Roasted squash with cranberries and feta

The calendar and scuttling tree leaves say autumn is here, so it's time to enjoy fall recipes despite this gloriously unseasonal weather. Mid-October doesn't usually call for a bike ride for ice cream at Selma's, but it was sublime.

Honey roasted butternut squash with cranberries and feta

From peasandcrayons.com

Ingredients

1 large butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil for drizzling

Salt, pepper, garlic powder, cinnamon for sprinkling

2 cups fresh cranberries

2 to 3 tablespoons honey

¼ crumbled feta

Fresh parsley, chopped fine, for garnish (or your herb of choice, tarragon, sage or rosemary would also work in this recipe)

Method

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, toss squash cubes with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder to personal preference. Spread on baking sheet. Roast at 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

Add cranberries and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes more, until they’re starting to soften and burst.

Remove from oven. Toss with honey, feta and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Garnish with parsley or other herbs.

Rating: Super simple, super tasty, pretty fast to fix and pretty to look at. A good side dish for pork or chicken, and could make an easy Thanksgiving side if your guests aren't too wedded to specific traditions.  I'm going to make this again soon while my pineapple sage plant is still going strong; pretty sure that will make this even better.

Bacon corn chowder

Just like that, we've gone from ice cream weather to soup weather. Although our back yard did manage to escape frost the other night, no doubt because we brought in every sizeable green tomato we could find. And the red cabbages, the arugula, the herb pots and all the green beans we could stand to pick. All those efforts were enough to make the weather warm up again a bit, but it's still time to start thinking soups.

Light corn chowder

From “Country Cooking” an American Country book I've been lugging around since it came out in 1989. It's the source of my favorite yellow split pea, yam and carrot soup, so I thought I'd give another soup recipe from it a shot.

Ingredients

4 to 6 slices bacon

1 medium onion, chopped, about 1¼ cups

¼ cup flour

2 cups broth

1 cup water

3 cups peeled and chopped yams (1/2-inch cubes)

½ teaspoon fresh thyme

2½ cups corn kernels, fresh or frozen

1 red bell pepper, chopped (about 1 cup)

1 medium zucchini, chopped small

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Method

Cook bacon in a large deep pan until crispy. Remove from pan, leaving drippings, and set aside until cool enough to crumble/chop into pieces.

Add onion to pan and cook over medium heat until softened. Add flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

Add broth, water, yams and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce to medium heat and simmer, covered until yams are tender. Figure on 10-15 minutes. Add corn, bell pepper, zucchini and milk. Simmer for a few minutes until corn is cooked. Stir in most of the bacon. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Serve garnished with remaining bacon and parsley. Serves 4 to 6, depending on whether it’s the main course or a side.

Rating: Fine enough. It's a little bit of a hodgepodge of a lot of vegetables, but the bacony-flavored broth is tasty. I might not reach for this recipe again, but I will happily reach for the remaining meal's worth in my freezer come winter. And I've got more yams to make that split pea soup recipe ...

Blueberry cream cheese ice cream

I ran across this recipe on Pinterest, and since I had bought heaps of blueberries in peak season and wanted to try a blueberry ice cream recipe, I gave it a shot. It called for swirling in crumbled graham crackers at the end to further mimic the cheesecake effect, but I opted not to for texture reasons.

Blueberry cheesecake ice cream

Adapted from JoytheBaker.com

Ingredients

1 cup fresh blueberries

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch

¼ cup water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Pinch of salt

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

1 cup whole milk

1 cup whipping cream

1 cup lightly packed light brown sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon bourbon

Method

Stir together blueberries, granulated sugar, cornstarch, water, lemon juice and pinch of salt in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until berries burst and the mixture thickens. Remove from heat. Cool in refrigerator. (Can be made a day ahead.)

Combine cream cheese, milk, cream, brown sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt and bourbon in a food processor until smooth. Transfer to an ice cream maker and process according to the ice cream machine instructions. The standard size Cuisinart model took about 25 minutes.

