Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese

 Hello Autumn!! I have missed you soo much!

Fall is my favorite season. I love the sights, smells, and tastes, and this macaroni and cheese was a great way to combine the three.  This Martha Stewart recipe was used as the base, but modified to meet my needs. There are two main parts to the recipe, and it takes about 2 hours to make, so I started at 10 a.m. I took this picture when just starting, which perfectly describes our morning- French press coffee and squash.

Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese

Part 1:
1 lb butternut squash (half a medium sized squash)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Sprinkles of salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne (I think I did maybe about 1/4-1/2 teaspoon each)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel the butternut squash, scoop seeds, and cut squash into one inch cubes. This is a great tutorial. Place the squash in a metal sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with seasonings. Bake for 20 minutes, stir, and bake for another 10 minutes. Then, reduce oven temp to 375 degrees.

Part 2:
1 lb elbow macaroni or shell pasta
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Cooking spray
Cheddar and mozzarella cheese for sprinkling
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
Parmesan cheese for sprinkling

Cook pasta according to package. Meanwhile, put previously baked squash, heavy cream, chicken stock, and cheeses into a bowl and mix. The squash will get squishy and not stay cubed. Stir in cooked pasta. Pour all into a sprayed 9x9 baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheddar and mozzarella cheese and then breadcrumbs. Loosely cover the pan with tin foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Then, remove pan from oven, take off foil, and return to oven uncovered for another 40 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

We ate this with Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale for a super yummy Fall meal. Enjoy!

**Edit on 12/9/13: We have made this meal three more times since the original posting. A roasted sugar pumpkin works in place of the butternut squash (two seed scooped skin-on halves at 325* for 1 hour, then scraped out instead of cubed). This recipe get 10x more delicious when goat cheese is added into the mix. SO GOOD!

**Edit on  9/1/14: Still SO GOOD! I mess around with the flavors each time and it has never not been good. We're growing squash in the garden now too, which my husband lovingly calls the "squash-a-roni plant". He is just as excited as I am. :)

Asparagus and Mozzarella Stuffed Chicken Breast with Hollandaise Sauce

Yes, this does look very similar to a previous post, it was just so good I can't help but share!

This is basically the same as the Caprese Stuffed Chicken Breast but with a different filling and sauce. Three bites in, I turned to the Mr. and said "I think this is the best meal I have ever made..." and I meant it!

Ingredients for 2 servings:
2 chicken breasts
Seasonings- Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder
Asparagus- Amount depends on size of shoots
Shredded mozzarella cheese (or your favorite kind)
Seasoned bread crumbs
Hollandaise sauce- I just use the stove-top powder packet that is mixed with milk and butter. Cheating, but still tasty!
Choice of side- Roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, stuffing (I used stuffing)

Basically, start off by doing exactly like the Caprese Chicken, by pounding two chicken breasts with the flat side of a meat mallet until about doubled in size. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic power, and onion powder. Place asparagus shoots on top of the chicken so they stick over both sides of the chicken. I used quite a few shoots, but they were very skinny. Sprinkle with cheese. Roll up the two ends of the chicken to overlap in the middle. Stick with two toothpicks to keep the chicken from unraveling while baking. Like so,

Place in a greased glass baking dish and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes, until internal temperature reaches 165.

Meanwhile, make the hollandaise sauce according the packet, or be cool and make it homemade. Also prepare the side, whatever that may be. A vegetable is incorporated into the main entree, so you can get by with just something starchy like potatoes, rice, etc.

Once the chicken is done, place on a plate and drizzle generously with the hollandaise sauce. Sit back with a glass of wine and enjoy the deliciousness!

Caprese Stuffed Chicken

Yum yum! Caprese stuffed chicken is a fresh, cheesy, and crispy main dish that is surprisingly easy to make. The recipe can be easily modified to work with other stuffing combos (cheddar broccoli, boursin asparagus, Swiss ham, etc).

Start by making a tomato bruschetta-like topping with tomato, basil, garlic, balsamic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix 1 chopped tomato, 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (from the garden!), 1 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pound 2 thawed chicken breasts between parchment pepper with the smooth side of a meat mallet until flat and near doubled in size.

