Transitions!

My life is all upside-down. I hate to drag you through it.

No more baby project--that is soundly over, and in many ways I'm relieved. I can put it behind me at last.

Now, an oh-my-God-I'm-turning-40-in-<2 years meltdown is underway. My focus has shifted from fabulous meals to going to the gym, sweating through cardio and weight-lifting workouts. When control seems impossible in so many areas of life, I grab it where I can. For me, that's getting control of my body shape, core strength and overall health.

I've been hiding under a rock--for that I do apologize. I missed identifying some biggies, too--Canadian Thanksgiving and Columbus Day! Here in Central NY state we're in rapid temperature decline towards winter. Yeah, it's getting COLD! The news reports a frost and possible snow this week! *eek* I'm not ready for that.

For today, I have a giant hubbard squash--18 pounds--to attack. I'm thinking soup, perhaps pumpkin curry . But first I have to cook it.



Hubbard is the king of squash. It's sweet with creamy flesh similar to pumpkin, only better. In fact, most canned solid-pack pumpkin available today is actually hubbard! It's got a verrrrry hard exterior shell. I have learned to simply throw it in the oven whole, at 250*F, until it softens enough to cut into it. Of course that also complicates matters--it cooks, it cools, then you cut, remove the strings and seeds, then cook some more.

So that's on my agenda for today. What have you been doing?

Curried Pumpkin Samosas

At our recent Holiday Open House I served these delicious little phyllo triangles filled with a sweet-and-spicy curried pumpkin (well, hubbard squash, actually) filling.

Perfect for keeping on hand in the freezer, these little treats can be made fiery or very mild. They bake up in about 30 minutes straight from the freezer, so you can have impressive snacks for even the most surprise drop-ins.

It is a bit of work to make these, but oh-so-worth it!


Curried Pumpkin Samosas

Filling:
3 cups pumpkin (or hubbard or butternut) puree
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon orange zest (optional)
dash cinnamon

1/2 package phyllo pastry (8 ounces), or 20 sheets of phyllo, approximately 9 x 14-inches
1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter

Defrost phyllo pastry in the refrigerator or at room temperature; cut sheets in half lengthwise to make two long stacks, about 3.5 x 14-inches. Keep stacks covered with a damp tea towel.

Mash together filling ingredients.

Take one sheet of phyllo and brush with melted butter. Place one heaping tablespoon filling at the end of sheet and fold up, flag-style, until almost at the end. Use melted butter to seal the end closed. I didn't take photos of the folding process, because my hands were covered with melted butter... so here are some flag-folding illustrations to give you an idea.


Hopefully that isn't too confusing.

Now butter the entire outside of your packet of curry goodness and either place on an ungreased cookie sheet for immediate baking or in a container for freezing. I freeze them in layers on aluminum foil so I can pull them out on their foil and bake right on the foil on a cookie sheet.

Repeat process until all filling is used up, or you run out of phyllo, or you have enough, or you're just tired of making them.

Hints: If some of your phyllo tears, you can glue it back together with melted butter. If it's really messed up, just take another phyllo sheet and put your ugly one on it and start folding more. You can do this in smaller sizes, which would be good, too, or even with any other kind of filling.

Baking directions: Bake fresh samosas in a preheated 350*F oven for about 15 minutes, or until golden. Bake frozen samosas in a preheated 350*F for 30-45 minutes, or until outsides are golden.

Can be served hot, warm or at room temperature. If eating hot, be careful! That filling is HOT. I like them best warm.


These are so good. I can't tell you how many times I've burned the roof of my mouth because I knew they were too hot but couldn't resist them.

Quinoa Stuffed Winter Squash

Every Tuesday I host a ladies' lunch in my home. Many of the ladies have dietary restrictions, so I try to prepare low fat, low glycemic-index meals to share.

Yesterday I had a three-and-a-half pound hubbard squash just calling to be cooked. Now I've never even had hubbard squash, so this was a true mission into the unknown. But I heard it's the king of all squash--so that was promising.

