Butternut Squash Recipes and Thanksgiving menu

Posted at Foodie Friday

I adore the combination of Chicken and Bacon, when I lived in England I would have a Chicken and Bacon salad sandwich every lunchtime from the sandwich shop next door to where I worked.

I'm also working through my Squash addiction, you know what? Butternut Squash goes amazingly well with bacon, it also goes well with chicken. Score!

This recipe is modified from a Jamie Oliver Recipe. Serves 2.

Ingredients:
Olive Oil
2 Chicken breasts (skin on preferably)
Oregano
1/2 butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into very thin slices
Bacon (about 6 rashers, 3 for each chicken breast)
Heavy Cream
Red Pepper Flakes
nutmeg
Salt
Pepper



Preheat the Oven to 400F. I had mine at 410F because it seems to run a little cold sometimes.
Season the chicken with the oregano, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Place the chicken in a casserole dish and fit the squash slices around the chicken as snugly as you can, have them standing up instead of laying flat. Carefully pour a little heavy cream around the squash (not on the chicken). Place bacon rashers on top of the chicken, 3 to each breast.

Season with a tiny smidge of grated nutmeg, some salt and some pepper. Drizzle with some olive oil and cook in the middle of the oven for 25 to 35 minutes.

I served mine with some sticky olive oil, garlic and oregano roasted potatoes. It got the thumbs up from everyone, including Mikey who appears to be just as addicted to squash as I am.

I've also been slowly working on my Thanksgiving Menu. I'm still not wholly confident with Thanksgiving tradition considering this is only the 3rd year I've celebrated it, but I'm trying my hardest. We're having a number of friends and work colleagues over to celebrate, I get excited about cooking for a lot of people. In my own personal dream world I wear a lovely apron at all times and host posh dinner parties every night of the week, and we're rich... you know so I can afford all of the expensive ingredients. And a big kitchen.

Here is the menu, "Brit Girl Cooks American Thanksgiving" with recipe links where relevant.

Starter -

Butternut Squash Chowder - I did a trial run of this last Tuesday, it went down very well with the family, including my husband who is quite picky about his soup. I neglected to take photographs so I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it. It's possible to make this ahead of time, so I'm going to be making it the day before Thanksgiving in order to free up my time to wrestle with the turkey et al.

Fresh bread - I am so not baking my own, it would be a disaster. I'll get getting some from a local bakery that morning.

Main Course -

Turkey (wondering if I can get a hold of a free range turkey out here but seems doubtful, only butterball ones at the commissary and I've yet to see a single turkey on the economy) Probably a Jamie Oliver Recipe or just a slather-it-with-butter-and-throw-some-herbs-up-its-bum made up recipe.

Homemade cranberry sauce - Only if I'm actually able to locate some cranberries, I looked last time we were grocery shopping and saw none, absolutely none whatsoever, fresh or frozen. May have to make do with a jar. That makes my tastebuds sad. Making this a few days ahead of time.

Mashed Sour Cream and Scallion Potatoes - You can't even imagine how good this is. If ever there were decadent potatoes, it's these.

Cider Roasted Vegetables - Oh my goodness yum. Simply the best way to cook veggies, no question. We had them with potatoes and bratwurst on Thursday night. I stained my hands pink with the beets and just now realised I forgot the mushrooms. Ooops. This can be made 2 hours ahead of time and reheated.

Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges - Again with the Yum. I made Sweet Potato Casserole last year and it was, well, a horrible sickly sweet gloopy mess. I made some grilled sweet potato wedges in the summer, they were great so I'm hoping these will be just as good. We're trying them out this weekend.

I know... there's no green bean casserole. I'm sorry but you Americans eat some weird food sometimes. The husband has requested it, but I'm not making it... the mere thought of it makes me want to vomit. Honestly. I'm sorry.

Is there any other important staple that I've somehow managed to miss?

Dessert -

Undecided, but it's a throw up between Bourbon Sweet Potato Cupcakes, Pumpkin Bread Pudding or Pumpkin Spice Muffins. I'm leaning towards the muffins at the moment. May have to force myself to make all of them in order to decide... what a hardship.

