Butternut Squash Noodles

I'm not big on kitchen gadgets.  No special garlic skin removers (I have a knife and a good whack gets it right off), no ceramic ginger mincer (again, I have a knife), no little hand choppers (have you heard, I have a knife).  BUT I'm in love with my new shredding peeler!

I bought it for the Green Papaya Salad I make in my Thai cooking class.  Previously I taught people how to make the salad authentically, which means you hold it in your hand, hack the heck out of it with a sharp knife in quick strokes and then peel the shreds into the bowl.  But it took a really long time, and I was always more than a little nervous that someone what going to hurt themselves (I have a great no-cuts track record in my classes, and I'd like to keep it!).  A friend told me about the peeler that easily makes julienne slices, and off I went to Bed Bath & Beyond (with my coupons in hand!)

I've made "noodles" out of zucchini before, but since they're not in season, I started staring at the butternut squash sitting on my counter.  Why not? 

Unlike zucchini (which I've always used raw), butternut squash is much firmer, so I figured I would have to cook them.  I tried it two ways: baked and boiled.  Both worked for me, but boiling them for just a couple minutes gave them a little more texture, and I liked them better prepared that way.  Baking them in a 400 degree oven is faster - cuz it takes a long time for a big pot of water to boil - and it produced a soft noodle.

Boiling the "noodles" for 2 minutes in a pot of salted water, made it more like spaghetti squash - a little bit of crunch to it.  So it's up to you and your preference in texture.  Either way, you'll dig it!

I've been working with clients lately who have a lot of food allergies and intolerances, so it always puts me in the frame of mind to re-create familiar dishes that they think they might never eat again.  So along with the no grain aspect of this dish, I decided to toss it with a non-dairy pesto.

My pesto included basil, of course, but I also had a handful of cilantro and parsley left over from last week's classes (step outside the box on the greens in your pesto - any herbs, spinach, arugula, even kale will make a great pesto).  Pop them into the food processor along with a couple cloves of garlic and nuts (I used walnuts, because I always have a big bag of them in my fridge).  Since I was being "alternative" I decided to add a teaspoon of nutritional yeast to replace the Parmesan and pulsed them all until well blended.  Then I left the motor running and drizzled in a 1/4 cup of olive oil, 1/4 cup of water and 2 tablespoons lemon juice (add more water as needed for desired consistency).  Now you've got a lovely pesto.  I always like to taste it first before I add salt.  I ended up adding a couple of pinches salt (about 1/2 teaspoon) and a little pinch of pepper.  Perfect!

Just a bit of sliced Kalamata olives and chopped walnuts.  And that was lunch.

For dinner, I tried the boiled version with the same pesto and served it with Spicy Cornmeal-Crusted Snapper.  Now we're talkin'!

Happy girl....doing the happy dance!

Butternut Squash Noodles with Dairy-Free Pesto
Serves 4

3 lb. butternut squash, halved and peeled
2 cups basil leaves
1/2 cup cilantro
1/2 cup Italian parsley
2 large cloves garlic
1/2 cup walnuts, divided
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water (or more for desired consistency)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, sliced

• Shred the butternut halves with a shredding peeler or use a mandolin to cut squash into thin ribbons.
• Place basil, cilantro, parsley, garlic, 1/4 cup of the walnuts and nutritional yeast in a food processor and pulse to combine. 
• With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil, then the water, then the lemon juice.  Add more water if needed for desired consistency.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Set aside.
• Either bake squash noodles in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes or boil in a large pot of boiling water for 2 minutes.
• If baked, toss hot noodles with pesto and olives.  Top with walnuts.
• If boiled, drain "noodles" and return to warm pot.  Stir in pesto and olives.  Top with walnuts.

Cook Happy!

Ratios

I'm an intuitive cook; I just "feel" my way through it.  I have a good foundation in culinary techniques, but it's my sense of what flavors and textures go together that defines my way of cooking. In the kitchen I don't necessarily "play by the rules;" there are no rules.  (Again, this is why I don't bake).

