Roasted Acorn and Butternut Squash with Corn and Smoked Sausage

A savory late summer or early fall supper of roasted cubes of simply seasoned winter squash, topped with corn and optional bits of smoked sausage.

My friend Heather, of garlic oil on a pizza fame, knows her way around good food.  No, she doesn't cook it much--her spouse does--but she sure has great ideas for what goes well together.  She was raving about her leftovers for lunch and the combination sounded so good I had to try it.  Heather's lunch was loosely patterned after Ina Garten's Caramelized Butternut Squash, but her spouse added canned corn to pump up the veggies.  Heather combined another leftover and cheese on top for her leftover remix.

I'm a gardener who has helped teach elementary school aged kids about gardening, so when I hear "squash and corn" I immediately think of a Three Sisters garden.  Native Americans would companion plant squash, beans, and corn together--known as the Three Sisters.  The Three Sisters helped each other:  the corn would provide the scaffolding for the beans to climb and the squash would spread around the base, shading the soil, holding in the moisture, and preventing weeds.  When it works, it's a thing of beauty.

I had both acorn and butternut squash, as well as some corn I'd put up [boil briefly aka blanch, cut off the cob, spread on a tray to freeze, and store in a bag], so I figured 2 out of 3 I'll call it Two Sisters.  I wanted to add bit more protein, however, so I chopped up a piece of smoked sausage.  Now it's more like Two Sisters--and a Brother?  I've been busy canning lately (you can see the results on my FB page) so an easy filling recipe like this is wonderful for cool nights.  And Heather's right--the leftovers are terrific!
I've revamped my Visual Recipe Index! For more ideas on what to do with your butternut squash, click here.

Chopped Vegetable Pizza

BLUF*:  Chop a bunch of stuff together and put it on a pizza.  Bake it.  Enjoy.

This pizza starts with chopped late summer vegetables, fresh mozzarella, optional meat, and a quirky sauce.  Sounds fairly traditional, yes?  I guess maybe the corn might be unusual unless you're outside of the US.  I ate corn on pizza in Germany, but this particular combination was inspired by my fellow Learn Food Photography classmate, Gaurav Prabhu, during our 30 Days to Better Food Photography challenge.  He shared this photo about making pizza it caught my attention not only because he did a great job of capturing the elements that went into his pizza, but also because of those elements.

Chopped onion, chopped tomato, chopped pepper, and corn?  Sounds like a good combo.  A sauce of Szechuan chutney and mayonnaise? Interesting.  Mild cheese to tie the whole thing together?  Good plan.  I decided to make a pizza using ingredients that I had on hand (corn I'd put up in the summer, red pepper, red onion, leftover Italian sausage and pepperoni).  Instead of a chutney/mayo sauce I scanned the refrigerator door and picked up the bottle of Raspberry Enlightenment.  It's suggested in both sweet and savory recipes, so I used it as a sauce.  It was quirky--pretty good, yet not incredible like garlic scape pesto. I think this pizza would also be delicious with Gaurav's chutney/mayo or even a plain tomato sauce.

I've been putting off this post, in part because I had more seasonal pizzas to share and in part because I really don't care for the photos of this pizza.  The more I figure out how to produce semi-decent photos, or at least not blurry ones, it makes it really cringe-inducingly frustrating to see an older pre-rudimentary skills photo.  Yet the other day I got the most delicious corn in the farm share, and beautiful peppers, and I've still got red storage onions, so it's a good time to suggest this combination.

I just hope yours looks prettier than mine.

Green Pork, Corn and Zucchini Enchiladas (Can you can? Yes, you can!)

Ground pork sautéed with zucchini and corn makes the filling for these green salsa verde enchiladas. Home-canned sauces enjoyed all year long.

Do you can?  I've made jam over the years, but I really need to give a shout out to Marisa of Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round because a year ago, through her wonderful blog, she gave me permission to can 'just a little bit' of something without making a Big Production out of it.

Last summer, when my local grocery store was roasting fresh Hatch chilies in the parking lot and the farm share had tomatillos every single week, I decided to try my hand at canning salsa verde.  I first tried salsa verde the previous winter when I made tongue tacos from the cow in the freezer.  My family tolerated the tongue, but we all loved the salsa verde and I resolved to learn how to make it when the farm share tomatillos overwhelmed me appeared in the box.  I followed the Ball® Blue Book recipe, subbed the roasted Hatch chilies, and this was the result--six lovely jelly jars of salsa verde.