I adapted a favorite stuffing recipe. Now that I no longer indulge in bread, I try to replace bread with other healthy grains. And quinoa is one of my new favorites! So it was natural to use quinoa instead of cubed bread for this stuffing.

Here is the hubbard squash, already stuffed, but before roasting.


Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the cooked, stuffed hubby; however since the recipe made more stuffing than would fit in the cavity of the hubbard squash, I sliced open a butternut squash, as well. Here's a picture of that.

Winter Squash with Quinoa and Sausage Stuffing

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth/stock
1 cup water
winter squash (I used a 3.5 lb hubbard squash plus one 3 lb butternut squash)
1 1/2 lb sweet italian sausage, casings removed (I used low fat sweet pork sausage because I had it on hand, and added some red pepper flake to spice it up... but it would be good with hot sausage, too.)
2 tablespoons butter
1 med. onion, diced
1/2 cup dry white wine or stock of choice
1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth/stock
1 medium tart apple, peeled, cored & diced (I used MacIntosh)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped dates
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Place first three ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until water is absorbed (10-15 minutes). When done, grains will be translucent and the outer germ layer will separate. Makes 3 cups cooked. Set aside.

Split or otherwise open winter squash. (For the hubbard squash, I cut a lid out of the top. For the butternut, I split it down the middle.) Remove seeds and strings.

Cook crumbled sausage in a large skillet in olive oil until cooked through. Remove sausage. Melt butter in skillet; add onion and saute until soft and transparent.

Add wine, broth, apples, dried cranberries, dates, salt and pepper, cooked sausage. Stir until combined; simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes to allow flavors to marry. Stir in prepared quinoa and remove from heat. Let stand 10-15 minutes. Quinoa will absorb remaining liquid.

Brush interior and cut sides of squash with melted butter. Sprinkle with additional salt and pepper, if desired. Scoop quinoa-sausage mixture into squash cavity. I spooned stuffing into my hubbard squash and replaced the lid, put in a baking dish and added about ½ cup water in the bottom of the pan. For the butternut squash, I filled the cavity and piled additional stuffing over the rest of the squash on the cookie sheet, added some water to the bottom of the pan, and covered with foil to bake. Bake at 350 degrees until tender, about 2 hours. Serve hot.

Serves 8.


My guests loved it--as did I! Here's an 'after' photo:



From the carnage you can see that we devoured the hubbard--and that we're not shy about eating! This was a perfect autumn meal. It would be wonderful as a Thanksgiving side dish... especially if you prefer to roast your turkey unstuffed, a stuffed squash is a real treat!


Warm, squashy greetings from my home to yours,
Mrs.W

Farmer's Market Foray

One of my pals has a house she rents a few towns away, and is in the process of cleanup to ready the house for sale. I've been going with her... it's always good to help a friend spiffy up a house.

Along the way is our favorite farmer's market stand, where they sell the produce they've grown. In the last week I've purchased an eggplant, a hubbard squash, two spaghetti squash, a bunch of beets, three seckel pears and a large head of cauliflower, most of which I have no idea how to use or what they taste like. Well, except for the eggplant and cauliflower. I'm an old pro at those.

My first taste test was the seckel pears.

According to my internet research, the seckel pear is also dubbed the sugar pear, and is reportedly best for eating out-of-hand. That was not my experience.

They were okay, but the skin was rather thick and, well, they weren't as sweet as I'd like in a pear. Maybe they weren't ripe enough?

The size was nice, though--the perfect amount of treat. That is, if it had been the treat I had expected it to be.

Conclusion: I'd give it another try, but let it ripen a bit more to see if they truly are as sweet and delicious as everyone else seems to claim.

As for the other produce, I'd love to hear from anyone with ideas for those squash and the beets, and I'd love some new ideas for cauliflower and eggplant.

Mrs.W