FOOD ON THE FOOD

Me Day

It’s been a while since I’ve done anything fun for myself.  To the point where, when confronted with unstructured time, I have no idea even where to begin to amuse myself, especially in the winter.  I hate shopping.  I’m too ticklish for pedicures.  I mean, I’ll go if someone makes a compelling argument, but I usually just end up kicking the pedicurist in the face while clinging to the chair for dear life.  Are pretty feet worth that kind of torture?  I think not.

Still, I had four childless hours to burn yesterday, so into Boston I went.  The plan was to do something about my hair.  It looked shittier than usual, and that’s my cue.  I decided to see the gay guys on Newbury Street.  I plopped myself down in a chair and gave them carte blanche.

Me: Make me cute.

The stylist circled me, finger to chin.  He played with my hair for a while, shaking his head and making discouraging gestures.  Then he called in reinforcements.  Another guy came over and they continued pecking at me like the most fastidious of turkey vultures.  Finally, they threw up their hands in defeat.

Me: Oh, stop being so dramatic.  I still have a few good years left.

Eyebrows were raised.

Me: One year left?

He let out a deep sigh.

Him: I give you six months.

Me: Fuck!

Sigh.  Okay, fine, this never happened.  A girl cut my hair.  My old hairdresser, we’ll call him Niall since that was his name, no longer exists on this earth as far as I can tell.  His place closed down five years ago and no one bothered to tell me.  God.  But I swear this is how it would have gone had he materialized, and since when do I let actual events interfere with the story I want to tell.

The point is, I got my hair cut and then I ended up at Bukowski for lunch because I love their French fries with malt vinegar.  And, yeah, I’ll have a burger, too.  And a beer.  I put my hat on to try to flatten out the poofiness so no one would guess I was coming straight from Newbury Street.  In keeping with the dark, writerly atmosphere, I attempted to look brooding and tortured while staring out the window at the Mass Pike.  That lasted all of five minutes, and then I gave up and started rifling through all the shit at the table, trying to find the bottle of malt vinegar.  A1 sauce, okay, I don’t need that.  Ketchup, no.  Five hundred napkins and menus.  Oh look, they’re having a Fuck New Year’s Party.  But WTF, where’s the malt vinegar?

I flagged the no-nonsense bartender and, through clenched teeth and a forced smile, asked if there might possibly be any malt vinegar on the premises.  She headed back to the bar and chucked some packets in my direction, which I caught one-handed.  Packets?  Of malt vinegar?  Okay, fine, packets will do.  As long as I get my vinegar.

The years may go, styles falling in and out of favor, but for the love of all that is holy, some things can never change.

Happy New Year!

Eat Local Blues

Remember the awesomeness that was the Eat Local Challenge back in October?  Well, not too long afterwards, an Associated Press reporter interviewed me about the experience (along with Jen Maiser), and the product of those conversations is now up in a few different places through the wire.  Here’s a link in case you’re interested in taking a break from the holiday feeding frenzy.  You’ll notice that I conveniently left out the part about how I just whined the whole time.  Minor detail.  Also, I’m almost positive this is the only time I’ll share page space with bluesman B.B. King, however tenuous his link to local-eating might be.

Decemberness

I’m still nursing a cold, so here’s a recap of the past week.

The Kindergartener turned 6 last weekend.  There was a big snowstorm the day of the party.  Husband was busy finishing up the birthday cake, so I went outside to shovel out some parking spaces.  Is this ringing any bells?  Oh yeah, that’s exactly what happened last year, remember?  The only differences were this time I didn’t pass out drunk and we ran out of cake.  In other words, this party sucked by comparison.

Here’s the character that Husband was instructed by the Kindergartener to recreate in icing.  It’s a Pokemon, in case you’re wondering.  Turtwig.  Part turtle, part…twig?  Those Japanese are crazy.

And here’s the cake:

Quite the likeness, huh?  To give you an idea of what would have happened if I had tried to duplicate that picture, check this out and extrapolate.  It would not have been good.  I’m much better working with large quantities of snow where finesse is less important.  Scoop, fling, scoop, fling. 

Soon after the party, Husband got sick for the four days leading up to Christmas.  I’ve actually never seen him so sick, and I’ve known him for a reaaaaaallllyyyy long, long time.  I was starting to worry he had meningitis or something.  He would speak in strange, frantic tongues one minute, and be completely unresponsive when I poked him with a stick the next.  Finally, on Christmas Eve, we went to the hospital where they gave him antibiotics and pumped him full of saline and the will to live.  (He actually had the same doctor that he saw two Christmas Eves ago when he broke his hand, but that’s a story for another post.)

