stacey . smoore . the staceyfish . 
Life in a Northern Town: the exploits of an ecstatic Alaskan
Lens: the adventures of a girl and her camera
Ok, seriously - does anyone actually cook the day after Thanksgiving??? Who isn't sick of the inside of their kitchen by then? And aren't the contents of your refrigerator quick to take away any reason for one to turn on the stove (except to reheat leftovers, of course)?
Well, I'll admit it: I wasn't as kitchen-adverse this Friday as I have been in the past. Nevertheless, I wasn't about to actually cook anything for lunch. The last thing I wanted was a plain turkey sandwich - I was craving something healthy (no surprise there, given the gluttony that took place the day before) and even though my Thanksgiving table is laden with far more veg than most (without having to resort to green bean casserole! Boo-yah!), I didn't want to just nosh on leftovers. I'm all about re-inventing last night's food whenever I get a chance, and when I spied the unused greens in my fridge that didn't quite get turned into a salad with poached pears, candied nuts, gorgonzola, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette, I had my inspiration.
I scooped the spinach into a bowl, tore off chunks of turkey breast, added some leftover roasted butternut squash, topped it off with some juicy pomegranate seeds and toasted pecans, and finished it with a drizzle of shallot-cacao nib vinaigrette that had graced the roasted squash the night before.
Chances are you don't have those exact ingredients on hand the day after Thanksgiving unless you stole my menu, but no worry, there are plenty of ways to make your own. Try using homemade cranberry sauce instead of pomegranate seeds or perhaps some roasted brussels sprouts or cauliflower instead of the squash. The point is that you're only limited by your imagination. Unless you're like me and you've already transformed your turkey leftovers into a steaming pot of delicious soup, chances are you still have plenty of food on hand with which to make your own creation. So go nuts and go fix yourself a salad while you're waiting for me to get to the really good stuff: the Thanksgiving menu, plenty of food porn, and bread that flowed continually from the oven!
You may be sad because summer has come to an end, taking with it delightful foods like nectarines, plums, berries, and locally grown vegetables like greens, cauliflower, chard, beets, and carrots.
But don't fret! Fall has its place in a foodie's heart because it brings delights like root vegetables, butternut squash, pumpkins, an untold number of apple varieties, Bartlett pears, and pomegranates.
I recently celebrated fall by having a harvest dinner (suggested by my most wise and venerable husband). On the menu was a roasted pear salad with candied walnuts, blue cheese, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette, cabernet-glazed shallots, butternut squash risotto with wilted spinach and toasted pine nuts, sauteed pork tenderloin with an apple-sage sauce, and stuffed baked Jonagold apples with vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. I love this menu -- it's so autumn-y with its warm, subtle flavors and unifying themes. Sage and apple are present in many of the dishes but are different and subtle enough to not get old or tiring. And as my guests pointed out last night, there's plenty of booze in every dish! So dig in and get to love autumn as much as I do, and share it with some good friends too.
I may have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with butternut squash. As soon as it hits the grocery store, I'm burrowing through recipes, writing down the weight of the squashes I'll need in my upcoming cooking marathons, and re-inventing the stuff as much as I can.
Sadly, though, there are very few recipes for the stuff that don't involve roasting. Not that I'm complaining - roasting is one of my favorite methods because it's totally fuss-free and extremely adaptable - but sometimes I just want some texture with my squash!
Then the folks at Cafe Cacao came to the rescue: their first executive chef whipped up this recipe, which is just beyond flippin' perfect. The nibs add not only just a bit of crunch, they also toss in a subtle chocolate flavor. Not a huge fan of unsweetened chocolate? Never fear, the squash provides that sweetness! This recipe is genius. Pure genius.
Can you see why I wanted to have the wedding rehearsal dinner there?
Skeptical about chocolate and squash? I'd like to clarify and say that Scharffen Berger nibs and Hersey's have about as much in common as apples and baseball bats. Hersey's (and other mass-marketed chocolate) are all about the sweet, sweet, sweet. There is not much chocolate to speak of. On the other hand, the nibs have a very warm, complex, nutty, fruity, vanilla-y, and above all, pure chocolate-y flavor. So throw caution to the wind and give this recipe a shot while the squash is still in season.
Click here for the recipe for "Roasted squash with cacao nib vinaigrette" »
Last fall, out on my own, looking for yummy things to eat, and cursing the lack-of-vegetable-repertoire that extended beyond steamed broccoli, I starting looking for new vegetables to titillate my palate and nourish my body. I tried just about every fall vegetable I could find like brussels spouts, parsnips, or spaghetti squash. I wasn't too impressed with the stuff I was trying but was more than willing to try again since a) winter produce in Alaska is, well, yeah.... and b) who could tell if my recipes were any good to begin with! I needed to give the veggies a fair shot to find a permanent place on my plate before I can in good conscience dismiss them.
