Butternut Squash, Parmesan & Pasta

By: erin, taken from NaturallyElla

Details

• Prep Time:
  10 min
• Cook Time:
  45 min
• Ready In:
  55 min

Servings: 2 servings

Ingredients

• 2 cups butternut squash 1/2" cubes
• 1 medium onion cubed
• 1 tablespoon rosemary
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup walnut pieces
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4 ounces pasta
• 1/3 cup parmesan cheese

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 425˚. Toss butternut squash, onion, rosemary, and olive oil together in a bowl. Spread on a sheet tray and roast until tender-about 25 minutes.
• Cook pasta according to box (or use fresh pasta). In a small skillet over medium heat, toast walnuts for 2-3 minutes. Add butter and let melt. Toss together pasta, butter, walnuts, and roasted veggies together. Place in serving bowls and grate parmesan over pasta mixture.

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Maple Sage Cream Sauce

By: erin, found at NaturallyElla

Details

• Prep Time:
  45 min
• Cook Time:
  30 min
• Ready In:
  1 hour, 15 min

Servings: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 1 recipe for whole wheat pasta dough link below

Filling

• 2 cups butternut squash
• 1 cup summer squash
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup caramelized onions (or quickly saute some onions until soft)
• 1 cup parmesan cheese

Sauce

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 2 tablespoons Nuefchatel cheese
• 1/2 cup milk I used skim
• 1 tablespoon fresh sage minced
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 375˚. Peel and cube the butternut squash, dice yellow squash, and roughly chop the garlic. Toss squash mixture in olive oil and spread out on a sheet tray covered in tin foil. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and pepper over and bake for 25-30 minutes until squash in tender. Place squash in food processor and let run until squash is pureed. Stir in parmesan cheese and onions, set aside.
• While squash is roasted, make one recipe of whole wheat past dough.Once pasta is ready to go, divide in half and roll out each on a floured surface into a rectangles, 1/8" thick. Spoon 1 Tablespoon of squash mixture into rows on one piece of the pasta. Make sure as you create your rows you are leaving enough room to press the edges together. Once you have the first side ready, lay the second piece of pasta over the filling. press down lightly around each ravioli and then cut out squares.
• In a large pot, bring water to a boil.
• While waiting for water to boil, begin to make sauce. Melt butter in a small sauce pan and add in garlic. Saute until garlic becomes soft and fragrant. Whisk in cheese, sage, and flour until mixture is smooth. Continue to cook for 1-2 minutes. Pour milk into the pan while whisking and continue to whisk until sauce is smooth. Add in maple syrup and continue to whisk until sauce begins to think. Taste, add salt and pepper, then remove from heat.
• Once water in the large pot is boiling, add in ravioli, making sure to not crowd the pan. Let boil until ravioli float to the top. Remove with a slotted spoon, plate, and drizzle sauce on top.
• 

Chicken and Artichoke French Bread Pizza

(Courtesy of Jamie Cooks It Up)

Chicken and Artichoke French Bread Pizza

Time: 30 minutes

Yield: about 12 thick slices

Recipe from MyHandsomeHusband

PRINT RECIPE

1 loaf french bread

1/2 C mayonnaise (I use Best Foods Light)

2 t Johnny's Garlic Seasoning

2 1/2 C Mozzarella cheese

1/2 C Parmesan cheese

1 C cooked chicken, chopped

1/2 C spinach, finely chopped

1 tomato, chopped

1/4 C red onion, chopped

1 C marinated artichoke hearts, chopped

2 T juice from the marinated artichoke jar

1. In a small bowl combine the mayonnaise and Johnny's Garlic Spread. These two make a very lovely pair.

2. Slice that loaf of french bread open. Slather the mayo/johnny mixture all over the insides. Place the bread on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle about 1/4 C mozzarella cheese on each piece.

3. Get all of your toppings chopped up and ready to go! I have been purchasing these handy Grilled Chicken Strips at Costco lately. Wow. What a time saver! They are very moist and have a wonderful flavor.

Artichoke Hearts can also be found at Costco. They come in a big jar, but don't you worry. They last quite a long time in the fridge. We always seem to work our way through it before the expiration date.

4. Evenly distribute the chopped chicken, spinach, tomato, red onion and artichoke hearts over each bread half.

5. Sprinkle with the remaining cheeses.

6. Take a spoon and dish it into the artichoke jar. Drizzle it all over the top of each pizza. Extra yum!

7. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is all bubbly and wonderful and heavenly and delicious.

8. Remove from the oven and let the loaves sit for about 5 minutes. Cut and enjoy!

Homestyle Butternut Squash Soup

HOMESTYLE BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

(courtesy of cooks.com)

5 tablespoons chopped white onions 1/2 clove garlic, ground 2 1/4 cup cubed butternut squash 3 tablespoons butter 1/4 cup vegetable stock 3/4 cup chicken broth 3 cups water 1/8 teaspoon ground thyme or basil 1 bay leaf 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper a pinch of ginger 1/3 cup light cream 2 potatoes, cubed Sauté onions and garlic with butter. Add squash, potatoes, vegetable stock, chicken broth, and water, and bay leaf. Stir in peppers and thyme or basil. Add a pinch of ginger, and bring to a boil for about 18-20 minutes. In blender, puree the soup with light cream and any additional ingredients you would like to add.