Since I had the canning pot up from the basement and hot water anyway, I figured I'd make some peach jam from peaches that had been hanging out in the freezer, awaiting a canning day and some pectin.

But what to make with it?  We haven't finished up the first cow, and most cows only have 1 tongue [not that we were pantingly eager to experience those tacos again].  We are loving enchiladas these days, so I figured an enchilada recipe would be a neat way to take my salsa verde for a test drive.  I found some ground pork marked down at the grocery store and grabbed a bag of zucchini out of the freezer.

Freezer?  Yes, I wrote this post up during the snowy winter, dreaming of temps above the single digits while sharing how I feed my family from our garden and CSA farm share all year 'round.  If you're overrun with zucchini this summer, shred some up--I love my food processor because it has a fine shred disc which is perfect for zucchini, carrots, or cheese.  I freeze bags of shredded zucchini flat in 1 cup portions.

But I digress . . .  where was I?  Oh, right. Ground pork, zucchini, and you know what else would be good stuffed into that tortilla?  Corn.  Grabbed some of that, too.  You'll notice that this enchilada recipe serves 6, but only uses 1/2 pound of meat.  We are omnivores, but I like to serve less meat and more veggies, so this is another way to stretch a pound of meat.  And tasty, too!

Zucchini, Corn, and Leek Pizza with Pesto and Feta (Pizza Night!)

The flavors of a summer vegetarian pizza: shredded zucchini sautéed with leeks and corn then topped with feta cheese on a roasted garlic oil-brushed pizza crust. 

Pizza in the summer should be easy.  Not that pizza in the winter should be complicated or anything, but there's something about the bounty of ripe produce coupled with spending more time outdoors doing yard work that lends itself to easy meals.  With such delicious stuff coming in the the farm share box the pizzas practically make themselves (let's be honest, I'm doing the work here) the idea of what veggies to combine in a pizza practically falls into your lap.  At least that's what happened with this pizza.  Sometimes, the ingredients choose you (Meghan is so wise).

Note:  I made this pizza in January.  It's true!  I'd love to show you a photo with the pizza and the 3 inches of snow that fell in the morning, but in fact it was wicked cold and dark so I have no 'outdoor' natural light photos.

Over the winter, while rooting around in the freezer for something else, a bag of shredded zucchini, a bag of corn kernels, and a bag of chopped leeks fell into my lap.  How did I make a pizza using zucchini and corn in the midst of winter?  Easy!  When I am overwhelmed with my crazy garden volunteers, or we get more than my family can eat in the week's CSA farm share box, I put it up.  The zucchini was shredded (love the fine shred disc on my food processor, the smaller and cheaper version of this one) then bagged, and frozen.  The corn was cooked in a cooler, cut off the cobs, frozen on a tray, and bagged.  The leeks were sliced, washed a lot, spun dry, and frozen loose on a tray before bagging.  That way, we can enjoy summer flavors all year long.  And this taste of summer was delicious after shoveling snow!

When I made this pizza, I knew that I eventually wanted to try leeks with corn on a pizza as well.  When I got leeks in my farm share I even did a little happy dance.  Tonight's pizza is very summery in nearly all respects--it's loaded with ripe-in-summer produce, tossed with pesto, flavored with a hint of garlic . . . but I think I may have used an eggnogandbutternutsquash crust.  So here's today's lesson, folks!  Always Label Random Bags of Pizza Crust In Your Freezer.  The crust tasted just fine with the toppings.  In fact, it may have been just a plain butternut squash pizza crust (is that an oxymoron?).  I'll never know, because I didn't label the bag!

If this pizza looks delicious enough for you to want to make it now, not wait until January, just make sure to squeeze the shredded zucchini until it's as dry as you can get it.  If you don't have leeks, substitute onions, shallots, or even green onions--but add them to the skillet at the very end because they burn easily.  At least in my skillets.  Now that my garden is growing some of these ingredients, I'm already planning my next "summer pizza" though this time I will know what dough to use.

Sweet Corn and Blueberry Waffles

Sometimes it takes my subconscious a bit of time to catch up with the rest of my brain.

The other day I was looking at a recipe round up email digest when these cornmeal waffles with a blueberry compote caught my fancy.  I thought I'd throw some of my freezer stash of blueberries into the cornmeal waffles instead of a compote on top.  Then I thought I'd toss in some frozen sweet corn that I'd also put up, because for some reason sweet corn and blueberries sounded good.

