Squash Season!

When I lived at home, every once in a while, my mom would buy acorn squash and make these really good roasted squash things. They were very yummy. Acorn squash was on sale last week, so I decided to revisit my mom's delicious squash.

So I started by cutting off a little piece of the bottom so it would sit up. Now, make sure you be careful and had a sharp knife, It was hard to cut through this thing! After cutting a small slice off the bottom, not too big. You don't want to open the hollow part in the center of the squash. I cut off the top next, making sure I could scoop out the seeds.

Then, I scooped out the seeds. I don't know if you can toast and eat the seeds of an acorn squash, but we never did so I just threw them away. I had the oven preheating at 375 degrees.

Then I smeared 2 Tbsp of butter all around the inside of the squash. Then I sprinkled about 2 Tbsp of light brown sugar on top of the butter. Then I put it on a baking sheet and into the oven for 1 hour.

This acorn squash was so good! I was scraping the skin of the squash to get all of it I could! Next time I might use a fork and poke holes all around the inside to see if that get a little more flavor to all of the flesh. This was a warm and delicious fall meal! It was also quite easy.

Oh I did lots of yummy fall stuff this weekend! We went apple picking! I made the ugliest apple pie you've ever seen. I never planned on posting the apple pie from the start, but when I saw it was so ugly, I took a picture to show you before and after it went into the oven. That will be the next post.

Chicken Wiings

Like I have said before, I'm not really a fan of meat on the bone for some reason. Chicken on the bone is my least favorite. But, I do love me some chicken wings. I also happen to make them pretty well.

We usually end up getting a family pack of wings to cook. Kevin also loves chicken wings. When you open th chicken, make sure you look over your chicken to see if there is any feathers or stuff to clean and pull off the wing, that part is kinda yuck.

The seasoning for this recipe is really easy. For me, simplicity usually makes food taste better. Dishes start tasting weird when I add more "stuff". I just use salt and lemon pepper. I don't measure the spices, I just add enough to make the wings well coated.

I preheat the oven to 450 degrees. I like cooking my chicken at a really high temperature first and then finishing it at a lower temperature. This makes the skin nice and crispy. I put the chicken in the 450 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Then I turn the oven down to 350 degrees and cook for another 30 minutes. Then i add on the barbecue sauce. I have yet to master making my own sauce. I want to make my own, and I will, soon. But, since I haven't, my favorite store bought sauce is Bulls-eye. They have a Texas style described as, "Smoky mesquite with the sting of hot peppers". That just sounded too good to pass up. You can of course use your favorite BBQ sauce.

So after 30 minutes I poured half the bottle over 2/3 of the wings. Kevin said he'd had barbecue chicken earlier and didn't want sauce on his (he later said he should have had me put sauce on all the wings because the sauce was so good. He really does need to start listening to me). I put them back in the oven at the same temperature for a final 30 minutes.

It sounds really simple, but it is very good.

Recipe:

5.34 lbs. chicken wings

about 1/4 cup lemon pepper seasoning

2 tbsp. kosher salt

1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Sprinkle half of lemon pepper and salt on the wings after opening. Place the chicken wings in a dish, seasoned side down, big enough to lay each wing almost flat. Cover with rest of seasoning. Put wings in oven for 30 minutes. Turn oven down to 350 degrees. Leave chicken in for another 30 minutes. Take out wings and cover in barbecue sauce. Put back in oven for another 30 minutes. Take out of oven!

Lazy Breakfast.

I know Kevin needs to eat before he leaves for jiu jitsu class. But, I also know that I am tired in the mornings. Very tired. So I was looking through my email and noticed one from Cooking.com. All I saw was french toast, and that was all I needed to see. I was going to look for a future cooking experience, but when I saw that I could make it last night and put it in the oven in the morning I had to make it for breakfast today. We didn't have french bread, but we did have half a loaf of sandwich bread.

I did make a few changes in the recipe and have a few that I will make the next time I make this dish. Overall, it was really good, especially if you like french toast and don't like cooking too much in the morning (or get up really early).

"Bread"

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Here is the original recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf (10 oz.) French bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 8 eggs
• 3 cups milk
• 4 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon salt, optional

Directions:

Place bread cubes in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla and salt if desired. Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.