Needless to say, all of our holiday plans were cancelled, but we still had a cozy Christmas morning, just us.  I propped Husband up somewhere amid the flurry of wrapping paper and legos, checking his pulse every so often.  The kids were appropriately overexuberant.  Me, I was torn between delight over the stack of presents with my name on them and fretting over the fact that Husband had surely gone over the very strict budget I had outlined.  Why does he always ignore budgets?  Given his condition, though, I decided that if his last, dying wish was that I have some pretty sweaters, then how could I begrudge him that?

There was still all this food that needed to be cooked, so around 2 p.m., I started shoving stuff into the oven at random.  I’m not sure I can think of a meal more disgusting to behold after you’ve spent the whole night vomiting and hallucinating than turkey with jalapeño cornbread, chorizo, and pumpkin seed stuffing, plus egg nog bread pudding.  But there it was, stinking up the house while Husband dove back under the covers and begged for mercy.  To be fair, when I planned the meal, I didn’t see this situation coming.  (Ahem, let the record show that in the Tweet dated December 17, I totally saw this coming.)  (Shut up, Self, whose side are you on?  You know I need at least a month to enact change.  A year, ideally.)

I guess that brings us more or less current.  So.  How are your holidays going?

I Like Turnips

I’ve had to call in a few favors to get my hands on some local produce around here.  Like Eastham turnips, courtesy of my in-laws. 

Never had Eastham turnip?  Oh, you’re missing so much.  They’re sweeter than the average turnip, which some say owes to the salty air and the particular sandy Cape Cod soil in which they’re grown.  Turnip terroir, if you will.  Others say it’s because the turnip is actually a cross between a rutabaga and a white turnip.  Whatever the reason, it’s my favorite turnip, just edging out those little white Japanese salad turnips for the best spot in the crisper drawer of my heart.

This past Thanksgiving, I got tons of hits from people looking for Eastham turnip recipes.  Tons.  All I had up was an early post about how to boil and mash turnips with butter and nutmeg.  It truly is the best way to eat them, but I suspect people were looking for something a bit more interesting than that.  So next year, I’m cashing in with this recipe for roasted Eastham turnip with shallots and apples.  The idea is to brown things well in order to coax out the natural sweetness.  If all goes well, the shallots will end up soft and caramelized (except for the sought- after blackened bits), turnips will have turned pleasingly mellow, apples gnarled and twisty, all of it finished with a generous dusting of thyme. 

If you like turnips, you’ll like this dish.  And if you don’t like turnips, I’m willing to bet pocket change you’d like Eastham turnips.  And if you’re going to sit there and insist that you don’t like turnips, it doesn’t matter what kind, no way, no how, and you never will…well, I can’t help you.  You’re stubborn and you’ll never change. 

Roasted Eastham Turnip, Shallots, and Apples

Macomber is a good turnip, too, but I’m sure you could use whatever other crappy turnips you have lying around.  (Just kidding, Turnips.  I love you all.)

1 large white turnip, peeled and chopped into ¾-inch cubes
2-3 shallots, peeled, lobes separated, each lobe cut into 4 wedges
1 large tart apple (like Cortland, Granny Smith, or Macoun) (not McIntosh as they will saucify), peeled, sides cut off the core and sliced into ¼-inch half-moons
1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme (or sage)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Dump all the ingredients onto a sheet pan and combine with your hands until everything is coated in oil.  Don’t forget the salt and pepper.  Roast 20-25 minutes, until vegetables start to take on some color.  Flip them with a spatula and roast 20-25 minutes more, until the shallots are on their way toward burning but not quite there, yet.  Serves 1, if you’re me.  Serves more like 4 if you’re a normal person.

Frankincense, Myrrh, and…

While we were eating dinner recently, Husband mentioned how full he was from his holiday potluck at work.  He rattled off all the fabulous dishes people had brought, and I suddenly had an urge to run out and get a temp job just for the party food.  Until I remembered how spirit-crushing my early office jobs were, and then I lost my appetite.

Me: I didn’t know you were having a potluck today.  What did you bring?

Him: A bag of Funyuns.

Me: You brought a bag of Funyuns?

Him: Yes, Funyuns.  And everybody loved them.

Okay, here’s my theory.  He forgot about the potluck until the last minute, then he was too scared to bring it up lest I become enraged, and so he devised this brilliant Funyun plan.  Friends of Husband, does that sound right?