Sonoma Chicken Salad

Sonoma Chicken Salad

(courtesy of Whole Foods)

Ingredients

Dressing
1 cup mayonnaise
4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
5 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons poppy seeds
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Salad
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup pecan pieces, toasted
2 cups red seedless grapes
3 stalks celery, thinly sliced

(I like to add a couple apples, chopped, as well)

Method

In a bowl, combine mayonnaise, vinegar, honey, poppy seeds, salt and pepper. Refrigerate until ready to dress the salad. This can be prepared up to 2 days ahead. Cook, cool and dice chicken. Mix with salad ingredients. Toss and coat with dressing. Serve plain or with lettuce on bread (kaiser roll, croissant, raisin bread, etc) as a sandwich.

Pizza Margherita

Actually, there's no alcohol content in this pizza! But the flavor will intoxicate you. And the crust, WOW! It tastes and feels like restaurant quality. The key is that you try to use the best ingredients you can find (and afford) since this recipe calls for only a few things to really bring out the flavor. Recipe by Williams Sonoma.

(Taken from my friend, Jennie's awesome recipe blog here)

Crust

5 tsp active dry yeast

2 1/4 cups warm water (1-5-115F)

2 tsp sugar

1/4 cup oil

5 cups bread flour

1 tbsp sea salt

Topping

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup loosely packed fresh basil, finely shredded
6 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced

1 lb fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced 1/4" inch thick (the wetmozzarella that's sold as a chunk)

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Making the dough.

Dissolve yeast and warm water in large mixing bowl and let stand for 5 minutes, until slightly foamy. Add sugar, oil, salt and 4 cups of flour. Knead on low speed until soft smooth and elastic, adding the remaining cup of flour slowly as needed for the dough to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Prepare a large bowl, lightly greased with oil. Transfer dough into greased bowl and forming into a ball and rotating in the oil so the dough ball is round and smooth. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm area until double in size, about 1 hour.

For a more flavorful dough (and it's worth it), let rise as stated above, then punch down dough with palm of hand, recover with plastic wrap, and place in refrigerator in the morning so it's ready to work on a 4PM for dinner prep.

OR you can skip the refrigeration and just punch down dough(after the first rise, of course) with palm of hand and cut/divide dough in half. Lightly oil your counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Gently shape into loose balls and cover with plastic wrap for a short second rise of 10 min.

In your oven, move the rack to the lower third in your oven (in mine, it's the second to the bottom slot) place your baking stone on rack. Preheat oven with stone in, to 475 F degrees for 30 minutes.

Back to the dough. Lightly dust the dough with flour. Roll it out using a rolling pin and starting from the center, working out to the edges, until you have made a 12-14 inch round. If you have a baker's peel (a large spatula designed for lifting and transferring pizza dough) then you can skip the following step.

Lightly flour the top of an inverted half-sheet pan (turn your cookie sheet upside down basically). Transfer your spread out dough round to the floured sheet.

Add the toppings equally for each of the two pizzas in the following order: parmesan cheese, basil, tomatoes (make sure they're seeded & not too wet!). Add mozzarella slices, nestled around the tomatoes. Sprinkle with sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.

Remove hot pizza stone from oven and transfer the dough with a baker's peel or the cookie sheet method onto the stone. You may need a second set of hands for that part.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until crust is crisp and golden brown. Slice and Serve. Repeat process with second pizza. Enjoy!

Blueberry Breakfast Casserole

This is a favorite that my mother often makes for Easter, Christmas, or other special occasions. Now that I'm surrounded by Maine blueberries I am taking the opportunity to make it myself!

Overnight Blueberry Breakfast Casserole (courtesy of Desktop Cookbook) Ingredients - 1 loaf french bread, cut into 1 inch cubes - 10 oz cream cheese, cut into 1 inch cubes - 1 1/2 cup frozen blueberries - 12 eggs, beaten - 2 cups milk - 1 teaspoon vanilla extract - 1/3 cup syrup - 1 cup white sugar - 2 tablespoons cornstarch - 1 cup water - 1 cup frozen blueberries - 1 tablespoon butter Instructions Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange half the bread cubes in the dish, and top with cream cheese cubes. Sprinkle 1 cup blueberries over the cream cheese, and top with remaining bread cubes. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and syrup. Pour over the bread cubes. Cover with plastic cling wrap, and press down so all bread is coating/soaking in egg mixture. Refrigerate overnight. Remove the bread cube mixture from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before baking. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle 1/2 cup blueberries over top. Cover, and bake 30 minutes. Uncover, and continue baking 25 to 30 minutes, until center is firm and surface is lightly browned. In a medium saucepan, mix the sugar, cornstarch, and water. Bring to a boil. Stirring constantly, cook 3 to 4 minutes. Mix in the remaining 1 cup blueberries. Reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, until the blueberries burst. Stir in the butter, and pour over the baked French toast.