Category Archives: CSA

How to Be a Master Salad-Dresser

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Ashley| 3 Comments

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Does anybody else out there watch America’s Test Kitchen?  It’s on one of my pbs channels (yes, ONE of them, I get like six, what up with that?) on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, so you may be led to believe that it is totally square to watch.  It doesn’t have any flashy celebrachefs or contests or bizarre ingredient challenges, so don’t think this is a Food Network brainchild.  In fact, it is actually the show counterpart to the fabulous amazing wonderful magazine Cook’s Illustrated.  So they show you the verybestmostperfect way to cook a certain dish and explain all the experiments they went through to find that method.  And there is also always some kind of product lineup review.  Anyways, suffice it to say it is amazing and wonderful and I always learn awesome new tips and tricks.

A few weekends back I watched the show and they made a simple vinaigrette dressing.  Now about two years ago I learned a delicious and easy dressing from my friend’s mom that basically consists of dijon mustard, oil, and vinegar.  She has this great method of just tossing all the ingredients into the salad, eyeballing the amounts.  So sometimes it’s an especially tangy salad, or maybe a bit more spicy, depending on how the ratios end up.  I absolutely love it.

But what I learned that was especially valuable on this particular episode of Teach Me All the Ways to Be a Goddess Cook America’s Test Kitchen was how to make a masterfully emulsified salad dressing.  Now this may not sound important or notable, as it sure didn’t to me, buttttt apparently a well emulsified dressing is actually one of the best ways to get that light and underdressed, yet perfectly coated effect that restaurants always do so well.  Each piece of the salad has all the flavors of the dressing; you don’t end up with one oily bite and then one vinegary bite.  Instead, every bite is perfect.

So what’s the secret?  Don’t shudder… I know you will anyways if you’re an American reader…. it’s mayonnaise.  Yep, apparently the yolk in an egg is a masterful emulsifier (even more than mustard, which is also helpful).  So the egg in mayo is perfect.

I have definitely been raised as a no-mayo girl, so believe me, the idea of regularly ingesting mayonnaise makes me a little sick to my stomach.  However, you will be happy to know that it just takes a little bit to get the dressing to emulsify well.  And I use vegan mayo and it still gets the job done (don’t ask me how…).

SO.  Without further ado, herein lies the secret to perfect dressing every time: a babyspoonful of mayo (vegan or otherwise).  And here are the steps I took most recently:

1. OH NO THE MAYO
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2. More mustard than mayo (these measurements are noooot very exact)
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3. Mmm mmm drown those condiments in balsamic.
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4.  Add the pepper and fancy salt (I will never go back to regular salt when it comes to cooking.  For baking, I’ll use iodized raingirl kind.)
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5. Whip that sucker together
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6.  Add the oil of the gods, the oil of olives
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7.  Whisk again.  They did it in this order on the television show, so I will forever whip everything together before the oil.  I think it makes a difference in the emulsification?
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8.  Dress your salad!  Give it something fancy to wear!
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No, this is not the most beautiful salad ever, I made it in five minutes so don’t judge.  However, it is tangy and well-dressed so it can go out and paint the town red. And there you go.  Thank you America’s Test Kitchen for making me the best salad dresser this side of the Rockies.  Or at least a contender for that title.

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Posted in CSA, Recipe, Ten-Minute Meal

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Gluten-Free Butternut Squash Scones

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Ashley| 1 Comment

Scones

I AM BACK! Yes, it’s true, I’m really back.  And I know, promises mean nothing these days, because I’ve made so many of them, and broken them right after, but I really mean it this time.  Please baby, don’t go.  I need just one more chance!  It’ll be different this time!

Okay, but in all seriousness, life’s been kind of crazy.  Yeah yeah yeah, it’s crazy for all of us, I know.  I was definitely lazy during the month of December.  But I really intended on getting some serious Drunk Squash in during the month of January.  Unfortunately, though, I don’t have a bedroom right now and I’ve spent the past week living in my friend’s apartment.  To say that I haven’t been baking or cooking much at all would be an extreme understatement.  In fact, I would guess that 80% of my food intake has been quinoa mixed with hummus and hot sauce.  Well balanced, eh?

Squash

But I recently went through my pictures and found documentation of a really great scone I made back in December.  And I can call it “really great” without being accused of pride (or exaggeration) because it was quite a popular recipe on the interwebs a few months back.  In fact, I took it upon myself to follow the links to find as many documentations of the Starbucks Pumpkin Scones as I could:

Mix

There you go… 12 different places to find the recipe.  And I’m about to add the 13th.  Actually, no, I’m not about to retype the recipe, you can find it on twelve other websites after all.  So why am I even talking about these fabulous scones (besides simple pride in following the wise advice of many food bloggers)?  Well, I did mine a little bit differently and wanted to share the idea.