I really shouldn’t criticize since the end result was me not having to do any work.  I’m rarely motivated to cook when I don’t get to partake in the enjoyment in any way.  For me, cooking is a moderately selfish act.  That anyone else benefits is somewhat coincidental. 

But Funyuns?  Surely there’s a classier cheat when you forget all about your own holiday party than onion-flavored corn rings.  Something else that’s cheap and easily grabbed at a Mobil Mart on the Pike.  Like cigarettes. 

For a Whopper of a Good Time

Have you ever been downwind from someone who just got off his shift at Burger King and thought, god, the smell of fast food is making me soooooo horny?  No?  Well, I guess your market research and Burger King’s market research were not pulled from the same pool.  Just this week, BK launched Flame ($3.99), a men’s body spray that, in case you haven’t read about this already, evokes the scent of flame-broiled burgers.  I’m not kidding.  It’s meat-flavored cologne.  Just ask their spokesman, Burger King, Male Prostitute. 

Wow, if that image isn’t a recipe for abstinence, then I don’t know what is.  Does the spray come with the crown and the freaky plastic face, I wonder?

You may think that eau de CAFO-beef patties is gross and you may be right, but remember that you don’t speak for all of us.  Some of us are able to suck that vomit back down into our stomachs just long enough to write a post.  And frankly, from an entrepreneurial perspective, it’s sheer brilliance.  When the flavor of your food comes from a test tube anyway, how hard is it to slap some labeling on that tube and sell it as something else?  Something that, if luck is on your side, might help to make you hungry later on.  And even if the ladies don’t come a-running (and we are a fickle bunch, aren’t we?), you yourself will end up running to the nearest drive-through because now you feel peckish all the time and you don't know why.  Mmmmm, the sultry smell of subliminal advertising.

But let’s just assume for a minute that Flame really does drive women wild (or men), it’s bound to get confusing for the public once all of those Pavlovian bells start ringing at once.  Like, when you smell sizzling meat, how will you know if you’re hungry or just horny?  What are we standing in line for again?  A bacon double cheeseburger or that fry cook who’s looking suddenly hot back there?  The answer, according to BK, is who cares?  No matter what, it’s money in the bank. 

So now we can look forward to that smell permeating everything, from subway cars to elevators.  There will be no escaping that tantalizing fast food aroma, and it’s very hard to maintain your food snob composure under those kinds of conditions.  I worry that I’ll fall prey to those skeevy guys that hang around strip malls as a result:

Guy: Why, hello there.  What do you say we take a walk over to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, if you know what I’m saying?

Me: Dude, I don’t think so.

Guy: (comes closer) I might have something you need.

Me: Oh yeah?  And what exactly would that be?  (starting to notice a familiar meaty scent)

Guy: Right here in my pocket…

Me: Oh god...  (covering eyes)

Guy: See?  Double coupons to Burger King.

Me: Fuck, yeah!  Ladies first.

I don’t need this kind of temptation around the holidays, so I hope Santa doesn’t get any ideas for stocking stuffers.  Lay off the Flame, Santa, unless you plan on following up with the real thing.  (And by real thing, I mean an actual Whopper.)

Ho-Ho-Ho, the Humanity

We put up our tree this weekend.  In between the ornament-smashing sponsored by the 3YO, I had to try to dodge some unexpectedly difficult questions from the Kindergartener. 

Him: Mommy, how was Santa born?

Me: Hmmmm.  Well, he probably had a Mommy and Daddy just like you.  Maybe his Daddy was a Santa, too, and he came from a long line of Santas.

Him: (pauses for reflection) But I thought there was only one Santa.

Me: That’s true.  There is only one Santa.  Right.  But maybe when that Santa gets too old and dies, his son gets to be the next Santa.

(Horrified look from Husband.  I shrug.)

Husband: Do you even think about what you’re going to say before the words fly out of your mouth?

Me: We both know the answer to that question.

Meanwhile, the Kindergartener has turned his attention to a wooden Nutcracker doll.

Him: Mommy, what’s this thing on the Nutcracker?

Me: (to Husband) Would you like to be in charge of the nut-related questions?

Husband: It's a sack for carrying the arrows for the Nutcracker’s bow and arrow.

Me: You know, Son, the ones he uses to shoot down Santa!

Someday I won’t ruin Christmas.

Holiday Gift Guide for the Cheap, Hungry, and Procrastinating

Looking for that perfect food-related gift under $20?  Here are some things I have and like:

• The Devil’s Food Dictionary ($17.95): I believe I’ve mentioned this before.  It’s still funny.