But there's a great book called Ratio, by Michael Ruhlman.  It offers a kind of blueprint to cooking certain basic recipes; for example, there's a ratio of 3 parts flour, 2 parts liquid and 1 part fat in biscuits.  You first learn the basic recipe/ratio, and then you can switch up the types of ingredients, add spices, etc. and create a world of variations on the basic biscuit.  This makes sense, and I realized that even though it seems like "rules" to me, it does offer me a little inspiration.

I don't necessarily look at my recipes in terms of ratios, but I have a student this semester in the chef program at Bauman College who is very new to cooking and he has opened my eyes to the ratios that exist in some of my everyday recipes.

Take pesto, for example.  I had some basil that was in the use-it-or-lose-it stage, so last night I decided to make pesto: herbs, nuts, cheese, garlic, oil.  I got to thinking about how easy it is to make variations on the theme.  I had some grape tomatoes left over from a green papaya salad I made the other day, and realized that if you were to ask basil what it likes to hang out with, it'll say "tomatoes." (And yes, sometimes I do have conversations with my food.....not weird!)

So let's sauté some little tomatoes and garlic slices....

 

 Saute them in a good amount of olive oil, so you really flavor that oil, and be sure to get every drop of it into your food processor when you make the pesto.  Cooking the tomatoes will give the pesto a deeper flavor, and it also boosts the health benefits  Tomatoes are chock-a-block of lycopene, which is helpful in reducing cardio-vascular disease and LDL levels (the bad kind of cholesterol).  Thing is, the lycopene becomes more available to our bodies when it's cooked....so cook 'em up!

A pesto always includes nuts, usually pine nuts.  I tend to use walnuts when I make pesto, mainly because I always have them in my freezer (and they're much less expensive than pine nuts).  Unlike tomatoes, nuts don't necessarily get any healthier for you when they're cooked, but toasting nuts brings out more flavor.  I chose to toast some almonds.....

 You simply need to heat a dry skillet over medium heat and add the nuts (works for any type of nut).  After a few minutes or so, keeping them moving so that they don't burn, you'll have lovely fragrant nuts.  Throw those puppies into a food processor (works better than a blender for pesto, because the base around the blade is larger, so everything moves around and get ground easily).  Let it go until the almonds are finely ground, then add the cooked tomato mixture, a couple cups of basil leaves, some Parmesan and lemon zest.  Let it rip until all ingredients are well chopped, scrape down the bowl and with the motor running, slowly stream in oil (I like to use half oil and half water to cut the amount of fat).  Once you have the consistency you like, season with salt, pepper, and a little smoked paprika.  Sooooo good!

Pesto is so versatile; toss it with quinoa pasta and fresh veggies, top grilled chicken, steak or snapper with it, spread over French bread and broil for a new spin on "garlic bread."  people often ask me how long it lasts in the fridge.  I wouldn't know...it's so dang good I use it all up immediately!

Smokey Tomato Pesto
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes (about a dozen), halved
3 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 cup almonds, toasted
2 cups basil leaves , firmly packed
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt & pepper to taste

• Heat 2 tablespoons oil in small skillet over medium high heat.  Add tomatoes and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally for 5-8 minutes until tomatoes are lightly browned and softened.
• Meanwhile heat another small skillet (not teflon coated) over medium heat.  Add almonds and toast them, tossing often to prevent burning.  Remove from heat and place in bowl of food processor.
• Process until almonds are finely ground.  Then add tomato & garlic mixture, basil, Parmesan and lemon zest.  Process until well combined, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
• With the motor running, add remaining 6 tablespoons of oil and 1/4 cup water (more or less) to reach desired consistency.
• Scrape down the sides again and add smoked paprika, a pinch of salt and pepper.  Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.

Yum it up!!

 

Roll with it!

That's my new mantra these days.  Lots of things getting thrown my way, but I'm just going to roll with it.  So why shouldn't my food do the same???

My friend and fellow food blogger, Karen Pavone, asked me if I had an entree using basil for an upcoming post she was working on. Of course my first thought was a delicious pesto chicken recipe that is my go-to dish for entertaining.  But Karen already had a pesto recipe that she was going to use, so I had to think of something different.  This is the perfect season for that though....becasue it's tomato season!  Basil always makes me think of tomatoes; they dig each other and are the perfect culinary couple. If you know me, you know my absolute love of a Caprese Salad, so I thought why not stuff that perfect combo into a chicken breast??  Oh yeah....

