that I promised the leftovers to my sick friend Tim, who could not make it to the cookie exchange. It turns out, though, that Tim's illness survived longer in his body than his cookies did in my house...sorry, Tim! I don't think you read my blog anyway and hopefully your handsome partner won't tell you this story!

Speculaas

Katie, I apologize if it's tiring how much I reference being Belgian. But, what can I do? I'm on pretty good terms with my Belgianness. I think this is mostly because I like my family, but you know what doesn't hurt? All the fantastic food I get to eat in Belgium. And, happily, some food can leave Belgium and end up in my very own kitchen, on a shelf, in a cardboard box labeled "Belgian Loot."

I am not very good at sharing things from this box but, sometimes, I am good at sharing my speculaas. (pronounced: spek-you-lahs) Speculaas is a fantastic, gingerbreadesque spice cookie that is always around, but especially around on December 6 because that is Saint Nicholas Day and kids get presents and there are big cookies shaped like Saint Nick. Saint Nick comes around with his sidekick, Black Peter (for reals), and maybe puts stuff in your shoes? Or are those the Three Kings on January 6? I'm not entirely clear on the details because I'm not that Belgian. Or Catholic. What I do know: those Saint Nick cookies get BIG. Like, one yard big. Maybe even bigger. No lie.

Here is my favorite brand of speculaas which, as you can see, can also be spelled speculoos. This brand, Lotus, also makes a spread that is speculaas-flavored. It is astonishingly good. If you go to Belgium, eat it. Bakeries also make their own versions of speculaas.

Anyway, enough with the cultural education. You're no dummy, you know it was December 6 just last week, and I bet you can guess what I did.

Speculaas
Based on Martha Stewart's recipe

3 c. white flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp white pepper
12 tbsp butter, at room temperature
1 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. milk or water

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and all the spices. This will smell spectacular. Smell it!

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed, about 2 minutes.

On low speed, add 1/2 of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture. Mix until combined, then add the milk/water. Mix until combined, add the rest of the dry ingredients.

Form the dough into 2 disks, wrap them in plastic, chill for a few hours, or overnight.

Put your oven to 350º and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Get out your speculaas forms:

What? You don't have any? No problem. Just roll out the dough to 1/4" and use cookie cutters or a knife. Honestly, I was pretty excited about the forms because I hadn't used mine yet. I was unimpressed by my ability to get a good cookie out of them, especially with the slightly enormous Saint Nick form.

Bake 15-20 minutes.

I was kind of disappointed with this dough because it smelled so spicy when it was raw, yet tasted much less spicy when cooked. I'm also disappointed that they got so puffy during baking. You can hardly tell that those cookies are windmill and ship-shaped! I think it's the baking soda's fault.

Bacon Balsamic Braised Brussels Sprouts

As my favorite at-home personal fitness guru* Tony Horton would say, man oh Manischewitz. These sprouts will be the end of you wanting to eat anything else. Really. I've made them twice this week already—and I'm in the middle of finals, I don't really have the time to make anything, especially a braise.

You know how there are some things that you enjoy now, as a grown up, that you couldn't imagine enjoying when you were a kid? Like: long conversations and long drives—simultaneously, or not. Or: documentaries. Museums with old things in them. Concerts where the musicians are sitting down and the audience doesn't dance. Yet, now, as bona fide adults, these things are enjoyable, maybe even so enjoyable that they are some of our favorite things. Unthinkable, yet entirely true.

Had I encountered these brussels sprouts in my youth,** I most likely wouldn't have touched them. But now I can't get enough. Want to know why? Because they have everything: the slightly bitter taste of the sprouts, the crusty texture of the breadcrumbs, bacon, the vinegariness of the vinegar. I used smoked bacon and, combined with the balsamic, there is a definite resemblance to barbecue sauce—but even if you're one of those people that doesn't like barbecue sauce, you're going to like this. It makes your house smell good, it satisfies the winter need to eat something hearty, it makes you feel good about eating a vegetable, it makes you feel good about eating bacon.

I link back to Smitten Kitchen so much here that it feels ridiculous, but guess where the recipe came from? Yes.

My changes to the recipe were these:

• Panko instead of regular breadcrumbs. I think it gives more exciting texture.
• Bacon instead of pancetta, for budgetary reasons. Tucsonans: 17th Street Market sells ends of uncured, applewood smoked bacon for cheap. Since it's not in slices, it keeps you from just eating a lot of bacon straight, but since you have it in your kitchen you end up cooking a lot with bacon.
  
• The second time I made it I added a few tablespoons of...anchovies! The result was subtle, but more saltiness.
  

Look at how excited my polar bear potholder is about these sprouts! Also surprised about their deliciousness! You should be too!

*Not kidding.
**I actually encountered no brussels sprouts in my youth despite the, you know, Belgianness. Also unthinkable, yet entirely true.