What I didn't realize, until the day after I'd made these, was that I'd taken the flavor combo from this amazing corn, cucumber, and blueberry salad and stuck it in a waffle iron.  Without the cucumber--cucumber waffles do not sound appealing.

Corn and blueberries are amazing together.  The salad was delicious, as are these waffles.  I love fresh corn, and fresh blueberries, in the summer.  When you have them both fresh in your kitchen, I recommend making the salad.  I'm not much of a chunky waffle fan (and my son cannot stand oozing blueberries in his waffles) so I knew I wanted to chop up the frozen corn and blueberries from my freezer stash into smaller bits.  When you have both corn and blueberries frozen, I recommend making these waffles.  Besides, I tend to prefer summer salads and winter waffles.  And alliteration.  You do what you like.

Note:  these waffles are a bit softer straight out of the iron than other waffles that I've made.  Flip 'em over--they'll be sturdy enough for the buttery spread and real local maple syrup.  These freeze well and can be toasted for weekday breakfasts.  I tripled the recipe and made waffles for 7 hungry folks with 2 breakfasts worth of leftovers, but I'm sharing the recipe that serves 2-3 folks.

Mexican Chicken Lentil Rice Bake (Salad?)

Most home cooks, and even the professionals down the road at Dorothy Lane Market, know the value of turning to a Kitchen Sink type recipe when faced with a fridge full of dinner building blocks.  I'm pretty sure a lot of classic Hot Dish combinations came about because a cook looked to his or her fridge/freezer/pantry for a substitution instead of trekking to the store.  Even though my local store is only a 1 mile (Map My) walk away, complete with a water dish for the waiting Simon, I'd rather use what I've got on hand.  Sometimes, the result is good enough to be written up and appear here.

I was mulling over what to call this dish while working a Hunger Study 2014 survey site.  My fellow volunteer, Bob, kept offering title ideas that were more general.  I kept coming up with very specific titles.  This was our compromise--it's got the Mexican Chicken Bake part from Bob and the Chicken Lentil Rice part from me.  You know, in case I do a Mexican Chicken Bake using garbanzo beans, Maui onions, zucchini, butternut squash, and orzo next. Or something.  Who knows?

Because I only used 2 large chicken thighs to feed 6-8 servings, I'd say this qualifies as a meat-stretching meal.  The chicken flavors the lentils, which add fiber and more protein to the dish.  Using leeks, corn, and salsa verde all put up from my seasonal CSA farm share pumps up the vegetable content, the rice binds it together, and the cheeses make it all tasty.  We ate this the first time a bit like we eat Taco Farro:  with tortilla chips, sour cream, salsa, and lettuce.  Leftovers went into thermoses for school, onto salads for lunch, and scooped up as a pre-dinner snack by a tortilla-chip-weilding hungry spouse.

Keep this Kitchen Sink idea in mind if you want to create a "less meat, more fiber" flavorful meal for your family.  It appealed to all of us, and I hope it appeals to you.

Swiss Chard, Corn, and Feta Pizza (Pizza Night!)

This pizza was inspired by a flatbread at SmittenKitchen.  The combination of leeks, corn, and chard sounded just delicious.  I haven't gotten any leeks from my CSA farm share this year, though.  So I knew I'd need to sub in some onions.  I grew up eating the entire piece of Swiss chard, and I hate to waste edible food, so I adapted it based on what I had on hand.
I'd been experimenting making pizza sauce with fresh tomatoes, so I smeared half the pizza with the sauce that didn't get put up (I ran out before I finished).  Half of this pizza is <gasp> naked!  It's ok, though, I covered up the bare dough with stuff.  It's totally safe for kids.

You don't normally see fluorescent pink in nature.

Corn Cheddar Bacon Muffins

A savory cornmeal muffin with bacon bits and shredded cheddar, great with a bowl of chili.

Now that 3/4 of my family is unable to enjoy corn on the cob, I've come up with other ways to enjoy the fresh taste of just-picked corn. Normally I'd boil the corn and serve it with butter and salt.  Now, however, I boil it, cool it, cut the kernels off the cob, freeze them on parchment paper on a try, and transfer the frozen kernels to zip top freezer bags for long term storage.

On a particularly Frugal Farm Fresh Eco Friendly Palooza day, I managed to cook the corn in the leftover canning water, but normally I boil it for 10-12 minutes in salted water.

This savory muffin combination was suggested by my daughter.  I'll probably keep making these after the braces come off. They are tasty!