To die for Winter squash recipe

Last night I thought I was going to be lazy about supper, so I threw some potatoes in to bake around 5.

Around 6 I remembered the gigantic Butternut squash that had been sitting on my counter for a week and decided I'd do something with it. My son came in when I was chopping the squash up and asked what I was going to make with it. I told him that I was imagining a creamy soup, and he said "you mean miso soup?", Which is his absolute favorite food of the moment.

After searching around the internet for a while I came across an interesting page and recipe: Medicine woman recipe

I made a few little changes, but it was the most delicious soup, with delicate, harmonious flavors. Here is what I did:

I guess it could be called "Butternut Miso Soup"

Peel 2 large carrots, 2 large parsnips, and half of a butternut squash with the seeds scooped out. Put these in a large stock pot with 2 quarts of water. Boil for 30 minutes, or till soft enough to mash. Remove the veggies and mash them in a bowl, then blend with a mixer, or you could just put them in a processor.
Return the mash to the boiling water and add 3 T grated ginger, and 3 T finely minced garlic
Simmer for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and add 3-4 T brown or red miso paste, and 3 T tahini paste (perhaps mixing with some water in a small bowl to separate before adding to soup pot)

Cover with lid till time to eat, but don't simmer again. Serve with chopped greens, if desired. Could serve with brown rice.

We ate soup and potatoes and it was the perfect meal. Superyum.

Nutty

My son brought home a stuffed animal last night in a bag with a composition notebook. He excitedly pulled the animal out, cradled it, and introduced me to it ceremoniously, as if meeting a newborn for the first time.

"Mom, this is nutty, nutty, this is my mom."

His eyes didn't leave the plush squirrel. He was smiling as he gazed. Immediately his little sister lunged for the toy, sparking in him such rage that I feared the thing would be destroyed. Finding another toy to balance out the scene, my daughter sat plotting while my son explained;

"You see mom, everyone in the WHOLE class takes a turn taking nutty home with them and then bringing it back the next day!!! Isn't that cool?!"

The first thing that popped into my mind was the rampant flu virus that has been gripping the county; runny noses, younger siblings, bathrooms, toilets, vomit, diarrhea, cooties, and general, unfamiliar filth.

The amber fur was the same color and texture as the floorboards of my 4 runner, underneath the matts.

After washing my hands, I asked for the rest of the story with this nutty squirrel. My son looked at me, confused. He started to explain the "everyone in the whole class" thing again, and I interrupted him by asking what the significance was. What's the point? Just spreading germs or is there something else?

"OHYEAH! And nutty has a journal!!!!! Everyone gets to write about their visit with him in the journal and draw a picture! It's soooo cool! C'mon!!! LET"S GO"

I took the notebook and scanned through the scrawled graphite script. Most of the kids mentioned snacking, video gaming, and watching TV with nutty. There were some pictures; mostly of stick people sitting on a couch. One girl wrote about going to her mom's work and taking nutty. Below she drew a picture of the local gas station with a gigantic squirrel in the window. One boy said that he climbed a tree with nutty, then he fell out and had to go to the doctor's office for an X-ray, and the following day his mother had to get nutty out of the tree. He described the squirrel's fur as "cold and crusty" when his mother brought it back inside. His picture was of himself with a cast, and nutty with a diabolical, furrowed brow.

I asked my son what he wanted to do with nutty. His eyes glazed over and he sat perfectly still.

"We could go to the park" I suggested. "We could ride bikes. Nutty could ride on your handlebars".

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhh gaaaahhh!!!!!! I don't want to do that. Do I have to?" He groaned. "I'm so tired and kinda hungry" he said as he made himself as flat as he could, his face buried in a pillow.

"I was just trying to think of some things that might make a good story for the journal, and that you could talk about to your friends. What would you like to do? Cause it really doesn't matter to me" I insisted.

As soon as I had said it, I realized it wasn't true. That toy needed to be shown a good time. Not video games, crap TV, risky tree climbing, but something fun.

My son looked at me pleadingly. "Please don't make me go to the park or ride bikes. All I wanna do is pop popcorn and play with leggos" he lamented.

Ok. We went to the kitchen and chairs were immediately scooted up to the counter in *precisely* the spot I needed to be. The children got as close to the gas stove as they could get as I ignited the burner, set the oily pot on top of it, and dropped three kernels into it.

Nutty was positioned leaning against one of my canisters. My son was speaking to him about hot oil and the importance of jiggling the pot constantly.

The kernels popped, and I added the rest of the corn, covered and shook the pot. The kids were elbowing each other in attempts to dominate the chair closest to the burner. They were both in between me and the stove. It was like something out of a bad parenting magazine.

