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.

Crispy Skin is Good Skin

So about a month ago I bought what I thought was a whole chicken for roasting. Every once in a while my dad liked to roast a chicken and it always turned out really good, so I like to do that every so often. We were cleaning out the freezer and I saw it and put it in the fridge to thaw so I could make it. I took it out last night to make for dinner and it was a whole chicken, but for frying not roasting. This means it wasn't a little chicken turkey it was 4 leg/thighs thing. Oh well, Kevin says I'm an innovator, so we'll go with that.
I decided just to roast it in the oven the same way I was going to roast an entire chicken.

I cut up about 7 potatoes (Kevin said he really wanted potatoes..), 4 stalks of celery, 1 small onion, and threw in a handful of fresh thyme. I used this as a bed for my chicken. I also salted and peppered the "bed" to give it lots of flavor. I also liberally put salt and pepper all over the chicken.

I melted the stick of butter and about 1 cup of honey together in the microwave.  I mixed the two together with my pastry brush and proceeded to baste on that honey goodness. I basted it again after 20 minutes and then 40 minutes later and then the last 15 minutes of roasting.

I preheated the oven to 450 degrees and put the chicken in there for 20 minutes. I did thid so it would get a nice brown, crispy skin. Then I turned the oven down to 350 degrees and finished cooking it for 2 hours.

This is how it looked when finished:

The skin was sooooooo crispy and good! Now, if I had the whole chicken like I thought I would've, the potatoes would still have been a bed under the chicken.  The celery, onion, and thyme would have gone into the chicken's cavity to give it flavor from the inside out. The basting would have been the same. Here is the recipe for what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken
• 5 stalks of celery
• 7 potatoes
• 1 small onion
• handful of thyme
• salt
• pepper
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup honey

Pre heat your oven to 450 degrees.  Cut up you veggies and lay them evenly in a baking dish. Put about 5 of the thyme sprigs around the top of your chicken "bed" and flavor with salt and pepper. Lay the chicken in the pan so as much of the skin is exposed to the heat as possible. Melt the stick of butter with the honey in the microwave or on the stove. Then baste 1/4 of the mixture on to the chicken. Sprinkle with salt and peeper. Lay the rest of the thyme on the top of the chicken. Put into the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn oven down to 350 degrees. Baste chicken again with 1/4 more of the butter-honey mixture. After 40 minutes in the oven, baste again with 1/4 of the butter-honey. In 65 minutes, baste with the rest of the honey-butter. In 15 minutes, remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes before serving.  Enjoy your chicken!