Wicked Domestic

What does fall mean to you?  To me, fall means using pumpkins, squash, cranberries, cinnamon and the like as much as possible.  Since our family dinner club has started back up again (yay!), I happily dove into my recipe box for recipes I’ve been meaning to try and found a winner.  The recipe that got the honor of kicking off dinner club was for roasted acorn squash with  sausage stuffing.  And I thought that since I made those cutie-pie individual pear and apple crisps the other day, I thought I’d continue on my road to individuality with these great little single serving squashes.  I had to make a side dish to balance out the fall extravaganza: cauliflower gratin (which totally ended up tasting like mac and cheese…seriously awesome).  Here’s what I did:

5 acorn squashes, halved and seeded

1 pound (about 4 links) sausage, diced (I used this awesome smoked chicken and apple sausage)

1 large onion, chopped

1/2 cup craisins

1/4 walnuts, chopped

1 cup fresh spinach

1 cup breadcrumbs or 2 cups bread chunks

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

First off, I halved and seeded the squashed, splashed a little olive oil and s&p over them, and roasted them for half an hour at 400 degrees.

In the meantime, I sautéed the onion in olive oil for about 5 minutes and then added the diced chicken sausage and let that cook for another 5 minutes.  Once everything has some nice brown marks, add the craisins, spinach, walnuts and the breadcrumbs and stir it up until combined.  Take the stuffing off the heat to let cool for about 10 minutes.  Once the mixture has cooled a bit, add the beaten eggs and mix.  The eggs will help bind the stuffing together.

Once the squashes have roasted, fill them with the stuffing mixture and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese and return to the oven (at 350 degrees) for about 15 minutes.

Can I tell you how good this was?  The smoked chicken sausage was amazing first off, but the sweet/tartness of the craisins lightened everything up a bit.  The added crunch of the walnuts gave great texture too!  And I can’t forget to mention the great side dish I made: the cauliflower gratin!  This was a total after thought to the meal, but it definitely rivaled it.  Here’s what I did:

3 T butter

3T flour

2 cups milk

1 cup gruyere cheese

1 large head cauliflower, cut into florets

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, shredded

First, you want to make a roux by  melting the butter in a saucepan and adding the flour.  Stir constantly for about 2 minutes, to make sure the raw flour taste is cooked off, then whisk in the milk.  The mixture will now start thickening as it heats.  Add the gruyere cheese a dash of s&p.  Once the cheese sauce is thick, pour it over the cauliflower florets in a baking dish and toss the breadcrumbs over the top for an awesome crunchy topping.  Pop it in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes and you will have a carb-haters fantasy on the table.  It totally tasted like mac and cheese…amazing!  Even my cheese hating sister loved it (I still think she’s lying about hating cheese, but that topic is for another time).

These two recipes were definitely a success.  I’m going to have to dive into all my old recipes to see what other gems there might be in there!

- Jackie

I heart my crockpot.  Maybe that makes me sound very 70s or very Midwestern farm wife (no offense to either the 1970s or the farm wives of the Midwest), but I can’t help it.  I love preparing everything in the morning, then coming home to have dinner waiting for me.  My problem is that very few slow cooker recipes require 10 hours of cooking, which is ideal for my schedule.  So now that it’s fall (despite today’s muggy 80 degrees), I’ve decided to try having a slow cooker Sunday every week, which solves the 10 hour problem.   It worked perfectly this past weekend – I put together the ingredients on Sunday morning, turned on the crockpot, sniffed and stirred every few hours (out of impatience, not necessity), and had dinner for Sunday and Monday nights (plus a few lunches) good-to-go.   Mondays can be so busy, and it was nice to come home and not have to cook.   I’m hoping that I can be pretty consistent with slow cooker Sundays!

This weekend I made a simple chili recipe that my friend Beth passed on to me.  I rarely follow recipes when I make chili, and I think I kind of make it a lot.  It’s just so good!  But I usually just toss in tons of random vegetables and spices and beans and sometimes even rice, which is always tasty, but it can be unfocused.  So this straightforward, simple recipe was great – heavy on the beans and spices, and really really good.  Plus, so easy to make!

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef or turkey

2 cloves garlic, crushed

3 tbsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 cup beef stock

28 oz tomatoes – diced or crushed

3 cans beans (I used kidney, black, and pinto)

First, brown the ground beef/turkey.  I use turkey for everything…. but something (full moon?  alignment of the planets?  fall equinox?) made me use ground beef for this recipe.  I truly don’t remember the last time I used real ground beef.  But it was worth it – I love turkey, but sometimes the real thing just tastes better. 

Drain the fat, then put the ground beef/turkey in the crockpot.  Add the rest of the ingredients, stir, then cook on low for 8-10 hours.  So EASY!!!

I really enjoyed this chili - in fact, I’m still enjoying it.  Very simple, but really tasty.  A great start to slow cooker Sunday!  Look for more crockpot recipes to come!

