hungry in the morning

hungry in the morning is definitely the best time to recollect epicurean delights from the night before. so i will do so...we had a LOT of food left over from helping to cater a rotary club dinner (PARTY ALL NIGHT!), so i made a leftovers feast last night. i had nearly 5 hours to do so, but even with less time and a bit more preparation all of this stuff can be done easily. of course there was soup, since we still have loads of leek, carrot, celery and onion tops, so you can refer to my last post about that, we also had a massive partially cooked baby blue hubbard squash leftover. it had been roasted for about 4 hours the day before and put onto pizzas, i decided to do an appetizer with the remnants.

tea poached squash with gorgonzola and pine nuts

ingredients

• 3-4 cups squash, roasted and cut into appetizer sized bits
• full kettle of tea (i used english breakfast with some mint leaves and honey)
• 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar (you can use more or less depending on the squash you use)
• 1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
  

after heating the tea kettle, put two teabags in and let steep for 5 minutes. add any tea additions you might like, no milk though. get a large flat bottomed pan to poach the squash in. pour the hot tea in and add the sugar, stirring to dissolve. bring to just below a boil and add the pieces of squash, in preparing them it is a good idea to not cook them completely so they still hold their shape and don't get too mushy. poach the squash for 20-30 minutes, testing them with a fork every few minutes. once they are fork tender pour them through a colander and set aside to dry. put the poaching liquid on medium low to reduce while you finish up. arrange the squash on a cookie sheet and sprinkle the crumbled gorgonzola and pine nuts on, if they are refusing to stay on the squash press them into the (hopefully) softened squash a bit. put them in a 350 degree oven for 3-4 minutes. pour the reduced tea liquid on after you have taken it out of the oven and it has cooled somewhat...might be a good idea to delay making them while the liquid reduces so it can get nice and thick, i didn't, and i regret it like nothing i've ever regretted before. not really, it was delicious anyways.

we made some lentils and roasted a huge bowl of veggies in broth and white wine with pepper and lemon and combined them, the other thing i feel worthy of a mention and recipe is the carrot cookies i made, which was partially stolen from the doubleday cookbook (this book has got everything, including how to kill turtles and prepare pigeon pie).

carrot cookies

ingredients

• 1 cup of carrots (cooked, mashed and cooled)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (or vanilla)
• bit of cinnamon
• bit of nutmeg
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon grated orange rind
  

preheat the oven to 350. cream the butter til it gets fluffy and slowly add sugar while beating (i used a spoon and fingers which makes for delicious clean up). after the sugar has been added and beat in well, mix in the carrots, egg, almond extract, spices and orange rind. also if you have any dried fruit or nuts laying around the kitchen you can throw them in too, maybe a quarter to a half a cup. sift flour with baking powder and salt and gradually incorporate. when it's all mixed together and delicious grease a sheet pan and drop the cookies on. put em in for 15 minutes or so, until they start turning brown. the recipe said it makes 5 dozen but they must have been making the cookies minuscule to make 5 dozen...i made about 2 dozen.

yum

-chris