Spaghetti squash - try it, you'll like it!!

So, you've heard of it....fear it....try it, you'll love it! One promise, it won't taste like spaghetti.  But it is stringy.  The flavor is mild and slightly squashy. I added some salt, pepper and a touch of butter.  You can eat it plain, with shredded parmesan, with tomato sauce.....whatever works for you.  Experiment....you'll (and your kids!) will love it!

All you need to do is poke it all over with a fork.  Then microwave it (whole) for about 12 minutes. You want it to be squeezable....then it's done.  I had told one of my co workers how to make it and she said it felt like forever and she was worried it wasn't working. At 10 minutes, it was still hard.  All of a sudden - a few minutes later - it's soft. She loved it and you will too. Once it is soft, cut it in half and scoop out the seeds and the darker threads (trust me, you'll see it).  Then just take a spoon and scoop out the inside of the half.  It just shreds on its own - as you see above.

I made it the other night with pork chops.  It goes well with any entree, but I like the kind of winter feeling of this meal.

Soup

This soup was delicious!  Very rich and filling.  Just follow the directions and it hits the spot.  I used the miso and no salt besides that. I doubled it as well - which was very easy to do with this recipe.

Hearty Mushroom Barley Soup / Stew

·         1 Tablespoon Oil (I used grapeseed, but Olive or Vegetable will do)

·         ½ Medium Onion, slivered (about 1¼ cups)

·         ½ Cup Dry Barley, rinsed (I used the inexpensive pearl barley)

·         2 Large Garlic Cloves, Minced (or about 2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic)

·         1 Teaspoon Dried Thyme

·         8 Ounces Sliced Button or Cremini Mushrooms

·         4 Cups (1 quart) Beef or Mushroom Broth

·         1 Tablespoon Tomato Paste

·         1 Teaspoon Balsamic Vinegar

·         1 Bay Leaf

·         ¼ -1 Teaspoon Salt to Taste

·         1 Teaspoon Miso Paste (or simply more salt to taste)

·         Freshly Ground Black Pepper to Taste

Heat the oil in a stock pot over medium heat. Add the onions, and sauté for about 5 minutes, or until they are translucent. Reduce the heat just a touch, add the barley, garlic, and thyme, and sauté for another 3 to 5 minutes.  Stir in the mushrooms, followed by the broth, tomato paste, vinegar, bay leaf, and I would start with ¼ teaspoon of salt and the miso if using. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and allow the soup to simmer for at least 1 hour, or until the barley is nice and tender.  Season to taste with additional salt (see my notes in the post above) and black pepper to taste.

Yields 2 hearty, meal-sized servings

Dinner party - no kids allowed!

I have really be wanting to have a grown-up dinner party.  No kids, no paper plates, wine and great food.  I think I accomplished all I set out to do.  The timing of the dishes were right on.  Everything for our main course came out the perfect temperature. 

 I started with a cheese tray served with sparkling Moscato. I had gone to Bed Bath and Beyond looking for a cheese tray.  There weren't any I liked (all too small), so I looked at cutting boards. I found this beautiful board and bought a cheese knive set and awhalla! a cheese tray.  I bought 4 kinds of cheeses at Whole Foods, tasting each kind.  I tend to like strong flavored cheeses, so I made sure to get a more mild cheese as well.  The only problem.....was the cheese was sitting out in the kitchen to get to room temperature (which is what you are supposed to do to get the full flavor of the cheese), my dogs was 2 of the 4 blocks of cheese.  I luckily had a delicious cheese in my fridge, which I added to the two remaining cheeses.  At Whole Foods I also bought a scoop full of olives.  I made sure to get pitted olives so that my guests wouldn't have to deal with the pits.  On the tray I also put out genoa salami, crackers and honey.  Have you every had blue cheese (really good, creamy blue cheese) with honey on a cracker??  Weird, I know, but tastes amazing!  Creamy and crunchy, salty, sweet, strong.  Perfection!!

 This picture is the roasted vegetables I made.  Yukon gold potatoes, red skinned potatoes, sweet potatoes, cauliflower and brussel sprouts. The guests were coming at 6.  At 5:00 I preheated the oven to 450 degress.  I put in the vegis around 5:15.  I needed to put them on two trays due to the large quantity.  I rotated the shelf in the oven they were on and occasionally moved around the vegis. At 6 I turned off the oven, but left them in the oven. At 6:45 I put the oven to 400 degrees and let them heat up.  When they were ready (7:15), I sprinkled them with sea salt, then straight to the table.