Remove from the fridge 30 minutes before baking. Dot with butter. Combine sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over top.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand for 5 miutes. Serve with syrup if desired.

Now, the first change I made was the bread. I used just a regular loaf of bread. Next time I make it I want to have some challah bread on hand. In my opinion, challah bread makes the best french toast. In the morning, I decided to " Paula Deen" the casserole and use a whole stick of butter instead of 2 tablespoons. More butter can't be bad. But, it kinda made the top soggy, so next time I'll use half a stick of butter.When I made the cinnamon sugar mixture, I kinda made my own. I know you just need more sugar than cinnamon and I wanted a lot more than the recipe called for. I was glad I did because the inside of the casserole didn't have too much flavor. We thought syrup would fix that, but we were out of syrup. So, I sprinkled more cinnamon-sugar on each serving. Next time I will try drizzling syrup in the pan before baking it in the morning, and stirring it a little to get that maple flavor all throughout. This morning was great. I woke up, took it out of the fridge and preheated the oven.  I did some other just-woke-up things, came back and put it in the oven. Kevin's a huge protein eater so I also made him some bacon since that is all the breakfast meat we have right now. Again, watch the grease splatter. It splattered in my nostril this morning, and (in the style of charlie bit my finger) that really hurt! I also discovered something crazy delicious with my coffee. I have hazelnut creamer. We also have chocolate syrup left from the crepes. So I added my creamer and mixed in some chocolate syrup like when making chocolate milk. Then I added my coffe and one Splenda instead of two. Oh My Goodness!!!!!! Nutella coffee. It is so very very good! I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner! Also, last night, I had 3 crepes left over and defrosted them. I spread Nutella on them and put sliced strawberries on the Nutella. I rolled them up and we had a delicious, quick, and easy dessert.

Mini Meat-loaves have less calories!

I was looking at my old wedding blog and found an entry when I made mini meat-loaves. I got the recipe from my Kraft Foods magazine. It was a free magazine that come spring/summer/fall/winter but is now something you have to buy. I just haven't been around to purchasing a subscription. They used to have some really good recipes in there. This one I found made mini meat-loaves 4 different ways based on what add-ins you chose.  So I decided to revisit this recipe and put my own twist on it because I didn't have StoveTop dressing or any cheese (astonishing). And to go along with it I decided to make the sweet potato fries I've seen show that Sandra Lee makes them on 1,000 times. They just look SO good and sweet potatoes were on sale last week.


So first I made the mini meat-loaves:

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs. ground beef
• 1/2 cup and 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• Salt & pepper
• 2 Tbsp Mustard ( I like spicy brown)

In a bowl put you ground beef, 1/2 cup of barbecue sauce, bread crumbs, egg, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Mix with utensil to combine. I find that my hands do the best job of getting everything mixed together really well. Just make sure to wash your hands good before and after mixing. Get out a cupcake pan and spray liberally with cooking spray. Trust me, you'll definitely want to get these puppies out of the muffin cups! Make about 1 inch in diameter balls of meat. Your cupcake cups might be smaller or larger, so adjust the meat-loaf size accordingly. Just make them big enough so a little bit of meat over flows (so they kinda look like meat muffins, that sounds weird). Then mix the other 1/2 cup barbecue sauce and 2 tablespoons of mustard together in a small bowl.  spread over the tops of each meat-loaf. I pressed a little divot in the top with my thumb so the sauce had more room. It will be messy, but that's what makes 'em good! Then put them in the oven at 375 degrees for 60 minutes! Let cool for a minute when finished then dig in!

Then I made the sweet potato fries. I got the recipe from Sandra Lee and here it is:


Ingredients:

• 2 pounds sweet potatoes
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tablespoon chili seasoning
• salt and pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut potatoes in half, lengthwise, then cut into 1/2-inch thick fries. Place sweet potato fries in a large mixing bowl. Add oil and spices. Toss until they are thoroughly coated with spices. Spread fries in a single layer on prepared baking sheet. Place in preheated oven. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes turning once to ensure even cooking. Remove from oven and serve hot.

"Cut the sweet potato"

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And that was my very easy simple supper last night!!!!