A final question, what does one usually have to drink during thanksgiving?

Random Tuesday Thoughts 6

It's that time again folks!

This morning a man with a tractor vacuum type thing came and stole all of our leaves! I am beyond upset... even though they were wet and starting to rot. He messed up the grass too, now it resembles a mud pit. Time for mud pies maybe?

I am obsessing over Origami at the moment. Just one of those things I guess.

I mentioned before that Mikey is sick? He's not. He's getting his final molars in, all 4 at once. I haven't slept this little since he was a newborn. Ok that's a lie, I'm not sure I slept at all when he was a newborn. On Saturday night he woke at midnight. He didn't go back to sleep, despite our very best efforts, until 5am. We did watch Monsters Inc though... I think Mikey is in love with Boo (that's his nickname as well... well he's Boo Monster.)

Isn't Squash awesome? We're going to have had butternut squash two nights in a row. Yesterday was a recipe of my own invention, it involved Butternut Squash and Bacon. I know you're dying to find out what it was. Check back on Friday, I'll be posting the recipe along with my Thanksgiving menu and trial run results. Yes I'm doing trial runs of almost everything! Spaghetti Squash is totally weird. I'm waiting for an excuse to use some in cooking, but haven't found a recipe I like yet.

When the weather starts getting gloomy, I like to crack out the literary classics. I've no idea why I do things this way, but summer tends to be for modern novels and winter for classics. I'm going to be re-reading some Dickens, Austen (even though I don't like her, maybe I've changed my mind since studying her in school. I didn't like soap operas back then). Then on the list we've got some Bronte sisters, Shelley and HG Wells.

You know, camera companies like to trick you. Yes they do. They tell you that you have to spend lots of money on a camera if you want to take good photos. Now if you're a professional then sure. The hubby uses a crazy expensive Nikon army issue camera. And sure, if you have the money to spend on expensive cameras then go for it. I used to have a Canon 350D before it was stolen from the hospital while Mikey was in the NICU. Now I use my vintage film cameras (none of which cost over $10) and my trusty Canon PowerShot SD1000.It wasn't as expensive as the one I just linked to. It was more like $150.  Don't know why that one is so pricey. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a new SLR, but immigration is an expensive business. Trust me when I say I could have bought two of the camera I want and still not reached the amount we're spending on immigration paperwork. True Story.

Anywaaaaay. It's a point and click compact cam... except I use it on manual. Although it would be nice to not have to cheat around the cameras autofocus to get what I want out of it. I have to set it to one point focus... usually in the middle. Focus on exactly what I want with the center point autofocus and then caaaaaaarefully move the camera to the angle I want without changing to distance between the camera and the object. *yawn*

Here are some shots of a couple of my lovely vintage cameras... and a brooch I bought to use in making my scarflet.

Hello Lover.

<3 <3 <3

 

 

P.S. I wish to not speak of NaNoWriMo today. Things are not going well with my poor characters.

Jazz at Midnight

While writing some more of my NaNoWriMo novel last night, (I'm over 10,000 words now!) I was suddenly reminded of something that happened a long time ago. One of my characters reminds me a little of someone that I used to know, I had to stop writing because I couldn't concentrate anymore. Instead I felt compelled to write out this little story.

When I was 18 years old, nearing 19, I was at an acquaintance's birthday party. He was someone that worked with my boyfriend at the time, in the bike repair shop, and he was just turning 18. It was summer, so the party was outside in a marquee type thing. Fancy dress, I can't remember what I dressed as but my boyfriend refused to do fancy dress because I suppose that he felt that it imposed on his manliness somehow. There were a group of us - my best friend, who shares my first name and was dressed as a fairy, another guy that my boyfriend worked with who was dressed as a Nazi soldier and there was Ed, who was about 3 years older than us.

The guy dressed as a Nazi got disgustingly drunk, the party was a washout mostly although the younger kids seemed to be enjoying themselves. We ended up sat at "the grown-up's table". Ed was the guy who introduced me to The Beat Poets, this is when we sat and discussed them. He was flirting outrageously with my best friend too. My boyfriend was sulking, as he so often did. The guy dressed as a Nazi had to be taken home, he was supposed to go home with Ed and we were all desperate to leave anyway so we started to walk him home.