- Elizabeth

Warm fruit with a gooey cinnamon sauce…check!  Crunchy, chewy, buttery oatmeal topping…check!  Sounds like the dessert of champions, no?  I had a plethora of apples and pears and needed to use them asap before they started bruising, so I thought the most delicious way was to make a crisp!  Crisps, cobblers, fools, betties-I feel like they are all the same: warm fruit in a sugary/buttery liquid with a delightful topping.  Normally I’m not so much of a baker because I don’t have the patience to read and follow a recipe, but with crisps, anything goes!  So go apple picking and get cookin’ folks.  Here’s what I did:

20 minutes and a great deal of whining later…

6 apples, pealed, cored and sliced

6 pears, pealed, cored and sliced

1/2 flour, divided

1/4 cup sugar

1 T cinnamon

6 T salted butter, divided

1 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup toasted walnuts

1/2 cup brown sugar

Once I had the terribly tedious job of pealing, coring and slicing the apples and pears, I threw them into a big bowl and mixed the fruit together with 1/4 cup of flour, 2 tablespoons of melted butter and cinnamon.  Let the fruit to sit on the counter for 5-10 minutes, and the sauce will thickening on its own.

In the meantime, I sprayed all of my individual ramekins with cooking spray (you can definitely use a regular size pan for this, but I happen to have these ramekins and it just makes the crisp cuter…and who doesn’t want a serving all to themselves?!).  I spooned the fruit mixture evenly into the ramekins and went to make the crisp topping.

I mixed together the remaining 1/4 cup of flour, brown sugar, oatmeal, toasted walnuts, 4 tablespoons of melted butter and more cinnamon, until it was all incorporated.  Evenly distribute the topping to all the ramekins.

And you are good to go, my friends.  Pop these bad boys into the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes or so.  When the fruit is tender and the topping is nice and crispy (pun intended) and dessert is served.  Vanilla ice cream is always a winner in my book when it comes to hot fruit desserts, so scoop away!  The individual crisps are a nice dessert to serve at a dinner party or to have on a regular night and you can freeze the rest and have later…ohhhh the possibilities are endless.

- Jackie

Who makes cupcakes (and frosting!) from scratch these days?  This girl does.  It’s really a shame that boxed mixes are so prevalent because people aren’t used to the taste of homemade baked goods anymore.   Baking from scratch can be slightly more complicated than homemade, but not really much more complicated (though the frosting is time consuming).  I mean, think about it – when you make cookies, cake, or brownies from a box, you still need to mix in eggs, vegetable oil, and water.  It’s not like you dump the box straight into the baking pan.  There’s still some labor involved.   If you have flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and cocoa powder on hand, you have what you need to make what comes in the premade mix.  It’s just a few more minutes of your time – which I do understand is precious, so I’m not judging!  I swear!   I do admit that the frosting from scratch takes longer and tastes different (and I certainly admit that I love canned frosting… and…I may or may not love eating it with a spoon…).   I’m just saying that sometimes it’s fun to bake completely from scratch.  Both of these recipes are from Martha Stewart, and both are really good.  I would make a few changes to the frosting next time, but it’s a great starting point.  (That’s right, I just undermined Martha Stewart’s buttercream frosting recipe.  What have I done???)

Cupcakes

Ingredients:

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare the muffin tins by spraying with nonstick spray and popping the liners in there.  Then, sift cocoa, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar into bowl.

Beat in oil, buttermilk, vanilla, eggs, and hot water one at a time, using a mixer set at low. Beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Voila!  The cupcake mix is ready to go!  Bake for about 30 minutes.

This recipe made a whopping 36 regular sized cupcakes.  We’ve been eating them for DAYS.  And I have a bunch stashed in the freezer.  It’s a cupcake bonanza!

Frosting

Ingredients:

Whisk together egg whites, salt, and sugar, then heat in a double boiler, whisking constantly, until an instant-read thermometer hits 160 degrees.

I used my Kitchenaid mixer bowl, then just popped it into the mixer for the next step.  This is the time consuming part… set the mixer on medium speed and beat mixture for about 10 minutes or until you have stiff peaks.  I admit that I got a bit impatient at this point and my peaks were probably not quite as stiff as they should have been.

Add butter 1 tablespoon at a time, allowing to mix completely.   Scrape down the sides of the mixer as necessary, then finally add the vanilla.

I think the cupcakes turned out really tasty.  The cake itself was great.  The frosting could have been slightly sweeter (hence the slight increase in sugar) and a little grainier – which I think the added sugar would accomplish.   I only used about 2/3 of the frosting, so now I have a freezer full of cupcakes AND extra frosting.   Best freezer ever. 

