Low-Fat Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Most of my recent food endeavors have been making baby food. I introduced foods to Juliet in the jars, then went straight to making all my own baby food. I do this for several reasons: I know exactly what is in the food, it costs A LOT less, and well frankly, I like to cook. I mentioned before that living at my parents has kind of thrown me for loop recipe wise(We THINK we get to move to our own place soon, cross your fingers!), but I still make baby food on a regular basis, the kid has got to eat. Since baby food has been on the brain, I decided to use it in a grown-up recipe, a dessert at that. It might sound a little bit crazy, but it's good, I swear.
Vegetable puree can be used in place of oil/butter, so that is the direction I took. There is still a little bit of butter for a better consistency.  Sweet Potatoes were the baby food of the moment, so that is what I used. Feel free to substitute a different starchy vegetable, but do so at your own risk.

Ingredients:
3/4 sweet potato puree (mine was really smooth, it was meant to be fed to a baby after all)
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 half bag of these:

I admit, I think I used a little bit more than half a bag, and there are probably other mint-chips out there that you could use instead, this is just what I had on hand.



First off, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. I think that is the first time I remembered to tell you guys to preheat. I feel accomplished.

Cream together the sweet potatoes, butter, sugars, and eggs until smooth. Remember, there are sweet potatoes in this, it isn't going to be the same consistency as regular cookies. Add the flour, cocoa, salt, soda, and vanilla and mix until well combined. The dough is probably going to be thick and sticky. Fold in the peppermint chips until they spread evenly. I had help from Daniel, like I said, the dough is thick and sticky, it's hard to get those things in there.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls (or use one of those handy scooper things, I like I did) of the dough onto greased cookie sheets. Bake in your already heated oven for 10 min. Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet and onto a cooling rack soon after taking them out of the oven. Once they are cool, store them in an airtight container, since they tend to dry out quickly.

Daniel, and my brothers, could not tell there was baby food in the cookies. In fact, when my brother Shawn found out, I think he felt a little betrayed. Why would someone put baby food in a cookie!? However, these are not your typical cookie. They don't really go flat when they bake, and the while the outside has a little crunch, the inside has a more cake-like quality. My cookies were fairly small, but this recipe produced 95 of them! Pretty awesome. 

During a time of year where fattening treats run rampant, this is a good alternative that still has that festive flare.

No pictures, my camera is being stupid, I'll get better at taking food pictures..someday. Also, I'm still willing to take food challenges, just in case you were wondering.

Food Challege: Roasted Potato Pumpkin Soup

My dear friend, Savanna, posted on my Facebook wall a challenge. Her sister had made a potato bacon pumpkin soup, but couldn't give her an exact recipe, only a jumble of ingredients that were used. She challenged me to make a soup which I could give her a recipe for. I never had the original soup, so I have no clue what that soup tasted like. I did, however, manage to make a pretty tasty version. I think this is a good winter soup, nice and rich. Let's get going!

Ingredients:
5 small red potatoes
1 (29 oz) can  pumpkin puree
1 (8 oz) can  tomato sauce
2 (14.5 oz) cans chicken broth (mine was reduced sodium)
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 lb bacon
2 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp chile powder
Additional bacon for sprinkling
Olive oil
1/4 cup sour cream mixed with a few TBS of milk

First things first, get your potatoes ready. Take this:

My 5 small potatoes.

and turn it into this:

Potatoes ready for the oven.

Pretty much cut the potatoes into small pieces and place them on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Drizzle the potatoes with olive oil and place in a 425 degree oven for about 30 min, stirring at least once, until they look about like this:

Fully roasted potatoes.

While the potatoes are cooking, it is a good time to cook your bacon. I just cooked the whole package and crumbled it all up. Only half will go directly in the soup.

The next part is pretty simple, take all of the ingredients, other than the olive oil, extra bacon, and sour cream/milk mixture, and mix them really well in a big pot. Let all the ingredients simmer together on medium heat until it is all nice and steamy.

Finished soup, after some had been taken out.

When you serve yourself a bowl, you get to be a little creative. Sprinkle with bacon and swirl with the sour cream/milk mixture as desired. Here are a few examples:

Pretty aren't they? I feel like an Iron Chef (okay...maybe not quite that awesome). I know this is a really rich soup, and you can cut that a little if you use milk instead of cream. That would also cut calories..but this version is pretty tasty, and I never called this healthy food for healthful people.

