Roasted Acorn Squash and Onion with Tahini and Za'atar

I think it is time for me to stop buying so much squash at the farmers' market.  Every week I see a new variety and pick up more squash.  So we have been battling our ever expanding squash selection little by little.  Right now I have a stripetti squash at home (which is apparently a cross between a delicata squash and a spaghetti squash).  Once I read the little blurb claiming that it was a cross between a delicata and a spaghetti squash I couldn't resist buying a stripetti squash because those are my two favorite squash varities.  But I think we are about to hit Alex's squash tolerance soon and I am running out of new and inventive ways to cook squash.  So I might take a week or two off and then go back to buying more squash.  I am still determined to buy some more new squash varieties, but we just need a break until we use up all of the squash we have and until I come up with some new recipes.  I definitely want to make some soup and to also make some baked goods.  This Pumpkin Pecan-Praline Pie from Martha Stewart sounds particularly tempting and it might just be tempting enough for me to break my no pie rule...  Probably not though.

This recipe by Yottam Ottolenghi was one of two of his recipes that I had set aside for future squash experimentation this fall.  We had to make a number of modifications to the recipe becase we had acorn squash instead of butternut squash, we were out of pine nuts and we only had half of a red onion left, but we had a Vidalia onion in the pantry.  But we tried to stay true to the rest of the recipe as much as possible.  As with all Yottam Ottolenghi recipes my first thought upon tasting the dish was "this is interesting."  He combines ingredients in ways that I would never contemplate on my own (although the combinations might be totally commonplace to someone of Middle Eastern descent) and I find myself having to re-evaluate flavor combinations every time we make one of his recipes.  This was neither our most successful, nor our least successful Yottam Ottolenghi dish.  I liked it, but I would like to try it again as written and see how that changes things.  Acorn squash has always seemed a little starchier and less sweet than butternut squash to me and I think that this recipe would benefit from a slightly sweeter, moister squash.  We also incinerated our onions a bit because we lost track of time.  The onions that were salvagable were really delicious with the squash and the seasonings.  This is one of the few times that perhaps sticking to the recipe as written might have been the way to go...

Recipe after the jump!

Marinated Kale and Chickpea Salad with Sumac Onions

Sunday at the farmers' market I picked up a couple different varieties of extremely tender kale - one of which I had never seen or heard of before - from 5 lbs of Dirt.  The kale was tender enough that I didn't want to cook it, but still hearty enough (because it wasn't baby kale, which cost a whopping $8 per 1/4 lb and if I am brutally honest, my blog and I are not worth $8 per 1/4 lb) that I wanted to wilt it a little bit.  So often when we buy kale we end up braising it or otherwise cooking the bejesus out of it, but I wanted to serve the kale we bought at the market as close to its raw state as possible this time since it was so beautiful and tender.  So I dug through my stash of recipes to find this one, which I came across a few months ago in the midst of a recipe downloading blitz.  I remembered two things from reading the recipe.  First, that it was from a collection of vegan recipes.  Second, that the author of the recipe spent some time talking about wilting kale in dressing, which we have never tried before.  Actually, I guess I remembered a third thing, that the recipe was from Kenji at Serious Eats but that's not really relevant.  Last night we went ahead and "wilted" the kale in dressing.  And it worked out really well.  Actually, the whole recipe worked out really well.  Not only was the kale itself the perfect degree of tender, but the Dijon-based dressing was really nice and the sumac onions were fantastic.  I thought they added a really nice sweetness, flavor and texture to the salad.  It never would have occurred to me to first soak the onions to remove any harshness and then season the raw onions with spices and sesame seeds.  It was kind of a brilliant move if you ask me.  I was actually stealing them out of the bowl while we finished up our entree and eating the onions one by one with my fingers.  I'm like a small child.  But I would like to maintain that unlike a small child I make really good food!

Recipe after the jump!

Tomato, Cucumber and Red Onion Salad with Mint

 

Sometimes I come up with meals by picking an entree and then hunting around for a side dish of some sort to pair with it.  Sometimes the choice is quite obvious - with a stir-fry, serve rice, with a steak or roast chicken breast, serve salad.  Sometimes the choice is less obvious.  And every once in awhile, I find a side dish (or salad) that I want to make and then I have to figure out an entree to go with it.  For last night's dinner, I stumbled across this recipe, decided that I wanted to try it, and then started hunting for something Greek-inspired to go with it.  I briefly considered making gyros or souvlaki, but decided against it.  Then I thought about making some sort of chicken brochette, and promptly discarded that idea as well.  So I did what any internet savvy person would do and typed in "Greek" in Epicurious.  Eventually I came up with the Greek Grilled Cheese Sandwiches that we served last night.  Perfect.  We really don't make enough Greek food in this apartment, but this was a step in the right direction.i

This salad is everything that I love about cucumber salads - bright, fresh, and light.  It is incredibly summery.  My favorite thing about the salad was the mint.  With every bite you get these little bursts of delicious mint flavor that I just loved.  I guess you could substitute another herb if you don't like mint, but I am going to stick to the mint.  Also, If you don't love the taste of onion, or if your onion is just particularly fierce, then go ahead and soak the chopped onion in some cold water to lessen the bite.  And if you want to add another flavor/texture to the salad, you can go ahead and throw in a little chopped feta.  But go ahead and play around with this salad - have fun with it.  You might just discover your new favorite summer picnic dish.

Recipe after the jump!

Turkey Sausage, Red Onion, and Shiitake Mushroom Pizza

Meal number one in the new, non-Asian leaf we have turned over - pizza.  And a great pizza at that.  Restaurant-quality pizza.  For which I give a lot of the credit to the sausage and the dough.  The turkey sausage came from DiPaolo Turkey Farm at the Greenmarket and I think it is better than most pork Italian sausages.  Their turkey sausage is just so incredibly flavorful and somehow is less dry than other turkey sausages.  It has a ton of fennel seed and other spices to really make it special.  If the sausage hadn't been so flavorful the pizza wouldn't have been nearly as good.  The same goes for the dough (which I picked up from Eataly) - because the cooked pizza crust had the perfect taste and texture.  I guess some of the credit there goes to the pizza stone too.  That pizza stone is a pain in the butt and weighs a ton, but it can really make a difference to your meal.  Aside from the dough, the pizza just had a really nice flavor profile.  The onions gave the pizza some sweetness, the sausage gave it spice and a certain meatiness, and then the mushrooms made the pizza taste earthy and hearty.  I also loved the hint of fresh rosemary in every bite. 

The taste of this pizza had almost nothing to do with our skill as chefs, and everything to do with the quality of the ingredients.  I'm calling this pizza my quasimodo pizza since there was a bit of an incident when I transferred the pizza onto the pizza stone.  Generally Alex and I roll out the dough on a cutting board, then using the rolling pin we transfer the pizza to the back of a cookie sheet that has been liberally dusted with cornmeal.  The cornmeal acts like little ball bearings and turns the cookie sheet into a ghetto pizza peel.  But due to the weight of the toppings the pizza stretched out while I was trying to transfer it from the cookie sheet to the pizza stone, and so the stretched out pizza ended up flopping off the end of the stone.  I took a spatula and flipped the extra crust back on top of the pizza and called it a day.  So I may not be a perfect pizza chef, but who cares when the results are this tasty?

Recipe after the jump!