- Elizabeth

Soup.  Soup and autumn are quite the dynamic duo.  After sweating to death all summer, the air starts getting slightly chilly in September and I tend to jump immediately into autumn mode and think of nothing but hot soups and blankets.  For an online quiz or something like that, I once said one of my “likes” was being under a blanket.  What? A girl can’t be cozy?  Anyways, I love making soup so much because it’s usually pretty healthy, it’s cheap and it’s a good way of cleaning out the ol’ fridge.

I’ve repeatedly dog-eared recipes for chorizo and kale soup, wanting to try them, so when I found myself with a big bunch of kale from my Boston Organics delivery, my time was now!  I however wasn’t totally digging the idea of chorizo, so I opted for chicken sausage to lighten things up.  Here’s what I did:

1 large white onion, diced

2 large links of chicken sausage (probably about 1 lb.)

1 T. chopped garlic

1 large sweet potato, diced (my addition, but a great one)

1 can of cannellini beans

1 quart chicken stock (I actually forgot to buy chicken stock, so I used a quart of water and a teaspoon of dried thyme and italian seasoning)

1 large bunch kale, finely chopped

First off, I diced up the onion and sautéed it in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes.  Then, I removed the sausage from the casings and added it to the browning onions.  Cook the sausage and onions for about 4 minutes and add the garlic, sweet potato, beans and chicken stock and bring to a boil.

Once the soup has come to a boil, add the ginormous mound of kale you just chopped and turn down the flame to low.  Once the potatoes have cooked off and the kale is wilted, you’re good to go!

I sprinkled some freshly grated parmesan cheese on top and served it with a big fat piece of bread.  I mean, the soup is healthy and all, but come on…I need me some bread!

- Jackie

Monday morning blog posts can be tough.  Especially after a football Sunday.  I had planned to blog about the cupcakes I made for our Patriots crowd, but uploading all the pictures takes too long and I’m tired!   So look for that post on Wednesday.  But for now, I’ll tell you about the pulled pork sandwiches that I made today.  I hadn’t originally planned to blog about those because for some reason I didn’t think they were really going to be blogworthy.  Luckily for me, they were!  Unluckily for you, I didn’t take any pictures.   But the process is really simple, so even the most visual learners should have no problem.  

Matt made pulled pork for Dinner Club once and the sandwiches were awesome.  I did basically the same thing this time, but I didn’t make my own barbeque sauce.  It was hard to rationalize making my own since we have a gallon of Sweet Baby Ray’s in the fridge.   And SBR’s is hard to beat.   This slow cooker method is really good and really easy!  Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

2 three lb. boneless pork tenderloins

1 white onion

4-5 cloves garlic

whole cloves

salt and pepper

olive oil

beer (I used Newcastle)

water

The pork should slow cook for about 10 hours.  I decided to set the crockpot overnight… which sounded like a good idea, but it grossed me out to wake up to the smell of pork.   So plan ahead knowing that you need 10ish hours of slow cooking, then time to cool, pull, and reheat slowly with the bbq sauce. 

First, rub the pork loins with olive oil, salt and pepper.   Insert cloves into the pork – about 10 per loin.  Slice the garlic cloves and smush into the loin as much as you can.  Then slice the onions into rings.  Layer the bottom of a crockpot with half the onions, then place the loins on top (it’s okay if they kind of overlap).  Top with remaining onions,  then pour in the whole beer and add a bit of water if necessary.  You don’t want the pork to be totally submerged; you just want there to be lots of moisture in the crockpot. 

Slow cook for about ten hours on low.  You could certainly cook for a shorter time on higher heat, but the overnight worked for us (overpowering morning scent notwithstanding).   I  got up and shredded the pork this morning, then added the bbq sauce and brought it back to a nice hot temp.   I kept it in the crockpot on the warm setting until people arrived, and we were good to go! 

Brioche buns are best, but any kind of hamburger-type bun will do.  Pulled pork sandwiches are great for a crowd, and now we have lots left over for Dinner Club this week!

- Elizabeth

Roasted garlic onion jam.  Doesn’t exactly sound like what I want to spread on my english muffin in the morning, but whatever Stonewall Kitchen tells me to do, I listen. 

 I’m pretty much obsessed with all of their products, so when I saw the roasted garlic onion jam at the market, I thought I could make a quick afternoon appetizer with it.  I’d love to use the jam for maybe a flatbread pizza with goat cheese or maybe stirred into a french onion soup for depth of flavor.  The possibilities are endless, people!  Here’s what I did (super short ingredient list):

3/4 jar Stonewall Kitchen roasted garlic onion jam

1 container marscapone cheese (or cream cheese)

salt and pepper

Bring the marscapone cheese to room temperature and combine with the jam and salt and pepper.  Easy enough for ya?  I served it with some water crackers, but nice sliced up toasted french bread would be a delight!

The sweetness of the marscapone cheese offset the savory, saltiness of the garlic jam, to create a really delicious flavor combination.  When I make this dip again, I might try using regular cream cheese to see what the difference might be.  Either way, it’s sure to be a hit!  And you won’t kill too much time in the kitchen…double bonus!

- Jackie