thoughtful consumption

This was a great week, and I learned a lot.

Butternut squash!

We cooked our butternut squash in two stages: the neck and the bottom. First we cut off the neck, peeled it (butternut squash is pretty easy to peel), and sliced it into half-inch rounds. Then we drizzled them with butter and brown sugar and baked them for 30 minutes.  It makes a relatively fast winter side dish. The rounds reheat great as leftovers, too. We wrapped the bottom in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.

For the second stage, we cooked the bottom like acorn squash. We sliced it in half, scooped out the seeds, and put in some butter and maple syrup. Then we put the halves cut side up in a dish with half an inch of water and baked it for an hour. We really like butternut squash now.

Sweet potatoes!

We didn’t get to any sweet potatoes this week, but they are keeping just fine in their unwashed state. I’m cooking what’s left of my uglies today to make souffle to freeze. (That’s what’s keeping the butternut squash company in the picture above.) The ugly sweet potatoes still seemed fine, but I wanted to make sure I got to use them.

My souffle is barely souffle because I like sweet potato souffle to taste like sweet potatoes. I’ll just bake them, cool, peel and chunk them, and toss them in the mixer with some butter and brown sugar. And an egg, I guess, so I can call it souffle.

Fried rice!

The carrots, napa cabbage, and daikons made me think of fried rice, but I’ve never been happy with my fried rice. I use leftover rice like everyone says, but it always turns out mushy. So I checked in with simplyrecipes.com and found this recipe. It says the essential steps are cooking the protein separately and leaving the rice in the pan for a while, giving it plenty of  “wok time.”

I tried it, and it worked great. It was definitely the best fried rice I’ve ever made. I cooked four eggs until they were almost done and then removed them. (I used four eggs because I wasn’t adding any other protein.) Then I cooked some diced onions, garlic, and ginger for a minute or so until it smelled really good. Then I put in the day-old rice. (I wish I had crumbled it up first. Instead I just dropped the whole clump in. Next time….) I spread the rice around and left it there for 2 minutes, then tossed it, and let it sit for 2 more minutes. Then I added the sauce, chopped up veggies, and eggs back in, tossed everything together, and let it sit for a few more minutes. It was terrific and not mushy at all! I’m glad to have learned how to do this right because it’s such a useful dish when you’ve got eggs and leftover assorted veggies.

My mother also suggested rinsing the rice before cooking it (the day before). She learned this from a cook in Louisiana. I guess there’s some starchy stuff left on the rice grains, and when you rinse them, the rice grains stay separate and have a different texture.

Pasta!

I did make the tomato, garlic, parsley, and parmesan pasta dish. It was good, but I wish I had added some shrimp or maybe some more dried red pepper. We also made pasta with kale and pinenuts. It was pretty good, too. I haven’t tried the kale and raisin recipe yet, but I think I’ll get to it tomorrow with the other half of the kale.

Salads!

We had some epic salads with cherry tomatoes, radishes, and carrots along with the lettuce. I’ve still got a bunch of carrots and parsley left, so I might cook the carrots with butter and parsley. Then again, they are so good raw. More likely, I’ll cut them into stick-like forms for snacking.

Peppermint soap!

The peppermint soap is great! It sits in our tiny downstairs powder room and makes everything smell like Christmas. It’s on the left in this picture. I wish I could upload a smell!