Butternut Squash Casserole

I try and make a casserole every week for a weekday meal. My son loves the sound of the dish and so far we have not had any trouble getting him to eat one.

Yesterday, I didn't have all the ingredients for our regular squash-corn casserole. I tweaked this http://allrecipes.com/recipe/butternut-squash-casserole-2/detail.aspx recipe with what I had at home. And the casserole was super delicious. Much much better than a regular weekday meal.

Noting the recipe down here:
1 Butternut Squash
2 eggs
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
a pinch of salt

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 F. Line a cookie tray with foil. Cut the butternut squash into two halves, scoop out the seeds. Place the two halves face down on the tray and into the oven for about 45 minutes.

2. In the meantime, in a big bowl mix the following:
. 2 eggs beaten
. 1/4 cup butter melted
. 1 1/2 cups milk
. 1/2 cup sugar
. 1 tsp vanilla extract
. 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
. 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
. a pinch of salt

3. Grease a casserole dish with butter. I used a 9X10.

4. Once the butternut squash is cooked, peel the skin, and mash the rest. After it is relatively cool, mix it in with the rest of the ingredients and pour in the casserole dish.

5. Bake for 45 minutes at 375 F or until its set.

It would be a wonderful side-dish for a holiday meal. It is that festive.

almost no knead bread!

This is step 1. All ingredients in and some on the carpet below. The dough is wrapped and to be kept for 18 hours! This photo from yesterday.

Ingredients - salt, flour, yeast, white vinegar, beer(a table spoon full), water

Dough this morning after about 12 hours of sitting. I see the bubbles from the yeast working.

I gave it 10-15 kneads, rolled the dough on a lightly floured surface, put oil on parchment paper then let it rest again for 2 hours.

Before the 2 hours were up, the recipe called for a dutch oven to be put in the oven. I don't own a dutch oven, so we converted a stock pot into one by sealing some of the lid openings with bread dough itself! Pre-heat the stock pot at 500'F. Once ready, holding the parchment paper, I lowered the dough(put some flour on top for looks, also tried to cut a slit in, but that didn't happen because dough didn't rise enough) in the pot, covered and then baked for 30 minutes at 425'F and then for 20 minutes with lid off to brown the top.

Padron peppers poppers (PPP)

Ingredients-

• Bunch of padron peppers. The ones that are small in size are sweet. Medium sized ones have a probability of being hot. We found 2 hot peppers among 6 of the sweet ones.
• Goat cheese!
• Panko bread crumbs.
• Egg
• Salt
  
• Sauce/ketchup as condiment.

Preparation-

1. Turn the oven on, convection bake on 400'F.
2. Hollow out the insides of the peppers making sure the seeds are miles away.
3. Fill with goat cheese.
4. Dip in 1 whisked egg.
5. Roll in a mixture of panko bread crumbs mixed with salt/other seasonings that you think you can take assuming the flavor of the pepper and goat cheese is overwhelming.
6. In your preheated oven, put in the poppers neatly arranged on an aluminum foil. I sprinkled these with little oil.
   
7. Take out when the cheese starts oozing out and the crumbs turn brown. Serve hot with hot chai and sauce of your choice.

Pumpkin Bread.

Got this recipe from my mother-in-law's friend, Mrs. Anuradha Soman. I added sliced almonds and walnuts to the batter. I also added wet ingredients to the dry ones. This sequence matters says my husband.











Ingredients-
1.5 flour
0.5 tsp. salt
1 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 c. pumpkin puree
1/2 c vegetable oil
2 egss, beaten
1/4 c. water
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 c. choppped nuts ( optional)

Preheat your over to 350. Sift together the floupr, slat, sugar, and baking soda. In a spearate bowl, combine the pumkin, oil, eggs, water and spices. Pour into the bowl w/ dry ingredients and mix until all are combined - don't stir too much! Stri in the nuts, if you are using them(I like it better w/o the nuts). Pour into a well-buttered 9x5x3 in loag pan, bake 50-60 minutes until done in them iddle. Remove from pan, cool on a rack.

Keep wrapped in the refrigerate. Really good w/ cream cheese or chooped walnits in cream cheese.

Blueberry Muffins/Cake (2nd attempt)

First time around the muffins were buttery yet dry. Sort of crumbly. This time I added some milk to the batter to make the end product moist (thanks to Food Network tips) and it worked. Ingredients: Milk, flour (sifted), milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, sugar, salt and blueberries. I also added some lemon zest to give it a fresh and tangy taste. Maybe next time I should put more zest - this time blueberries sort of over power the lemony taste. But hey ... these are supposed to be blueberry muffins/cake!

Mix all the wet ingredients into a creamy mixtures.
Then add all the dry ingredients and mix until everything is blended together.
Make sure the blueberries are tossed in some flour before you 'fold' them into the batter. And be gentle when you fold the berries - otherwise they will be mashed.
Into the oven for 20 mins at 400 deg F. Be vigilant after ~15 mins - as they may burn. I have a convection oven, and usually things cook faster with the fan running (compared to the conventional ovens). The pictures show that the cake is slightly over done.

Almond Cookies

Ingredients

Makes about 20 coookies

Almond paste(roasted almonds -in this case store bought- crushed in a mixer) 1/2 cup

Roasted almond pieces 1/2 cup

All purpose flour 1 cup

Sugar 1 cup

Butter 1 stick

Baking powder 1 teaspoon

Pinch of salt

Preparation

Mix almond paste, sugar and butter well. Add to it, the almond pieces. Sift flour over this mixture and keep beating with an electric beater. Add 1 egg slowly as well until the mixture gets the consistency of a dough without kneading. Keep the dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, take out the dough and make 20 small dough balls and place them 2 inches apart on a buttered cookie sheet. Bake at 375'F for 15 minutes or until golden brown!

You can see I didn't place my dough balls 2 inches apart making for 1 huge cookie made from all cookies fusing with eachother.

Baked egglant

 

Details later. Chef Mahesh's exotic dish from his birthday baking books. 

Walnut Raisin Biscotti

  

The recipe was seen today morning on KQED. Check the details here.

The photo is of chef Mahesh kneading.