Transfer into a freezer-safe bowl. Add blueberry mixture and swirl it in. Chill in freezer.

Rating: In my food diary I not infrequently note whether a new recipe is CR, meaning company rated. The only reason not to make this recipe for company is it’s hard to discreetly lick the bowl. Very reminiscent of cheesecake without the crust, and very tasty indeed. Nice creamy texture, and not overly sweet. Next year I’m making more than one batch of this during blueberry season.

Grilled chicken with fresh tomato tarragon sauce, aka fast food

 

My version of fast food (aside from my browser having a path beaten to Pizza Luce's site), is something simple to fix that still tastes like you bothered to cook, like you didn't allow the world to defeat you. So I feel like I've snatched a moral victory over a bad day when I still manage to try a new recipe and not resort to the usual random acts of food. It means I've concentrated on what matters to me, and a decent supper can do a lot to improve a mood.

If I'm looking for quick inspiration, I haul out one of my Bon Appetit back issues for whatever month we're in and I'm apt to find something at least seasonal and serviceable. This recipe comes from chef Keith Luce, then at Spruce in Chicago. It dates from 1997, back when BA had both the 30-minute meal feature and the too busy to cook segment, and didn't have deplorable design and typography.

Bonus point for this recipe: It lets you pound things. Very therapeutic.

Grilled chicken breasts with tomato-tarragon sauce
Adapted from Bon Appetit, Sept. 1997

Ingredients

2 boneless chicken breasts

2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, divided

2 ½ tablespoons olive oil, divided

3 cloves garlic,chopped, divided

1 large tomato, chopped

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

Method

Combine 1½ tablespoons tarragon, 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 chopped garlic cloves in a shallow dish. 

Pound chicken breasts between waxed paper to a ½-inch thickness. Season with salt and pepper. Place in oil mixture. Turn to coat and let rest 10 minutes while you heat up the grill. 

Combine remaining ½ tablespoon tarragon, 1 clove chopped garlic, ½ tablespoon olive oil, tomato and vinegar in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Grill chicken breasts on medium high heat for about 4 minutes a side or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate. Spoon sauce around chicken breasts.

Rating: Perfectly fine fast food. The chicken is quite tasty and the sauce isn't bad. But if you've ever had a version of this that used roasted red peppers instead of fresh tomato, you'll find yourself missing that smoky element. Next time.

And remember, as Murphy Brown's character once told an aspiring student: "Don't let the buttheads win."

Zucchini salad with feta, tomato and olives

I confess that in the height of my low-carb campaign, I broke down and bought a spiralizer. That's one of those handy things that make quick work of turning zucchini into zoodles. What are zoodles? Long thin, spaghetti-like cuts of zucchini or other tender squash. What are they not? Spaghetti. Make no mistake about that. Zoodles, or spaghetti squash, make a rotten substitute for actual gluten-laden pasta that slurps up delicious sauces.

That doesn't mean zoodles can't be tasty. You just have to come to peace with what they're not or you'll wind up pissed off at the universe that you can't/shouldn't be eating pasta.

Since I've eased off a bit on my rigid low-carb regime, I was looking for some way to use my spiralizer that didn't make me resentful. This salad with its zippy dressing is a perfectly fine way to enjoy curly bits of zucchini without howling at the moon.

Greek zucchini salad

Inspired by the Garlicky Greek Salad I've made for years from the October 1994 Bon Appetit.

Ingredients

3 zucchini or summer squash, ends trimmed

½ cup pitted Kalamata olives

½ cup crumbled feta cheese

½ cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

6 tablespoons olive oil

Method

Cut zucchini into thin strips by whatever means you have at hand. A spiralizer is really handy, but not essential. (A peeler or hand-held cutter works, but it takes a while and you really need to watch out that you don't take off your fingers.) Toss zucchini ribbons with olives, feta and tomatoes.

Mix together lemon juice, vinegar and garlic. Add olive oil in a thin stream and whisk until emulsified. Toss with zucchini ribbons.