My two year old started cry/screaming, and my 6 year old pushed her face, knocking her off the chair and onto the floor.

Popping kernels hit the lid of the pot three at a time, rolling in the steam and oil.

I made no attempt at consoling my 2 year old; mishaps such as these usually resulted in a drastic, transitionary device, such as a bath, a walk, a nap or the like, and since there was a steaming pot of oil and corn on the stove, I knew none such diversions were possible.

Her wails became louder and more bitter. She stood back up, grabbed the chair my son was standing in, and shoved it sideways towards the stove. My son fell towards the wall and started yelling at his sister.

Sensing a similar story as the tree-climber, I raised my voice level to "pissed" and directed the children to "leave the damn room, NOW", and I threw nutty through the doorway to the dining room, clear into the living room.

They yelled and bickered for a while, then became quiet. I could hear the familiar crackling sound of falling leggos as I salted and seasoned the popcorn. I lingered in the kitchen for a few moments munching popcorn and listening to All Things Considered.

After an impossibly long quiet stretch, my son came sprinting into the kitchen with nutty.

"Mom! LOOK WHAT WE MADE NUTTY!! LEGGO SHOES!! HE REALLY NEEDED SOME SHOES!!"

Two large boxes hung from the toy's legs. They were made using gray, blue and white blocks, and they had a "new wave" style about them. I was impressed with the craftsmanship.

"That is awesome!" I declared as I herded the kids back into the dining room. I set the bowl of popcorn on the table and my son began digging in it. My daughter was holding nutty above the wooden table, bouncing it, making him tap dance.

"Mom I love nutty." My son uttered. "I don't know how I'll be able to take him back tomorrow. I wish I could just keep him forever"

"What about all of your stuffed animals? You have froggy, piggy, beary, foxy, spot, stimpy, kenny, wally and daddy bear. What about them? Don't you love them?" I asked.

"No" He replied pitifully. "I hate all those toys" He whispered, looking down at the table, slowly chewing popcorn, one piece at a time.

what we done with them

When you love morels as much as we do, it's hard to know when to say when. Looking for them without finding them, looking for them and finding three or four, looking and finding 650-700...harvesting them, cleaning them, preparing and eating them, giving them to people, drying them.. Every step of the process is rewarding, and no matter how many we find, the desire to find more is strong.

Since this is the case, I have developed many morel recipes, all which one could substitute another mushroom depending on the season. A few years ago I made a pretty radical dip. We hadn't found any asparagus, and we really had a TON of morels, so I made another, similar dip. Here it is

Morel Dip 2

3 lbs fresh, clean, chopped morel mushrooms

1 package cream cheese

6 oz parmesan cheese

1 med white or yellow onion, minced

2 large cloves garlic, minced (three or four ramps, including green leafy parts can be substituted)

2 ribs celery, minced, including leaves

1 small package imitation crab meat, roughly chopped into penny sized pieces

1/2 t crushed red pepper

1/2 t freshly ground black pepper

1/2 T sea salt

2 cups white wine, sweeter types like pinot grigio, riesling, or some chardonnay

1/4 stick of butter

-Saute the onions, garlic (or ramps) celery, peppers in butter till translucent. -Add the morels and toss to cover with oil. -As morels become soft and limp, add the wine and allow to reduce in half -Lower heat, add "crab meat", half the parmesan cheese and stir -Chunk cream cheese into the pan a tablespoon at a time, stirring constantly to mix -Pour everything into a casserole or pyrex container -Cover the top with the rest of the parmesan cheese, a grind of black pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes Bake at 375 deg for 25-35 minutes.

I also made a breakfast frittata that was delicious

Sweet Potato and Morel Frittata

2 lbs fresh, clean, chopped morel mushrooms

3 green onions, chopped

1 small sweet potato, peeled and sliced into rounds

a handful of chopped spinach

2 cloves minced garlic

10 beaten eggs

1 T salt

1/4 t black pepper

1/4t thyme

1/4 c milk

3/4 c cottage cheese

1/4 c olive oil, or coconut oil

Preheat to 375

-Saute the green onions, garlic morels, spinach, thyme and black pepper in one T of oil

-Let cool in pan. Transfer contents of pan into town scraping the sides so there is nothing clinging to sides of pan. Put remaining oil into pan and put in preheated oven.

-add the beaten eggs, milk and cottage cheese to the mushroom mixture in bowl, stirring to completely blend

-Carefully remove warmed oil from oven and pour egg/mushroom mixture into it. Lay sweet potato slices over surface of mixture.

Bake for 25-40 minutes, or till golden in color, and a knife stuck into center comes out clean.