After we dropped him off at his house, Ed asked us if we'd like to come over to his and have some drinks. It was about midnight and we didn't feel much like going home at that point so we went with him. We walked to his house, he said it was just up the street. It was, but the street turned into a dirt track that led through a field. In the field was an old falling down house with its windows boarded up, the front door had an enormous padlock on it, Ed said that was because people liked to come out here and vandalize his house.

Ed unlocked the padlock and opened the door, we all stepped in one after the other and Ed flipped the light on. Inside the house looked in similar condition to the outside, the wallpaper was peeling off and the floor was concrete. The kitchen had only a stove, microwave, sink and a couple of tables. We went upstairs to Ed's room, we passed his older brother who was getting ready to leave to go see his girlfriend.

Ed's room was small, one wall was lined almost entirely from floor to ceiling with old records and CD's, another wall with books. His bed was pushed up against the wall and there were more books underneath. He put on some music, I think it was Joanna Newsom, and lit up a joint, we passed it around and talked for a while.

Later we went downstairs, through the kitchen into the back room. The room was big, easily three times the size of Ed's bedroom. It was filled with recording equipment and musical instruments, there were tatty Persian rugs lining the floor. Ed made us all some tea in the kitchen and we started to pick up instruments and mess around with them. I played something on the piano and as I did, my best friend started to join me by tapping on one of the drums. Ed laughed and rooted around in the back for something. He eventually pulled out a silver saxophone and handed it to my best friend, she plays a lot of instruments including the saxophone, clarinet and piano. She is actually a music teacher now.

Ed handed an electric guitar to my boyfriend and plugged it into a nearby amp before sitting down himself behind the drum kit. We didn't speak to one another, Ed started tapping out a beat on the snare drum. I started playing on the piano, my boyfriend joined in on guitar and then finally my best friend joined in on the saxophone.

We ended up jamming all night, playing Jazz. We played until 5am, before we started to get tired and decided we had to go home.

I never saw Ed again, my best friend went back to his house a couple of times to see him before she left for college.

It's funny, that night was amazing and I'm not really sure why. I still remember it vividly 6 years later. I only met the guy once and he had such an impact on the way I live now, the way I see things, what music I like and what books I like to read.

Can you think of anyone who has had an impact on your life like that? It could be a close friend, or even someone you only met once. I want to know!

P.S. I have added a couple of new websites to my reading list in the sidebar on the left. They're pretty amazing, I'll talk about them at length at a later date, for now I've got housework to do.

NaNoWriMo Update

I'm at 7273 words as of 10pm tonight. I'm still a little behind, but managed to write a lot more than I thought I would. Especially considering that Mikey is sick and has been waking up a lot last night and tonight. I really want to be caught up by next week, I might talk the husband into letting me toddle off somewhere, sans l'enfant, to do some writing this weekend.

The story is really starting to write itself though. I have trouble with dialogue, it always sounds so ridiculously fake when I write it. But that's something that can be cleaned up post-November. For a story starting with no real plot, I've surprised myself with the way my main character has led me and what she's gotten herself into so far.

For those who are remotely interested, I wrote a kind of synopsis for it tonight. Drumroll Please.

Shadow Box

     My name is Danielle, but you don't need to remember that, it's not really all that important in the scheme of things. When I was nine years old, I was given a shadow box. It used to belong to my grandfather and his father before him. The frame was a dark wood and parts of it were beginning to crack with wear. Under the glass were 6 dead moths, neatly spaced and pinned to the black backing, with their Latin names written in scrawled handwriting on small, faded pieces of paper attached underneath each moth.

     I had to sell the shadow box eventually, it was the only thing I had left that was worth anything and I was in trouble. Alex bought it back from the guy I'd sold it to and left it outside my apartment a few nights later, wrapped in gaudy paper, for me to find. I didn't want it as a gift from him, I couldn't accept anything from him or I'd end up like one of those moths. Lovingly placed under the glass and neatly pinned to the backing.