 These are the pork chops I made.  At 4pm I rubbed them with bacon salt and chipolte seasoning salt.  At 6:45 started the grill and put the chops on once it was hot.  I put all the burners to the highest level.  Once the chops had been on there for about 5 minutes, I turned them over and turned down the grill, to medium. As you can see, these were so juicy and tasty.  I served a Reisling wine and a red wine with the supper.

 I made a onion and apple compote.  I put this recipe together on my own.  I very thinly sliced 2 granny smith apples and 2 large sweet onions.  For the apples, I peeled most of the outside, but I did leave bits of  peel for texture and color.  I put both the onions and apples in a saute pan with about 1T of butter.  I put them on low heat and stirred it around about every 10 minutes.  I did this for about 1 hour.  Then I added apple nectar and chicken stock, along with a few shakes of cinnamon and nutmeg.  I added 2T of apple cider vinegar also.  I just let it sit on low for another 30 minutes, stirring every so often. I turned off the stove and reheated it (needing to add some more stock) about 5 minutes before serving. It was SO delicious of the spicy pork chops.  The spicy chops with the sweet apple onion compote.  YUM!!

 For dessert I took out one of our precious ice wines from our anniversary trip to Toronto last year. I made chocolate fondue - one milk chocolate and one white chocolate.  This was decided by taking a poll of my guests to make two choices - dark, milk, or white chocolate.  I took out my two electric fondue pots, heated them up and put the chips right in there.  Once the chocolate started to melt, we added half and half cream, just enough to thin out the chocolate.  We did this all at the table.  I served pound cake, bananas, strawberries and chocolate chip dunkers (cookies made long and thin for dunking into coffee or milk).

Chocolate heaven on a plate!

Lucky egg

Don't you love when this happens?  You just feel lucky.....and who couldn't use some more luck?!?

Real Urban Barbecue - Vernon Hills, IL

Real Urban Barbeque has two locations.  We went to the Vernon Hills location.  This place is usually busting at the seams, since we were eating at an "off" time (2:00pm) we knew we could get in.  Their signature dish is "Burnt Ends". It is smoked twice brisket.  It is tender and full of flavor. This is a pound of meat with pickles.

Look at this limited edition BBQ sauce....it was delicious.  I couldn't get enough of it!!!  Spicy, sweet, thick and YUMMY!!!

My Dinner - Baked zitti

I made tomato sauce....very easy. 2 large cans of crushed tomatoes, 4 cans of tomato sauce, minced garlic, diced onions, and 6 cubes of basil (the Dorat frozen cubes, but you can just add dried basil). NO SUGAR needed when you make it yourself.  If you look at most marinara sauces you buy, they add sugar. Let it sit on the stove at a low level, stirring every so often.

I boiled whole wheat noodles for about 5 minutes - they are still slightly crunchy. It's a great time to sneak in whole wheat noodles.  With all the sauce, the kids don't know. In a sprayed baking dish, I stirred together the noodles and homemade sauce.  On the top, I put mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese. Quite a bit....this helps sell it to the family.  I baked it at 350 degrees for 20 minutes with a stop under the broiler for about 5 minutes.  Watch it closely when you put it in the broiler.  You don't want it to burn after all this.  But....if it does burn, just pull off the cheese and start again with the cheese.

Everyone loved it!!!  In fact I had extra and froze part of it and left the other half in the fridge.  The kids have been eating on it this week.  I'll let you know how the frozen portion goes.

Cookie Dough Creations Naperville, IL

Are you kidding me?!?!  Cookie dough to eat????  Oh yeah!!  

Here is the outside of the restaurant....nothing special.....but just wait.......

Here it is....buckets of raw cookie dough.  It has no eggs in it, so there is no worry of selmonila. There are 6 kinds of dough as well as 8 ice creams flavor.  You can have a cup with such a scoop (or two or three) of dough.  Or dough and ice cream....the choice is all yours.

This is one option that both of the kids we brought chose to have.  Raw dough between two cookies.  This one is sugar cookies with oreo dough in the middle.  Since you won't finish this, and I say that with complete confidence, they will be more than happy to wrap your sandwich up with plastic wrap to keep is fresh.

The painting on the wall there says it all....and I couldn't agree more!!!!