Autumn Pasta with Butternut Squash and Bacon [Rhonda]

Degree of difficulty: easy
Time: 10 minutes prep, 10 minutes cooking time
Serves: 2 to 3

When it's Tuesday night, you're just walking in the door, and feel the need for both veggies and comfort food, this might just be your go-to dish. It comes from a tattered recipe by Betty Rosbottom from years back, and can morph into an impromptu creation, depending on the vegetables in your fridge. With butternut squash, fresh baby spinach, caramelized onion and, yes, a bit of that bad-boy, bacon, it's a wonderful cool weather dish.

Ingredients:
6 ounces bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion, sliced thin
1 cup butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup chicken stock (go with homemade!), reduced
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary
1/2 pound uncooked penne pasta
Sea salt
Handful baby spinach leaves
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
Freshly ground black pepper or red pepper flakes

Saute the bacon, remove, and drain all but 2 tablespoons bacon drippings. Add butter to skillet, melt, add onions, stirring, about 5 minutes. Add butternut squash, cook a few more minutes. Add white wine and chicken stock, rosemary. Reduce slightly, remove squash and onions when squash is slightly tender but not mushy. Reduce sauce a little more, add lemon juice.

Boil a pot of water, cook penne to al dente. Drain pasta, salt the penne slightly, stir in the spinach leaves, then add the sauce and reserved bacon and squash. Stir in parmesan cheese. Garnish with parmesan shavings and serve.

Suggested soundtrack: Willie Nelson's "Moonlight in Vermont"

Fall Fresh-Market Mushroom Salad [Zack]

Antwerp has an open air market every Saturday in the center of the city.  It’s immensely popular with the locals - they do some food shopping and have fresh oysters with champagne before noon :).  Can’t hate on that.  I love wandering around, looking at each of the food booths and imagining fun things to cook/eat.  In the late fall, mushroom purveyors are prevalent and I decided to make a chicken and mushroom salad as a fresh lunch.

I always like asking opinions of experts – and in this case the woman in the booth was extremely helpful.  I explained that I wanted to make a fast and fresh salad, and she let me sample a bunch of different types of mushrooms and made great suggestions.  I ended up using chanterelles, pink oyster mushrooms, and some unknown mushroom that she brought from below the table.  Feel free to use any combination of mushrooms that you have available to you, just make sure they are fresh and delicious!

Process:

Start by making your mise en place.  

Grab a cup and put some very hot water into it.  Submerge your sun-dried tomatoes and let them stand for about 20 minutes to re-hydrate.

Wash the mushrooms to clear off the dirt.  Some people suggest using a mushroom brush, but if you are sautéing them in a frying pan, I don’t see the need to take the extra time.  Slice them until they are nicely-sized bites.  Mince the shallots and slice the sun-dried tomatoes (when they have hydrated enough).  Start 2 pans on your stove on medium heat.

You will use the first pan for sautéing the mushrooms.  Put 1 T olive oil and 1 T butter into the pan and let it melt.  Add your shallots and sliced sun-dried tomatoes into the pan and cook for about 4 minutes.  

Once that is cooked, add in your chanterelle and pink oyster mushrooms and let them cook down and eventually get some color.

While your mushrooms are going, sprinkle your chicken breast with salt and pepper and put in the pan with a small bit of olive oil.  Feel free to pound out the chicken breast so it isn’t tough.  Cook, turning once until it is cooked through.  

Let rest for 5-10 minutes while you finish the rest of your salad.

Knock out a quick salad dressing – my favorite method is to make it in a glass jar with a nice snug lid.  Add all of the ingredients at once and shake until emulsified.

Dice your fresh mushroom that you are going to add to the top.  This is optional.  Slice your rested chicken breast diagonally.  

Dress your salad and then add the chicken, cooked mushrooms, and the fresh mushroom on top.  Garnish with some fresh parsley on top if you'd like.  Enjoy eating healthfully!

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast (preferably organic and free range - it tastes better I swear!)

1 cup sliced pink oyster mushrooms

1 cup sliced chanterelles

1/3 cup fresh white mushrooms, sliced

6 sun-dried tomatoes

1 small onion or 2 shallots

1 head of lettuce

optional 1 T of minced parsley for garnish

Salad Dressing:½ c. apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1-2 cloves finely minced garlic
2-3 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
1 ¼ c. olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
1-2 tablespoons heavy cream, optional

Autumn Salad with Spicy Pecans and Champagne Vinaigrette [Rhonda]

Degree of difficulty: simple
Time: 10 minutes to spice your nuts, 10 minutes to pull it together
Serves: 2

Two recipes are involved here: the vinaigrette and the spiced nuts. The vinaigrette will keep, so make a lot for those nights when you're lazy.