• Printed bird dishtowels ($15): I like the quail, rooster, and Massachusetts state bird.

• Raye’s herring and mustard pack from Maine ($19.95):  Everybody loves mustard!  Herring, too, I’m sure.

• French carbon paring knives ($7.95): Because everyone can use a sharp knife in a cool color.  Me, I prefer to get new knives rather than sharpening the ones I already have.  That’s green, right?  (Or you can get the $5 workhorse Wusthofs at TJ Maxx.) 

• Organic lip balm ($5.99): Try the lavender vanilla and just see if you can stop kissing yourself. 

• Flat of the Hill on Charles St. in Boston had some cute aprons for $20.

• Regifting the cookbooks you don’t use is totally fair game, in my opinion.  Stop being so stingy with your stuff! 

And, finally, want to give a gift to yourself?  Sign the petition asking Obama to appoint a sustainable secretary of agriculture, should this sound appealing to you in any way.  It’s free.

Third-Degree Deliciousness

There are many different kinds of burns that one might sustain in the kitchen.  Steam burns.  Oil spatters.  Boiling water that you pour out into the sink but a dirty dish is at just the right angle that it splashes all over yourself.  Hot sheet pans that brand stripes into your forearms.  Metal pot handles that (surprise!) get as hot as the pan itself.  I could go on. 

But the worst kind of burn, by far, is the caramel burn.  That shit sticks like glue and will cause you a world of pain for as long as it remains adhered.  I have some experience with this, meaning that the part of my brain responsible for storing memories is permanently blistered and raw.  So when I saw a recipe for burnt caramel gelato from Sally Sampson’s book, Recipe of the Week: Ice Cream, I thought, finally, an opportunity to get caramel back.

If you’ve ever had the burnt caramel ice cream at Toscanini’s, then you know how creamy and sweet and bitter that flavor is all at once.  There’s something very coffee-like about the way that bitterness asserts itself in the finish, and it’s similarly addictive.  So, between that and my persistent grudge, I took great pleasure in burning that caramel.  And just when I thought it couldn’t get any more burnt, I burned it some more.  Take that.  And that! 

The recipe is here if you’re interested.  I strongly suggest you make it.  If you don’t have an ice cream machine, well, I know someone who’s making a list and checking it twice!

***

And while we’re on the subject of painful burns: as part of my pledge to humor no more than one PR person per year from all of the unsolicited e-mails I get, 2008’s lucky winner is Amy Gan of Phyllis Klein.  Because burns are no laughing matter (except today on my blog), and every day that goes by that Burn Jel Plus is not in my medicine cabinet is another day to feel guilty.  Usually because I’ve just burned myself.  Apparently, it’s based on the same stuff that firefighters and the military use.  I’ll be checking in with my firefighter sources to confirm this.  If I can just reach the phone, 9-1-…

I’m a Big Loser, Part 326

Dear everybody who @replied me on Twitter since July 2008, I didn’t get your messages.  I repeat, I did not get your messages because I can’t understand even the most pared-down social networking service.  It’s a form of Online Autism, actually, so you can’t make fun of me. 

For all you non-Twitterers, this is a bit of a faux pas.  It would be like ignoring your e-mail or all of the comments on your blog for six months.  Like that.  Here’s the thing, I didn’t realize there was a separate folder or whatever for @replies.  When I first started with Twitter, all those messages got dumped onto my home page, I swear to God.  Then, round about June, it got very quiet around here.  Every once in a while I’d wonder why I never heard from anyone ever again.  I just assumed everybody hated me.  (And now they do.  Thanks, Twitter!)

It’s been nice to catch up and read all of the messages, trying to remember the context.  I’m touched that anyone continued to interact with my unresponsive self.  I mean, no guarantees that I would have responded if I had read them, but, you know, I might have at least brought it up in conversation when I saw you later on that day.

I wonder what else Twitter has hiding over there in the right hand column?  And, no, to respond to a bunch of you all at once, I didn’t actually ride my bike to Costco that time.  Sheesh.  (I walked.)

Tortilla Soup for Optimum Marital Health

This recipe for tortilla soup is courtesy of my BFF who really ought to start her own competing food blog since I’m always stealing her recipes.  It’s a good use for any post-Thanksgiving turkey stock you might have on hand.  You did make turkey stock, right?  Right?  If not, please deposit your unwanted turkey carcasses in my mailbox.