But two veggies that I found were definite winners: butternut squash is a wonderful surprise, more like pumpkin than anything else, and who doesn't like pumpkin? Plus the stuff is super-versatile. You can roast it, put it in a risotto, make soup out of it, the list goes on and on. The other winner I found was shallots. Have you tried these things? They're freakin' fantastic! If you mated butter, garlic, and an onion, you would get a shallot. They are wonderfully mild yet still very flavorful and will literally melt into a dish the way its more pungent cousins never will. Plus, they melt in your mouth. What an amazing little vegetable...
So you can imagine my joy when, while looking for butternut squash recipes because I had bought too much (again), I ran across this gem. You mean it has butternut squash AND tons of shallots??? AND one of the best roasting herbs, thyme??? AND it is super easy, cooks quickly, and is amazingly delicious? Where do I sign up???
So seriously, do yourself a favor and try this recipe. It would fit wonderfully into a Thanksgiving menu too. You'll find it on my own table come Thursday, the 22nd of November.
Click here for the recipe for "Roasted butternut squash with shallots and thyme" »
This recipe is one that's been near and dear to me for nearly my whole life. My Mom originally clipped it out of a newspaper and it's grown up with me, going through different changes as I changed too.
Originally we made these cookies huge and round with little pumpkin stems and lavished icing and sprinkles upon them like festive, sweet, sticky jack-o-lanterns. Needless to say they never lasted long.
Years later as my brother and I grew out of the whole Halloween thing, these cookies stuck around (of course!) Now that having a good smooth icing canvas was no longer necessary, chocolate chips made their way into the cookies. They marred the formerly glasslike (well, for a cookie) surface but dude, it was chocolate. Yum! My parents would send these cookies to me in my care packages at college, and they brought back memories of childhood the way that only really good comfort foods can do.
Now that I'm all old, non-pumpkin-decorating, and out of college, it's up to me to keep this yummy tradition alive. I've made them every year over the last couple autumns, but this year I discovered my favorite addition: The Squash Quad of Power. As in the Turkey Trifecta, this blend of flavors complements the flavors it's enhancing so perfectly that I wouldn't ever consider excluding them. Unsurprisingly, when you add cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, and cloves to the cookies, they're, well, uhm, wow.
They just might be the best cookie ever.
There are so many reasons to love this recipe. Allow me to extol its virtues and enumerate a bit:
1. It's easy to prepare and it cooks quickly.
2. Substitutions and additions are definitely encouraged.
3. It's delicious and nutritious.
4. It smells fantastic as it cooks.
5. It's a great way to use seasonal produce.
6. The medley looks exactly like fall foliage.
Seriously, this is one of the best things I've made all autumn (I don't care that it was 19 degrees this morning, it's still autumn to me!). If you're looking at the list and you think that you don't like some of the ingredients (I'm reminded of a friend who would without fail exclaim "Beets are HIDEOUS!" when offered them), try them in this recipe. Some of them (like beets) have a totally different flavor and texture when roasted than they do when, say, boiled. Or when mashed with marshmallows (and that's why I thought sweet potatoes were gross for twenty-two years!). Other ingredients, like shallots, will never cease to surprise you with their delicious, delicate, and sophisticated flavor and the way they seem to melt when they hit your tongue. And still others that weren't included this time around, like butternut squash, would be truly divine.
Click here for the recipe for "Roasted fall vegetable medley" »
When I woke up this morning i was craving something yummy and delicious and different than my usual oatmeal. Pancakes were sounding pretty delicious, but despite my large collection of health food and whole grain cookbooks, I failed to find a recipe that met my criteria whole ingredients I already had in my pretty well-stocked pantry and fridge (curses on forgetting to buy milk last time I was at the market!) exactly what I was looking for. Then I remembered a recipe that I had discovered around last Thanksgiving.
I'm, well, a pumpkin fiend, and this recipe had some whole grains in it, so it was looking like a strong contender. And luckily, it called for soy milk (something I always keep on hand for oatmeal) instead of the from-cow variety. We have a winner!
Now might be a good time to expound on the flour I used. No, white whole wheat is not in any way related to the nutritionally devoid all-purpose flour or flour used to make white bread. It is an honest-to-god whole grain flour with all the bran and germ, but made with a different variety of wheat. Most flour comes from red wheat, which is a more strongly wheaty-tasting (and more bitter or sour to some tastebuds) flour when ground in its whole state. White whole-wheat flour is more mild and can be more readily substituted into baked goods. So when I was making these waffles in which I use a fairly heavy hand with the pumpkin pie spices, I wanted the pumpkin and the spice flavors to shine, not the wheat. Since I didn't want to sacrifice the nutrition, white whole wheat was the clear choice.
White whole wheat flour is a little more difficult to find but it is gaining in popularity since at least a few Americans want to use more healthy grains but aren't gaga over the way whole-wheat flour tastes. I use King Arthur Flour's variety, but Hodgson Mill and and Bob's Red Mill also produce it.
The flavor results of the flour substitution? Undetectable. This recipe definitely hits the spot.
Click here for the recipe for "Whole-grain pumpkin spice waffles with blueberry syrup" »