Southwestern Stuffed Acorn Squash

My mom first originally made this for Troy and I awhile back. Now believe you me... I was skeptical. I'm not really a squash fan. My husband definitely not a squash fan. But believe it or not we both ended up going back for seconds! I love this because it's a whole meal in itself! Not to mention it's pretty darn healthy for you too!

Southwestern Stuffed Acorn Squash

very slightly adapted from Eating Well

Ingredients:

3 acorn squash, (3/4-1 pound each)

1/2 pound lean ground beef

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 medium red bell pepper, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tbs chili powder

1 tsp ground cumin

2 cups chopped cherry tomatoes

1 15oz can black beans rinsed

1/2 tsp salt

Several dashes hot sauce, to taste

1 cup shredded swiss cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray. Cut squash in half horizontally. Scoop and discard seeds. Place the squash cut side down on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until tender, about 45 min.

In the mean time, brown the ground beef in a skillet. Add onion and bell pepper until tender. Stir in garlic, chili powder and cumin. Cook for about 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes, beans, salt and hot sauce. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until the tomatoes are broken down. About 10-12 minutes.

When the squash are tender reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees. Fill the squash halves with the ground beef mixture and top with cheese. Place on the baking sheet and bake until the filling is heated through and the cheese is melted. About 8-10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Jello Pie

I had to make a pie for Thanksgiving this year. I have never made a pie in my entire life. I'm not really a baking person. I prefer cooking. I figured a Jello pie would be fool proof enough for my inexperience. It was fool proof and might I add delicious?


Strawberry Jello Pie
from Baked with Love and Butter

Ingredients:
1 pint fresh strawberries, sliced
1 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbs corn starch
4 tbs strawberry Jello mix
3-4 drops red food coloring

1 graham cracker pie crust (buy it or make it yourself)


Directions:
Add water, sugar, corn starch and food coloring together in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Stir until well mixed. {The mixture will be a milky pink color}. Continue to cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture becomes thick and clear. Mine didn't thicken and clear up until it started to boil. Once the mixture is thick and clear remove from heat and add Jello. Let it cool a bit. {This is a great time to start slicing your strawberries!}
Add sliced strawberries to pie crust. Once the jello mixture has cooled a bit, pour over strawberries in the pie crust. Put the pie in the refrigerator for a few hours to set up.

Serve and top with homemade whipped cream. Mmmm....

Cranberry Baked Brie

We started a new tradition on Thanksgiving and it involves brie cheese. If I had to pick brie would be my favorite cheese. Just thinking about it makes me want to run out and get more. While in NYC a few weeks ago and I an open faced turkey sandwich with brie and apples. So good. The melted brie. Yum!

Thanksgiving dinner didn't happen until 3:30 due to naps so I planned a few appetizers. This cranberry baked brie was the star. The burst of orange zest with cranberry and melted cheese on a ritz cracker. Oh so good! I would have eaten the whole thing if I could have.

This is what it looked like after about 10 minutes. We couldn't stop eating it. Good thing we had a few hours between this and our dinner.

Baked Brie

8 ounces brie cheese round
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup fresh cranberries, chopped
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, or dried
1/2 teaspoon orange zest

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Place brie on a baking sheet.
2. Pour maple syrup over top, and add cranberries. Sprinkle with thyme and orange zest.
3. Place in oven, and bake 25-30 minutes, until brie is soft when cut.
4. Remove from oven, and carefully transfer to a serving plate.
5. Serve immediately with crackers.

Pumpkin Chili

I've been pinning lots of yummy looking food on my pinterest account, but my goal is to actually make an item off my board. This pumpkin chili is one of them. I was a little apprehensive to make it. Pumpkin? In chili? It seems that pumpkin is usually paired with something sweet. But you couldn't even taste the pumpkin flavor. It was sweeter than typical chili.

The recipe calls to make it on the stove, but I browned the onions and beef and then tossed everything in the crock pot and put it on low all day. You can do either depending on the time you have.

Pumpkin Chili
adapted from Whole Foods

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 jalapeños, seeded and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 pound ground beef
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with their liquid
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin purée
1 cup water
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained

Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add onion, jalapeños and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add beef and cook until browned. Add tomatoes, pumpkin, water, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and add beans. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes more. Ladle chili into bowls and serve.