It was too dark to take a photo when I first made the soup (I rely heavily on natural light to compensate for my failings as a photographer).  Instead, I fried some extra tortilla strips and set them aside in a little plastic baggie for the next day when I would be recreating the whole experience.  Don’t eat them, I told Husband.  I won’t have time to fry more.  I have a very narrow 8-hour window of daylight in which to work.  Please, for the love of God, don’t mess with them.  Then we went through the usual spousal push and pull involved with trying to verify whether or not the request was heard and would be honored.  In the end, though, he agreed.

Cut to the next day.  I heat up my soup and get ready to apply the appropriate garnishes.  Sour cream?  Check.  Shredded cheese?  Check.  Avocado?  Check.  Tortilla strips?  Che…wait a minute.  Where the hell are they?  They’re not on the counter.  I yell up to Husband.  He insists they’re on the counter, but they’re not.  They’re just not.  I check all the cabinets.  Nothing.

After several maneuvers not unlike trying to dislodge a mule from his favorite resting spot, I manage to get Husband downstairs to confirm that, indeed, there were no tortilla strips on the counter.  Or anywhere.  And now I’m starting to get mad because the sun is poised to do a swan dive into the deep, dark night, and did we not have a whole conversation about this?  I have pretty low standards for photographic composition, but I think tortilla soup should at the very least include some visible tortillas.  And he’s mad because I’m making such a big deal about chips.  Which is clearly not the point at all.

Me: FIND ME THE STRIPS.

Him: They’re not here.  I put them here and they’re not here.  I’m sorry.

Me: THE STRIPS!!!

Him: I put them right here.  It’s not my fault.

Me: STRRRRRRIIIIIIIPS. 

It went back and forth like this for a while.  Voices were raised, several levels of maturity were disproven, in what was shaping up to be one of our worst fights ever.  So this is it, I thought.  The straw that breaks the camel’s back.  Tortilla chips. 

Until…

Him: Oh…oh, wait.  (fixes gaze up over my head)  Now I remember where I put them…

He reaches up on top of one of the blades of the motionless ceiling fan and produces my bag of chips.

Him: I forgot.  I was going to play a trick on you, but I forgot…

Then he ran up the stairs as fast as I’ve ever seen him move. 

The sad thing is, after all that, I couldn’t even get mad about it.  Well, I was a little mad.  The kind of mad where you alternate between sighing and laughing and shaking your head.  His punishment?  You’re looking at it.

 

Tortilla Soup for Optimum Marital Health

Cheaper than counseling and just as ineffective.

¼ cup vegetable oil
4 6-inch corn tortillas, halved and cut into strips

8 6-inch corn tortillas, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup cilantro, chopped
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes in juice
6 cups chicken or turkey broth
1 Tbsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. chili powder
2 bay leaves
4 skinless chicken breast halves
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2 avocados, pitted & diced
Sour cream

Heat oil in small skillet. Add tortilla strips in batches, frying until golden.  Drain on paper towels.  Salt well and set aside.

Pour frying oil into large, heavy pot over high heat.  Add tortilla pieces (not the ones you just fried, the other ones), onion, garlic, and cilantro, and sauté about 3 minutes.  Stir in tomatoes with juices, and bring to a boil.  Add broth, cumin, chili powder, and bay leaves.  Return to boil.  Add chicken and cayenne pepper, and reduce heat.  Simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes. (I didn’t actually add any chicken here; my homemade broth already contained some shredded chicken.  Not a lot, but enough.)  Remove soup from heat.  Using slotted spoon, remove bay leaves.  Transfer chicken to a plate, and let cool.  Shred chicken and return to soup.  Ladle into bowls.  Top with cheese, avocado, dollop of sour cream, and FRIED TORTILLA STRIPS.

Holy Pigs

Much as I enjoyed the boston.com piece that I was in, the article that had me fascinated from start to finish last Sunday was the one on Communion wafers.  Perhaps you read it?  No?  You didn’t read it because it was about Communion wafers?  Well, you should go back and read it now.  There's even a video if you're feeling illiterate today.

If you grew up, as I did, with the very strange, lingering sensation of Communion host on your tongue, then the thought of it probably triggers some powerful memories.  Me?  I remember standing in line for Communion in my teen years, hands cupped, praying I wouldn’t trip over my own feet and cause the neat lines of parishioners to tip domino-style in symmetric patterns all around the church.  As I waited my turn in the bread line, I rehearsed the words I would soon use to tell my dad that I didn’t want to be confirmed.  That maybe confirming my faith to a religion I was lukewarm on at best was the wrong message to be sending to God.  The message that I’m a liar.  Or worse, a dumb liar who didn’t think He would find out I was lying.