Start by pounding boneless, skinless chicken breasts very thin.  If you had the kind of weekend I did, here's a delicous chance to get out some frustration!  Pound the heck out of it, until it's about a 1/4" thin.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and then layer tomatoes, basil. mozzarella cheese, and lemon slices.  Be sure to remove all the pith from the lemon or it will leave a bitter taste in your mouth, and no one likes that.

Then roll the breasts from one of the short ends, tucking the filling in as you go.  Secure with toothpicks (don't use colored ones or your chicken can end up with blue and green spots - so not pretty).  You could stop here and just coat with a little olive oil and pop them in the oven.  But I want more.  So I dredged the rolls in egg, flour and a panko mixture with garlic, lemon zest and parmesan.  Oh yeah, more is good!

Brush with a little olive oil and bake at 375 for about 45 minutes, or until chicken is heated through to 165 and lightly browned.  Slice the chicken breasts to expose the beauty inside, then pat yourself on the back for a job well done!  Pretty food!

I served this over summer squash thinly sliced into "noodles" (inspired by my dinner at Pican the other night) tossed in a tomato & basil cream sauce.  The picture is a bit of a hot mess, but dang, it was soooo good!

Yum it up!

And now I'm feeling a little saucy....

I have a client that I cook for who is a personal chef's dream.....she loves everything I cook, and after 3 or 4 years I don't even need to run my ideas by her.  So I whipped up a couple of her known favorites: a stacked veggie enchilada bake and a smoky tilapia with papaya-cilantro salsa.  Then I spied a large bunch of basil languishing in my fridge.  I bought it days ago with some great idea in mind, I'm sure, but the weekend ran away with me and now it was use it or lose it time.  What to make???

My improv cooking skills have been honed between having to cook for the students at Bauman during the first few weeks of their program (man, I'm so glad THEY start cooking full dishes themselves this week!) and spending weekends with Tom with what I have come to fondly refer to as the "What Can We Make With This?" experiments - a sample of which looks like this:

This is a little game we like to play where we pull out whatever hasn't yet died in our refrigerators, and turn it into something delish!  And it has sharpened my skills at pulling together a meal using what I have on hand.

I have a pretty well-stocked pantry, freezer and fridge.  In fact, I was asked recently if this was all in preparation for a natural disaster.  No, funny-pants, it's just because I love to cook and don't like to shop so much.

So back to my poor bunch of basil... who doesn't love pesto?  I always have the usual suspects on hand: garlic, nuts, olive oil, and cheese.  But I'm newly inspired to try out some variations on the old standard sauces.  I decided to make a dairy-free version.  I KNOW, who would think that sentence would ever escape my lips....dairy-free?  Suzanne?  That just does not sound right.  But it sure tastes right!  Here's the trick - substitute nutritional yeast for the cheese (stop making that face!).  When I was first introduced to the concept of nutritional yeast while I was in the Natural Chef Program myself, I took a wiff and thought "Gross!  What have I gotten myself into here?"  But it's about the taste, not the smell.  Nutirional yeast gives food a cheesy flavor and also is a rich source of B vitamins, especially B12, making it especially beneficial for vegans and vegetarians.  But forget all that - it makes food taste good!

Yes, that is an indentation from my finger in the middle of the sauce...couldn't resist!



Dairy-free Pesto Sauce

1/3 cup walnuts

2 teaspoons chopped garlic (please use fresh!)

4 cups packed basil leaves, stems removed

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

Zest and juice from half a lemon

1/2- 3/4 cups water

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt & pepper to taste

·         Place garlic and walnuts in a food processor and pulse to finely chop.

·         Add basil, nutritional yeast, lemon zest and juice and process until a paste begins to form.  Scrape down the sides.

·         Place water and oil in a measuring cup and with the motor running, slowly add until desired consistency, stopping and scraping down the sides as necessary.  You may use less or more water depending on your preference.

·         Season to taste with salt and pepper.

I tossed it with orzo, sauteed red onion, quartered kalamata olives and sundried tomatoes.

I hope you get inspired to dig into your pantry and fridge to find a delicious

 improv just waiting to be discovered!