When I made these scones, I was preparing for my final thesis seminar.  My classmates and I had a breakfast potluck to celebrate finishing our theses, once and for all.  I decided that I wanted to make scones, but one of my classmates was gluten free and I wanted to make sure that she could eat them too.  I try to be inclusive, both because I have friends with gluten intolerances and know how much they miss out on during food events, and because, as a vegetarian, I also know the feeling of sometimes dreading potlucks.  So I grabbed myself some Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour and used that instead of all purpose gluten-full flour.  Also, I didn’t have any pumpkin, but I did have a large amount of already-cooked butternut squash just begging to be eaten, so I used that instead.

Cut

I had never baked with gluten free flour before, and had always assumed that it would require a difficult task of mixing non-gluten flours in precise and confusing amounts.  After I heard about the pre-mixed, all purpose gluten-free flours, I wondered if they would be more finicky or stranger than gluteney flours.  To my surprise, using the gluten-free flour was so easy!  And when I brought the scones into our meeting everybody was surprised to hear that they were completely glutenless.  And that, my friends, is what I would consider a success.

Cookin

(Also, for the record, bnut squash makes a great substitution for pumpkin.  It’s a personal favorite of mine for its large ratio of squash meat to skin/seeds and its hearty natural sweetness.)

So there we go, I found a popular and foolproof recipe and, perhaps foolishly, decided to alter some basic parts of it.  However, the story ends happily.  You can turn the famous Starbucks Pumpkin Scones into successful Gluten-Free Butternut Squash Scones!

Scone

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Posted in Baking, Breakfast, CSA, Dessert, Recipe

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Post-Thanksgiving Wrap Up

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Ashley| 3 Comments
Bnut

Ah it’s begun, that heady whirlwind of a season that consists of holiday preparations, money-dropping, and (for some of us) manic all-nighters and frantic emails to advisors and professors triple-checking “that one last question.”  This means that I’m two steps away from freedom, sweet lovely freedom.  But in the meantime I’m just trying to wake up in time and not get to bed too late.  I’m getting ready to head off to a weekly dinner with friends (one of those lovely respites that helps break up the craziness while simultaneously implanting a little seed of guilt in the back of my mind), but first I wanted to do my post-Thanksgiving post!

As I was certain it would go, the day ended up being a lovely day full of family, love, and too much damn food.  Of course I mean that in the best way possible!  Everybody always asks what you’re thankful for, and I’m definitely thankful for those three things.  It’s a holiday that is strange in its celebration of excess (oh wait, that’s every American holiday, right?), but wonderful in its celebration of love and family.  So I am thankful for my family, thankful for the love we share, and thankful for the blessing of access to wonderful food and fantastic cooks.

(I got pictures of everybody but my grandma and myself.  She was too busy being an amazing hostess and cook, while I was too busy goofing around with instagram.  PS that’s my lovely brother scarfing down some tasty appetizers)

Mom

Grandpa

Dad

Bro Eating

Table

But anyways, back to the food.  Like I mentioned before, I made portobello mushrooms stuffed with butternut squash risotto.  I really loved it (as the resident vegetarian), so I’m including the recipe here.  I really suggesting trying it yourself!

(I also put together an amazing brussels sprout slaw that ended up being a hit.  And for the record, there were no “oh nooo brussels sprouts” complaints.  So slip that one in under the unsuspecting noses (and into the unsuspecting mouths) of the supposed brussels sprouts haters.)

Portabello

Portabellos Stuffed with Butternut Squash Risotto
Print
Recipe type: Entree
Author: Ashley @ The Drunk Squash
A delectable way to use some late-autumn squashes along with the mighty meaty portabello.
What Do You Need?
  • Risotto
  • 4 cups pureed or mashed butternut squash
  • 1 scallop, sliced and diced
  • 1 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 cups arborio rice
  • 5 cups vegetable broth (for me that meant 5 cups water and 5 tsp vegetable “better than bouillon”
  • 1 cup white wine
  • 1/4 cup parmesan
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • Portabellos
  • 4 (or 6!) portabello mushrooms
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tsp balsamic
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup parmesan
Make it Happen
Risotto
  1. Heat broth in pot until it reaches a rolling boil. When it reaches a boil turn down the heat a little so that it stays hot.
  2. In the meantime, heat 1 tbsp oil in a large, deep pan on medium-high.
  3. Add diced scallop and garlic to the pan and saute for 3 minutes until fragrant.
  4. Add 2 cups rice to pan and stir to coat with oil. Heat for 3 minutes.
  5. Add wine and stir into the rice.
  6. When wine has soaked into the rice and evaporated a bit, but before the rice burns, add 1 cup of hot broth and stir.
  7. Add broth cup by cup and stir into the rice. The pan of rice should be hot enough to keep a light boil of the added liquid before it soaks into the rice.
  8. Taste as you go and stir. Add the broth slowly. The rice should be softening.
  9. When all the broth is added, stir in squash and cheese.
  10. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  11. Rice may be a little al dente, so cover the pan and turn off the heat, letting the risotto steam for 5 minutes.
Portabellos
  1. Cut out stem and wash.
  2. Marinate in olive oil, balsamic, and salt and pepper for 15 minutes.
  3. Preheat oven to 375F.
  4. Place the mushrooms underside up on a baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes.
  5. Add a hefty spoonful of risotto to each cap and a sprinkle of parmesan on top. Cook for 5-10 more minutes (depends on how soft you want your portabello).
  6. You can cut them into cute little fourths like I did if you’d like.
Notes