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas

Wow it's really been a long time. Longer than I happy with! Here is a winning recipe to make up for it though :) Honey and lime have got to be my new favorite flavor combination! And I'm sure a lot of you have tried some variation of these delicious enchiladas. If you haven't... they are divine and you should! I adapted this recipe from one of my favorite go to recipe sites Mel's Kitchen Cafe. I left out the heavy cream to keep these enchiladas on the lighter side of the calorie spectrum. Enjoy!


Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas
adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe

6 tablespoons honey
5 tablespoons lime juice (1 large lime)
1 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 pound chicken, cooked and shredded
8-10 flour tortillas
8-10 oz pepper jack cheese, shredded
24 0z jarred salsa verde (I used La Victoria)


Directions:
Mix together the honey, lime juice, chili and garlic powder. Pour over the shredded chicken and marinate for at least 1-2 hours longer if you can. When the chicken has marinated add chicken and cheese to the tortillas {save some cheese to sprinkle on top}and place in a greased 9 x 13in pan. Pour salsa verde over enchiladas and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake at 350 degree for 25 minutes.

Delicious!

Margherita Pizza

After a suggestion from Mallory, my husband and I sat down to watch the documentary Forks Over Knives. After watching the documentary Troy and I decided that we should go on a 7 day vegetarian diet. The documentary suggests to cut out all animal products, but I have a relationship with cheese. I love dairy, especially cheese. I don't think I could live a happy fulfilling life without it.

For our week long vegetarian diet we decided to make a Margherita Pizza. My personal opinion is that tomatoes, basil, and garlic is the most wonderful tasting flavor combination. Tomato + basil + garlic + pizza = ah-may-zing! The best part of this pizza would have to be the homemade sauce. I will never buy pizza sauce again. It's sooo easy and extra tasty!

Pizza Margherita
Slightly adapted from A Sweet Pea Chef

Ingredients:
1 pizza crust/dough

1 14oz. can whole peeled tomatoes, not including juices
1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 ground black pepper

2-3 roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
1 oz fresh basil torn in to pieces

Directions:
Preheat over to 450 degrees.

To make sauce. Drain tomatoes and puree in a food processor (or blender). Add olive oil, oregano, basil, garlic, salt and pepper. Pulse to combine.

Spread sauce evenly over pizza dough leaving a 1/2 inch border around the edge for the crust. Evenly sprinkle shredded mozzarella over pizza sauce. Add sliced tomatoes, creating a layer of tomatoes on top.

Bake pizza for 12-15 minutes or until crust turns a golden brown and cheese has melted. For an extra yummy crust mix a little olive oil, garlic powder and kosher salt together. Brush on the crust the last few minutes of baking.

Toss fresh basil over cooked pizza and let stand about 3 minutes. Slice and serve.

Makes 1 large pizza.


Notes: I'm sort of a cheater and I like to buy already made dough from my local bakery. Making dough intimidates me for some reason. One of the bakers let me in on a little pizza dough secret. When you're making pizza, if the middle of the crust keeps coming out doughy bake the dough for 5 minutes in the oven before adding toppings.

Butternut Squash Soup

I'm alive, I promise. And I have been cooking meals, but honestly nothing that's blog worth. We've been busy. The husband is interviewing like crazy. And so far has four more interviews that he has to fly to. So when he's gone I don't really make dinner.

A couple weeks ago we had a few days of cooler weather, like in the 60s. It was time for soup. Squash are my favorite vegetables. They are cheap, last a long time and you can dress them up so many different ways. This time I used a butternut squash. They are tricky to cut, so unless you are strong I recommend letting the husband/boyfriend cut it for you. This soup had a nice kick to it because of the jalapeno, but it's not too bad.

2 T butter
1/2 onion, diced
2 t ginger
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced
1 butternut squash-peeled, seeded and cubed
2 c chicken broth
1 evaporated milk
1 t sugar
salt and pepper
1 c sour cream

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in onion, ginger and jalapeno pepper; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 7 minutes. Add the butternut squash and chicken broth, and bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until squash is tender. Stir in evaporated milk, sugar, salt and pepper. Cook and stir 5 minutes. CAREFULLY, pour soup into a blender. Hold the lid of blender with towel and start to blend. Puree in batches (I was able to do it all at once in my blender), or if you have a hand blender you can blend it in the pot. Serve with sour cream.