White Bean and Chicken Soup with Salsa Verde

Mariana -- you and I have recently had some chats about complaining. In order to recap for those who haven't been privy to our conversations, complaining isn't good. But we do it anyway, even (perhaps especially) when we are trying to restrain ourselves. And we might even enjoy it -- correct me if I'm inadvertently misrepresenting our conversations. My personal, possibly all-time favorite, subject to complain about is the weather, specifically the cold weather. Having grown up in Arizona that means anything below 60 degrees. Truthfully, weather is one of the worst topics to complain about though, it is cliched and most of all boring -- if you are going to complain, I suppose it should be about something fun and gossipy.

What does any of this have to do with food? Not a lot, except this soup with chicken and white beans makes the cold weather just a little bit better and makes me want to complain just a little less. It's easy, spicy, and delicious. AND despite using pre-made ingredients (i.e. salsa verde and chicken broth) it tastes fresh. In my opinion what elevates this to delicious as opposed to plain tasty are the toppings -- jalapeno, cilantro, avocado slices, a splash of lime juice and some plain yogurt -- all contribute to the "freshness" and complexity of the soup. Though this soup is more "southwestern-style" than Mexican, it reminds me of a friend I had while living in Mexico. This friend claimed that Mexican cooking is all about the "accessories" -- the sauces, toppings, and other little additions. And while I'm not prepared to stand behind this statement 100%, it is certainly true for this soup that the accessories make it awesome.

White Bean and Chicken Soup with Salsa Verde

I adapted this recipe from one of my mom's and I encourage you to fiddle around with it as well -- for example, onions and radishes would also make lovely toppings.

Ingredients

Soup

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 12-oz jar of salsa verde
• 3 cups cooked chicken pieces
• 1, 15-0z can of cannellini beans, drained
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 cup cilantro
  

Garnish

• sliced avocado
• plain yogurt
• jalapeno, finely chopped
• cilantro, finely chopped
• 1 lime

Saute the chopped onion in a large sauce pan until translucent. Add the salsa verde and cook 2 minutes over medium heat. Next add the broth, chicken, beans and cumin. Bring to boil, then simmer for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. About 2 minutes before removing the soup from the heat, add the cilantro. Remove from heat and serve, garnishing each bowl individually to your personal taste.

Cranberry vanilla sorbet

I think everybody loves to eat pie, but not everybody can eat pie, and that's a tragedy, especially on Thanksgiving. Somebody like that came to our Thanksgiving—no wheat, no dairy—and I wasn't even considering making some sort of no-butter, rice flour pie crust (is such a thing possible?), and so I made this beautiful cranberry vanilla sorbet, which I found here.

But! It gets better! Not only was the dessert food allergy-friendly, it was also chemist-friendly! Yes! As you know, as do others, my mother is a chemist and, of the total of 12 people that came to Thanksgiving, she invited not one, but two, chemists. Yes! One quarter of our Thanksgiving crowd were chemists! Nerd alert! And most of the rest of the crowd was under 32 and not-chemists. How to bridge the gap? I know!: Let the chemists show off a bit and marvel at something that seems magical to a regular person. Enter: invert sugar.

That's what it looks like and you make it. It's like having your very own personal Mr. Wizard show in your kitchen. What does it do? It makes your sorbet smooth and creamy and it will never freeze super-hard and will always be scoopable—it makes your sorbet blow its own mind.

But what is it, really? We had several explanations about it over the course of our dinner, one read verbatim from a textbook, and this is what my mother neatly summarizes for our blogging pleasure:

Table sugar is sucrose, which is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose. When sucrose is heated in water in slightly acidic conditions (tartaric acid), it splits into the glucose and fructose molecules. The mixture does not crystallize as easily. The name "invert" comes from the fact that sucrose rotates polarized light at a positive angle (α = 66º), while the mixture of glucose and fructose rotates it at a negative angle (α = -22º).

Got it? Ready for a test about that? The part I understand is "The mixture does not crystallize as easily." Truest fact ever.

Invert sugar —so scientific, so super-easy

1 1/2 c. water
1 1/2 c. white sugar
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar (this is the acid that will rock the sugar molecule's world)

Simmer all these things together for 30 minutes, then let cool.

Cranberry vanilla sorbet with invert sugar

12 oz. fresh cranberries
1 batch invert sugar
1 c. water
1/2 tsp. salt
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise with seeds scraped out
1/4 c. lemon juice

In a heavy pot over medium heat, bring the berries, water, invert sugar, salt, vanilla bean seeds, and vanilla bean to a boil.

Reduce to low heat, simmer until all the berries pop, about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Remove the vanilla bean. Puree the mixture. Strain and stir in lemon juice. Chill for a few hours, or overnight.

Put it in your ice cream maker! Ice cream make it!

The sorbet is nice because it's tart like cranberries, but very mellowed out by the vanilla and not too sweet. And the invert sugar—I don't think I need to say anything more about it.