Dip one side of the chicken breast into Italian seasoned bread crumbs. Place a couple spoonfuls of the tomato mix in the middle of the flattened chicken breast. Place 10-15 fresh mozzarella pearls on top of the tomato mixture. Fold up both end to roll over the cheese/tomato mix. Stick two tooth picks through the roll to hold in place. Sprinkle with more bread crumbs and place in greased glass dish.

I had some tomato mixture and cheese leftover that got covered in raw chicken juice, so I dumped the remaining filling in the pan around the chicken breasts and sprinkled with more balsamic vinegar. This got all crispy and super yummy while cooking!

Cook in a 400 degree oven for about 35 minutes, or until the inside temperature reaches 165 degrees.

We served the chicken over mashed baby red potatoes with garlic toast. Make sure to either take the toothpicks out or warn others before eating. Make sure to serve with the crispy cheese from the bottom of the pan; it was my favorite part!

Enjoy some good cooking from your Neighbor's House!

Chicken Vegetable Casserole Topped with Biscuits

Today, I made a chicken vegetable casserole topped with biscuits by cooking with "feeling" instead of measuring ingredients. My dear husband always complains that I follow recipes too closely and am not willing to make changes to what is written. Here was my chance to prove him wrong and get in touch with my inner chef.

First, I started with sauteing a handful of chopped onion (from the farmers market) in vegetable oil until soft.

Meanwhile, two chicken breast were sliced into strips as cooked in a large pan.

Next, a small handful of flour, Italian seasoning mix (because I couldn't find basil and thyme), salt, fresh crushed pepper and a glug or two of milk was added to the pan of soft onion. I then found the basil and thyme (apparently I alphabetized the spice cabinet) and threw some of that in there too. I brought to a boil over medium heat, stirring often until thickened.

Once the chicken was cooked through, a bag of frozen veggies and the onion mixture was added to the large pan and heated slightly. The mix was transferred to a greased glass cooking dish (after biscuits are made).

While the chicken/vegetable pan was heating, I mixed, just till combined, a handful of flour (my guess at 1/2 cup), a small bit of sugar, a few turns of the salt shaker, and a bit of baking powder. This was spooned over the filled glass dish once the chicken mix is spread. I could only cover half of the casserole, so made a second batch of biscuits. This time it was very wet and goopy, not sticky, as you can see the variations below.

The mixture was cooked at 375 degrees for about half an hour, until the biscuits are golden.

Ta-da! What did I learn with "feelings" instead of written recipes? Sugar does not belong in dinner biscuits, cheese should not be forgotten, and I need to remember my spice cabinet is alphabetized.

Adapted from the 2010 Best Ever Chicken Cookbook by Taste of Home.

Fresh Pesto

While our pepper plant still has only produced one useable pepper... the basil plant is doing quite well! I even had enough to snip off half the leaves to create fresh pesto. In the process, I learned that my "for decoration only" mortar and pestle works 10x better than the food processor. The mortar and pestle was a purchased from Ikea a few years ago when I had a love affair with the movie Julie and Julia. I suppose I was hoping it would be a good luck charm so my kitchen can be 1/100th as cool as Julia Child's.

Anyway...

Here is my delicious adventure in pesto, serves two:

First, pick and wash about 1/2 cup of fresh basil.

Place basil in a food processor and add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of garlic, 

about 1 tablespoon of pine nuts,

and about 2 tablespoon of olive oil. 

Process until smooth or until you get frustrated that the blade glides right over the top of the ingredients...

Then move to the mortar and squish it up until smooth.

 As you can see below, the pestle did a much better job mushing the ingredients together than the food processer.

 

Add salt and pepper to taste and mix again. Add to your favorite dish and enjoy! Or as Julia Child says, Bon Appetit!

We mixed our pesto with alfredo and chicken and served over noodles with bread, oil and vinegar, and wine.

We will be making this again once the basil plant has recuperated from the plucking. Haha!

Well, I have learned that blogging takes a bit more of a commitment than originally thought. I have no problem creating blog-worthy meals and enjoy sharing the recipes, I just don't like uploading the pictures to the computer.  So far, some fun foods that were missed due to my lack of picture taking are: vanilla bean cupcakes with fresh raspberry buttercream, watermelon sorbet, honey mustard porkloin, garlic butter steak, homemade mac and cheese, stuffed peppers, sugar cookies, monkey bread, mini peach pies, homemade ravioli, and cinnamon roll waffles. I will get better at this, I promise!