Warning...the nuts are so delicious you'll have to make a double batch. Most will be eliminated through unintentional snacking. Suddenly, nothing left for the salad.

Autumn Salad with Spicy Pecans and Champagne Vinaigrette
Ingredients:

Salad:
Mixed greens, bibb lettuce, or red leaf lettuce, enough for two salads
1 Granny Smith apple (Or other variety. Don't make a trip to the store just for G Smith! Use a pear. Pear would be awesome.)
1/4 red onion, sliced into slivers
1 handful dried cranberries (dried cherries work nicely too)
Stilton cheese (Trader Joe's has a marvelous mango ginger stilton. I know. There's no Trader Joe's near you. Go with a regular Stilton, or do gorgonzola. Blue cheese, even.)
Crisped prosciutto (brown prosciutto in pan over medium heat until crispy)

Champagne Vinaigrette:
1/2 cup champagne vinegar, or white wine vinegar
1 shallot, minced
1 teaspoon dijon mustard, or more to taste
1/2 cup good olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine everything except the olive oil. Add it slowly, whisking. Taste the dressing and adjust the seasonings. This makes way more than what you'll need for two salads. Refrigerate the rest for another day.

Spiced Pecans:
1 1/2 cups pecans (or walnuts)
Bake in a 375 F oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until nuts are toasted.

2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cayenne (go big or go home!)
Mix these three ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.

2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
In small saucepan, melt butter. Add maple syrup and dark brown sugar. Stir. When nuts have finished toasting in the oven, add them into the saucepan. Stir. Then dump this over into the bowl of sugar, salt and cayenne. Stir well. Spread the spiced nuts on the cookie sheet and let cool. Refrigerate leftover nuts. Leftover what?




Suggested soundtrack:

Pancho Vladigerov's "Autumn Elegy"

Apple Butternut Squash Soup [Rhonda]

Degree of difficulty: medium (peeling the butternut squash takes a little patience)
Time: 20 minutes to prep, 35 minutes to simmer and puree
Serves: 4 to 6

Judging by the typeface and the yellowed paper, I clipped this from a Sunday New York Times Magazine sometime in the early '80s. It's such a perfect soup for autumn, particularly Thanksgiving, with its pretty orangy color and hint of apple. The chopped scallions give it a little kick of green. (You know how I am about garnish! A great garnish, like a sensational pair of shoes, can turn mediocre into magnificent in a hurry. Not that this soup is mediocre. Not by a long shot.)

It freezes well, so a big batch will carry you for a while (or as a starter for a big crowd at the holidays), and it can be made a day or two ahead of the big feast--the flavors develop more fully with an overnight rest in the fridge.

Apple Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil, or peanut or canola oil
1 two-pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 McIntosh apple (I used Granny Smith because it's all I had)
1 large onion (or 2 small), peeled and coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon curry powder (I use at least twice that)
3/4 teaspoon ground mace (I usually don't have this on hand. OK, never.)
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 bay leaf, optional
1/4 cup cider (recipe calls for more but it makes it really sweet)
1 quart homemade chicken stock (I've always used canned stock for this--great results)
1/2 cup half-and-half (or heavy cream--just use less)
Salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 cup finely minced scallions for garnish




Heat oil in large stockpot over medium heat.





Add the squash, apples and onion, stir, saute uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes, or until onion is transparent.




Stir in the mace, curry and cardamom, and bay leaf, if using, and continue cooking until the onion begins to brown.



Add the cider. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat and cook for 3 minutes. Add the stock, lower the heat to medium-low and simmer the mixture for another 35 minutes, or until squash is tender.




Transfer mixture to a food processor bowl and process until soup is smooth, then return to stockpot and reduce by about one-fourth. Stir occasionally.

Stir in the half-and-half, salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Pour into warmed bowls (I have not trained myself to remember to warm soup bowls, but it's a great idea) and sprinkle the scallions over the top.




Suggested soundtrack: Vivaldi's "Four Seasons: Danza Pastorale (Autumn)"