stocking-up on squash

October 14, 2014 Megan Rodriguez

It's that time! The winter squash are coming in and I love it! There's nothing quite like filling the basement pantry shelves with food that needs absolutely no preparation--from the garden (or farmer's market) onto the shelf! Lovely!

I hope you are also stocking up on the delicious fall bounty! If so, here are some of my favorite ways to use winter squash.

Wild Rice and Butternut Squash Skillet (I make this one up...every time...cook the wild rice in a sauce pan and at the same time, chop the squash into bite-sized pieces and cook it in oil/butter/bacon fat in a large skillet. Add in cooked sausage or bacon. Add in walnuts. Add in seasonings (a little honey, salt/pepper, cinnamon, red pepper, clove, garlic, whatever you want!) When the rice is finished, add it in and serve it all together. It's yummy, so delicious, and easy! (Maybe I'll turn this into a "real" recipe and share it this winter.)
Apple & Squash Soup. I make this one with butternut and I bake it all in my dutchoven and then use my immersion blender to puree it all at the end. Easy and delicious--especially when served with fresh sourdough bread.
Acorn Squash--by itself. Cut it in half and throw it in the oven in a pan with a little water at 375 for 30-40 min. Add a little butter and brown sugar or maple sugar to it when its done and serve nice and hot. Yum.

Experiment and take advantage of the cheap prices and local availability while they last! Keep your squash somewhere cool (a cool basement or garage)--as long as it's above freezing, those babies should last through the long winter months to come.

soup...for later

September 24, 2014 Megan Rodriguez

Hello, friends! It's been so long since I've posted and I've been missing this space--and missing the regular creating that normally happens in my house. My kitchen and house are slowly returning back to their normal messiness (rather than utter disaster) and the creative juices have begun to flow again. Hooray!

This past week, while this was happening to Dan Rodriguez, I found my way to the farmers' market and back to my kitchen where some soup making soon commenced. Throughout last winter's long, long winter, I decided that pulling homemade canned soup from the basement on a lazy Sunday night was probably one of my favorite things (at least in the way of canned goods that come from the basement). There's nothing quite so lovely as putting little to no effort into making dinner--especially when the finished product is entirely homemade, by you.

Not that there was no effort put into the soup making, but just not at the time in which it was eaten. And that, my friends, is why I love preserving my own food. The end product is not only better for our bodies and better for our tastebuds, but it's also better for my sanity. I love cooking, but hey, we all love (and need) those meals where we don't have to work, right?!

So, this year I decided to make a bit more soup than I had last year and stash it in the basement again. This year I made Carrot-Tomato Soup and Tomato Basil. I kind of just made up my own tomato basil recipe and canned it like I would a tomato juice/sauce, in my pressure canner (a no-no in the official world of canning, but hey, I'm fine with that.) Both soups are so delicious with a grilled cheese made with homemade sourdough bread and local cheese. I've found that the carrot-tomato is also fabulous with buttery popcorn. Yum!!

I ended up with 5 canned quarts, another almost full quart in the freezer, and a pint or so in the fridge. While we could eat more than this, it's still a great amount for us for this winter. I'm looking forward to that first lazy Sunday afternoon when we first decide to pop open a jar and cozy up on the couch with a steaming bowl of soup, a warm oozing sandwich and our favorite show. So lovely! It will just be so lovely.

summer squash & oatmeal muffins

August 29, 2014 Megan Rodriguez

Last week I decided to experiment with using summer squash, rather than zucchini, to bake with. Up at my dad's house this summer, we planted a decent sized plot of multiple varieties of squash and pumpkins. We planted acorn squash, butternut squash, pie pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, zucchini, and summer squash. We're excitedly watching the vines completely overtake the garden, and anticipating high yields of winter squash and pie pumpkins to stash away for winter.

For now, though, it's zucchini and summer squash time! Unfortunately, though, the zucchini has been a bit slow to produce. So, we've found our counters being stacked more with yellows than greens. Now, I'm not actually a huge fan of either zucchini or summer squash. I just find them rather dull. Zucchini, obviously, is great for baking, but I've never heard of people baking with summer squash. So, after my husband kindly asked if we could have a dinner without summer squash (after 4 in a row with summer squash), I figured that I'd better find a different use for all that squash!