And finally I couldn't help but try

Morel Fettucini Alfredo with Smoked Andouille

1 lb fresh, clean, chopped morel mushrooms

One container cream cheese

one cup sour cream

1/2 stick butter

5 T milk

2 minced ramps or shallots

3 large cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 C parmesan cheese

4ox andouille sausage sliced into moons 1T salt

1t pepper

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t allspice

Walnuts

-In a large pan sauté the garlic, sausage, shallots/ramps in 1 T butter. Cook till edges are just browning, then add garlic

-Remove the sausage and set aside where no one can see and devour it

-Add mushrooms and toss till they cook down. If the oil looks sparse add a few splashes of olive oil

-Add salt, pepper, spices, and remaining butter.

-Whisking constantly, add sour cream, chunked cream cheese, and the milk one T at a time.

-When the sauce looks smooth, add the parm cheese, a little at a time, reserving a little for the top. Toss sausage in sauce. Serve with parsley or crushed walnuts over pasta of your choice.

So that's what we have been doing with the insane number of morels we found.

Zucchini; getting creative with

The month of July brought many wonderful blessings and experiences my way. My son turned three years old on the sixth, my dresses have been selling at a consistent rate for once, and my garden has produced enough food to make a dent in the grocery bill. As we near July's end and I reflect on the past four weeks I wonder; just how much zucchini can one plant produce?

Make no mistake. I LOVE zucchini. But damn! Zucchini has been on my dinner plate at least five times a week this month. Imagining all the stir fried zucchini my family has consumed lately makes me feel vomitous and slippery. Picking the vegetable is all fun and games, then you bring it into the kitchen and see it on the counter with the other zucchini that you picked yesterday.. . It's enough to make you want to dig a hole and bury it from whence it came.

After coming inside this afternoon, this attitude began welling inside of me and I happened to glance at my mounting collection of vegetarian cookbooks. The thought of riffling through each one's index for zucchini recipes intensified the sick feeling, so I just braced myself and started cleaning and trimming the vegetables.

I thought of the experimental zucchini concoctions, both from recipe and free form, that I had tried this season and remembered each one's qualities, both pro and con. There was the old favorite: fried zucchini sticks with horseradish dip; delicious, but hardly a meal. Zucchini fritters; good, but not quite sweet or savory enough to constitute repeating so soon. Beth's amazing Zu-canoes; a killer recipe she found in a Moosewood book that had ten too many ingredients (wheat germ, cottage cheese, cooked brown rice) AND ten too many steps for me to manage. I suppose there's no need to mention the stir fry again. What I truly wanted was spaghetti, but I felt guilty preparing a meal I consider standby when I had twenty pounds of fresh herbs and produce on my counter top, already trimmed. Feeling sorry that I hadn't planted eggplants, an idea struck me. Zucchini Parmesan.

I started by grating half of a mutant sized zucchini (the size of my calf, in length and girth) and combining it with a grated carrot, chopped, fresh basil, rosemary and oregano, and five chopped garlic cloves. Then I added a teaspoon of sea salt and a ton of fresh grated pepper. I let it rest in the wide bowl at an angle, then drained the liquid that gathered in the corner.

At this point I threw in two small eggs, stirred it all up, then added enough white flour to make the remaining liquids into more of a batter.

Before the eggs were added I poured a quarter cup of corn oil into a heavy saute pan and let it get pretty hot while I finished the batter. After stirring in the flour I used a serving spoon to scoop the batter into the hot oil.

I let them cook a while to allow them to get crunchy and done all through, but turned the pan around a few times as my stove top is at a shittious, minute angle which makes everything cook unevenly.

I warmed up some canned tomato sauce and boiled spaghetti while the cakes fried.

As I removed them from the hot oil, the cakes were placed on a cereal box to drain, and I topped each one with a bit of bland cheese. When I arranged the plates I put a scoopy-claw thing of spaghetti noodles, then a cake, then a ladle of sauce, then a ton of parmesan cheese, then crushed red pepper and an oregano flower. From start to finish this took around 40 minutes.

Going heavy on the herbs was definitely key for the zucchini cakes, particularly the rosemary, which I normally refrain from using in excess. I once took rosemary and gouda quiche in to work to share and hardly anyone touched it. Offended, I asked my safety supervisor "what the hell" and he apologetically explained "Well, see, in Mexico that spice... Uhh.....What is it?"

"Rosemary?" I offered

"Yes! Rosemary!" he happily replied, "This is what we bury our dead in. Soooo..."


Say no more.
Since then I have been reluctant of rosemary in culinary usage for fear of an impromptu dining encounter with a Mexican.

This was a great usage of zucchini in an atypical way. Try it!