You can make the risotto the day before like I did, or make it right before you cook (takes about thirty minutes to prep and cook the risotto as long as you have already roasted and pureed the butternut squash).

You will have a lot of leftover risotto. They make lovely leftovers.

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Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Ashley| Leave a comment
Tomatoes

I’ve been having a lot of experimental soup recipes lately.  Hearty, hot, and wholly un-publishable, they’re messy and tasty and completely dependent on what we have in the refrigerator.  I kind of feel like everything I’ve been making lately is pretty experimental, actually.  Tasty, of course (especially when I’m hungry and its venturing into past-dinner-time), but not the kind of thing I really think is ready to share with anybody on here.  For instance, I tried egg drop soup today… and I think it will definitely make its way on here soon, but not the one I made today.

Tomato

But one experiment that I really do want to share with you is this fabulous tomato sauce I made last week.  I didn’t expect this tomato sauce to be something special, in fact I didn’t even take many pictures, but lordy be was I happily surprised.  It was completely experimental and completely dependent upon the random stuff we had in the fridge and the pantry, but it turned out to be so flavorful that I must post it here for posterity.    It didn’t make a huge batch because I only had a few tomatoes, so unfortunately I don’t have any of it left.  In fact, I used it all up in two days.  First, it was mixed in with some rice and then the next night it was the star of a polenta lasagna (another that will have to be re-worked and shared later).  Basically, I gobbled it all up as quickly as I could.

Still Diced

So I’m going to share this recipe with its approximate measurements because I didn’t take special care to be exact.  But have no fear, a little extra oregano or a little less salt is something that is a) easily fixable, b) highly adaptable, and c) all up to your special preferences.  This is not a recipe that relies on a specific exacting ratio of tomato to onion (in fact, I didn’t even have fresh onion! I used dried minced onion and it worked just dandy).  This is simply a recipe that has flavorful ingredients that work together to make a divine tomato sauce.  No difficulty, just deliciousness.

in the pot

Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce
Print
Recipe type: Sauce
Author: Ashley @ The Drunk Squash
Prep time: 3 mins
Cook time: 45 mins
Total time: 48 mins
What Do You Need?
  • 3 cups diced tomato
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tbsp dried oregano
  • 3 tbsp minced onion
Make it Happen
  1. Dice your tomatoes and put in a saucepan on medium-high. Stir as you’re assembling the other ingredients.
  2. Add the rest of the ingredients. As the tomatoes release their juices and the mixture begins to boil, taste it and see if you like the herb/spice balance. Adjust to your liking.
  3. Continue to let the mixture boil down and reduce, approximately 30 minutes or until you have a thick, chunky tomato sauce.
Notes

I used heirloom tomatoes because that’s what I had in the fridge- they were absolutely divine, but so would be most any tomatoes I’m sure!
I don’t have a food mill, so I made this an easy, chunky recipe and left all the skins and seeds in the tomatoes when I diced them. If you wanted to make a smoother recipe, I’d suggest using a food mill or even utilizing the food processor. Personally, I was extremely pleased with the more chunky sauce.

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Cooking

I added a few notes to the bottom of the recipe about kinds of tomatoes and the methods for preparing the tomatoes.  Basically, what I’m trying to say is I used what I had on hand.  I had heirlooms, so I used them.  I don’t have a food mill, so I didn’t use the food mill I do not have.  It’s back to my ever-lazy, but resourceful, philosophy: make do in the kitchen! (wow… now that I’ve read that over, I’m going to admit that that’s not the note I wanted to end on… I’ll choose better words next time haha)

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Posted in CSA, Dinner, Lunch, Sauce

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