So, I made up a recipe for muffins!! We think they are yummy and hearty. I do hope you enjoy!

Summer Squash & Oatmeal Muffins

2 cups grated summer squash

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup molasses

1/3 cup coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup oatmeal

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

handful of raisins

Mix squash, sugar, molasses, oil, vanilla, and eggs together in a mixer or by hand until well blended. Add everything else, except the raisins. Mix well. Fold in raisins.

Bake at 350* for 15-20 minutes. Yields 12 muffins.

putting up summer's goodness

August 27, 2014 Megan Rodriguez

The past week has been filled with quite a bit of canning and preserving! Most of my produce came from our farmers' market, as my urban garden just hasn't been able to produce enough for us yet. I'm hoping to get more creative with the space over the next few years and eventually preserve more homegrown goodness, but for now, the local farms will have to do!

I was able to pressure can 16 pints of corn, 10 pints of green beans, 6 pints of quartered Roma tomatoes, and 6 quarter-pints of tomato sauce (with my 4 varieties of heirloom sauce tomatoes!). I also put together 2.5 quarts of fermented dill pickles and a pint of fermented jalapeños. I used this recipe for the pickles and just used the same brine for the jalapeños. I've never tried fermented pickles....so....hopefully they turn out, because, I do love pickles!

We now have enough corn to get us through the winter, but I'm still have quite a few pints of tomatoes to store up over the next few weeks. I think I'll do another batch of beans as well. I'm also planning to do several quarts of soup, which was one of my favorite things to pull from the basement last winter!

If you are at all thinking about trying to preserve summer produce, I highly encourage you to do so! Corn, tomatoes, and green beans are totally worth the cost at a farmers' market and all can be frozen! Pressure canning is much more time consuming, but I try to keep most of our limited freezer space available for venison and other exciting things that my husband brings home, so I prefer canning. I also think it's kind of fun.

Here's to preserving summer's bounty!! How about you? What are you puttin' up for winter these days?? And what are your favorite preserving methods??

pickles, please

August 6, 2014 Megan Rodriguez

My favorite food is pickles. That's what I say whenever I play those silly icebreaker games when you have to tell people your favorite food as a way of somehow getting to know each other better.

Pickles. I love them.

Growing up, we had a relish tray at every family get-together. Our relish trays were simple: dill pickles, green olives, black olives. Occasionally some sweet pickles were thrown in the mix, but they were rarely eaten, especially not by us kids. No, dill pickles were where it was at. We'd devour the pickles and most of the olives before the dish ever made its way to the dinner or buffet table. The dish would then often be refilled with our salty favorites and we would devour them again.

Yes, pickles, I do love them.

Once I even gave a persuasive speech on pickles...in college...(I thought the class was a joke, and so it was my way of protesting...I'm not sure how effective my protest was, but it definitely made the class more exciting! Ha!)

Needless to say, I also love making pickles! I made my own last summer for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed the process (a kitchen that smells of vinegar and dill...yum!!!) and the end the result! I made about 20 pints last summer and I savored them (and somewhat hoarded them) throughout the year. This year, as has been my mantra, I decided to make more.

Yes, more pickles, please!

This past Saturday morning, I pulled myself out of bed (after a 17 hour drive the day before from Texas to Minnesota), and ventured to the farmers' market. I must say that it's always exciting to ride a bike home from the market with 6 pounds of cucumbers, a very long bunch of dill, and a smattering of other veggies filling my bike basket and a bag hanging on my handle bars. But, it just feels wrong to go to the market by car, so, alas, I take my bike and look ridiculous...

Saturday afternoon I cleaned and prepped the cukes and then put them in a salt water bath to soak in the fridge for a day. On Monday morn, I then turned the 6 pounds of summery-goodness into 11 pints of pickles for my basement shelves. I dare say, one more round of pickle making should get us through the winter!