But, as it happened, I did attend my own Confirmation, God did find out I was a liar, and that may partially explain the very special relationship that God and I now have.  Anyway.  We were talking about altar bread.

The company that has cornered 80% of the national market on Communion wafers is Cavanagh Company, a 62-year old family business run out of Smithfield, Rhode Island, not far from the Massachusetts line.  (God, if I had known that, it could have saved me a lot of trouble during the Eat Local Challenge.  I totally would have gone to church.) 

The manufacturing process is very straightforward and devoid of secret holy processes.  You spray the batter (just wheat flour and water) into a pan, press it, bake it, steam it, cut it, and print it.  Then the hosts get packaged up and shipped off to various churches where, after some Eucharistic hocus-pocus, they become magically gluten-free (i.e., 100% Body of Christ).  The scraps go to a local pig farmer to feed his charges (“holy pigs,” as the Cavanaghs call them). 

If you’re not of the Catholic persuasion, you may wonder what the body of Christ tastes like.  It’s been a while, but my recollection is that it tastes a lot like nothing.  A stryofoamy, rice cakey, cardboardy nothingness that dissolves into a wet, mealy paste.  I say count your blessings that’s all it tastes like.

According to the article, the Cavanaghs aren’t feeling the effects of the recession too much since the faltering economy seems to be driving people back to church.  This after a dip in sales back around the time of certain priestly confessions.  Faith can be fickle.  And so we may be seeing the unveiling of a mainstream, non-denominational cracker from the company at some point in the future.  Just in case, you know, people start feeling good enough to stop going to church again.  I know I’ll be waiting to stock up for next year’s Eat Local Challenge.  And I want some of that holy bacon, too.

And You Thought We Were Done With Squash

When trying to figure out what to do with winter squash, which is native to the Americas, I think it wise to turn to the Native American peoples for help.  After all, squash has been an integral part of their diet for centuries.  Surely they would know how to make it delicious.  But where are these natives?  That was the question I found myself asking on Thanksgiving.  Where the hell are they?

I attempted to summon some squash inspiration from my distant and long-dead Mi’kmaq relatives, but frankly they’re a little pissed off that I’ve spent so much time writing up the recipes from the Italian side of my family and now the Appalachian side.  Once again, it would appear, the natives get shafted.  What do you want, relatives?  You didn’t document your recipes.  Oral storytelling will only get you so far.

A better bet, I found, was looking south of the border.  My mom’s man friend is Peruvian and has some tricks up his sleeve when it comes to squash.  Tricks I teased you with last winter and then failed to ever follow up on.  But I’ve had this dish again and again since then, and I’m smitten despite the godawful looks of it.  Stews are hard to gussy up, especially when you barely even try.  I ate this four dinners in a row, though, and since we all know how I feel about squash, I think that speaks volumes. 

 

Peruvian Beef and Squash Stew

Chopping up all this squash takes some time, but you’ll make a major dent in your squash pile, and, really, isn’t that what matters?

3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, smashed
2 Tbsp. paprika
2 lbs. sirloin steak, cut into 1-inch pieces (or you can use cheaper cuts like stew meat)
8 cups winter squash, peeled, seeded, cut into 1-inch chunks* (from about 3 squashes, like butternut, carnival, delicata, buttercup, whatever you have)
2 medium potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
2 tomatoes, chopped
¾ lb. extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large braising pot, heat olive oil until shimmering.  Sauté onions, garlic, and paprika over medium heat until soft.  Add meat and cook until halfway done.  Add potatoes and tomatoes.  Dump squash on top (no need to mix; the idea is for the squash to steam up there).  Cover, lower heat, and cook 30-45 minutes until squash is soft and easily mashed.  Proceed to mash it all with the back of your spoon, and then continue to cook until the squash melts into a thick sauce and the meat is tender, about 15 minutes more.  Sprinkle with cheese and cover until melted.  Remove from heat and serve over rice. 

*I hate peeling raw winter squash.  But I hate it less now that I know an easier way to do it.  Here’s what I learned.  Cut squash in half and scoop out the seeds.  Cut each half into wedges, as if you were serving cantaloupe.  Take a big bite and then remember that it’s not cantaloupe.  Orange does not equal cantaloupe.  Take these wedges, lay them on their sides, and use a sharp knife to slice off, one section at a time, the edges with the peel.  Then cut the peeled squash into your 1-inch pieces.  Now repeat for all 415 wedges.  Do you hate me now?