Savanna, I hope this is somewhat what like you had been hoping.

I know I have been MIA as far as this blog goes. I'm currently living with my parents, and my cooking mojo is a little off. This challenge was great for me to get back into things. Anyone else have a food challenge they would like me to try? Comment, Facebook, or E-mail me at munchkinmaw@gmail.com. I will gladly except.

As far as the guess the recipe from SEPTEMBER, it was BBQ sauce, Melinda wins! The recipe is currently hidden somewhere in my storage unit, but once I recover it, it will be posted. The winner shall receive a pre-made version for home use.

Creamy Mushroom Scalloped Potatoes

Have I mentioned my mushroom obsession? If not, I admit it, I have one. Could be a worse obsession, right? When you are a poor married college student with a baby, a mushroom obsession often means cooking with cream of mushroom soup. I use the soup in the this recipe to perfectly combine my mushroom obsession, with my potato obsession (oh yeah, I have one of those too..squash, mushrooms, potatoes, this may be getting out of hand). Before the recipe begins, I would like to mention that these scalloped potatoes have no butter, whereas most do. Granted cream of mushroom soup isn't the most healthful thing ever, but hey, it's definitely better than butter...Let's Begin!

(Oh, I have no pictures, my camera battery died right as I started preparing this dish...bummer.)

Ingredients:

5-6 medium potatoes (Russets will do the trick)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
2 TBS Parmesan cheese
1 1/2-2 cups grated cheddar cheese
Garlic salt
Paprika

Slice up your potatoes really thin. I use a mandolin(If Daniel made the recipe, he would not, because he isn't allowed). Set them aside for a moment and mix together the can of soup, sour cream, milk, and Parmesan cheese. Now you will want to get out a cake pan (mine was 8X11) and spray the bottom of it with cooking spray. Stuck potatoes are bad news. Once the pan is prepared, we begin the layering process.

Start with a single layer of potatoes. Sprinkle them with the garlic salt and paprika (that is why there is no amount listed, sprinkle until you feel satisfied). Next will go the soup mixture, ladle on a few spoonfuls and spread the mixture around. Sprinkle with some of your grated cheese and then continue to layer as previously directed until all the ingredients are gone (except the garlic salt and paprika, don't use your whole supply...that would be bad). 

Bake the dish at 375 degrees for 45 min- hour, or until the potatoes are nice and soft.

I'm eating my leftovers right now, and they are still delicious. They pair well with a beef or chicken main dish, or as a good stand alone midnight snack (that wasn't me, it was Daniel).

Remember to guess on the previous post for your chance to win!

Guess that Recipe

We are going to play a little game. Are you ready; are you excited!? I am going to post (below) a picture of ingredients I used in a recipe. You good folks are going to guess (either in comments or to me at munchkinmaw@gmail.com) what I made. The first person to correctly identify the food I made, will win an awesome* prize. Here we go!

You will have until September 6th to guess, then I will announce the winner and post the recipe.

*Awesome may be a relative term, but I think it's cool.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

I like to make bread instead of buying it. I get much better quality for the value that way. I started making my own bread about 6 or so months ago. I have tried many bread recipes and thumbed through many others. None of the recipes gave me exactly what I was looking for, so through trial and error, I have created my own. It's pretty simple and quite tasty (to me at least). Daniel likes it too, but I think I have mentioned that he likes pretty much everything. Maybe I need a pickier taste tester. Any volunteers?

Ingredients:
2 1/2 tsp yeast (Don't buy those stupid yeast packets. They are such a waste of money. Buy a jar or bag of yeast and store it in your fridge or freezer. 2 1/4 tsp is the equivalent of one of those packets, since this recipe has a little more you can't cheat and use one, ha! Really though, don't buy the yeast packets, way too expensive for what you get.)
2 TBS brown sugar
1 1/3 cup warm water
1/4 cup honey
3 TBS butter (melted)
2 cups wheat flour
1 1/4 cup white flour
3/4 cup oats
1 1/2 tsp salt

Combine the yeast, brown sugar and water and let the mixture sit until it becomes frothy.What does frothy look like?

This would be frothy.

While you are waiting for the froth to happened, combine all of the dry ingredients (flours, oats, salt). Once it is ready, add the yeast mixture, honey and butter to the dry mixture. Mix with a bread hook. (I just have a hand mixer with bread hooks, use whatever you can). Don't power the mixer too high, stay at about medium power. Once the ingredients all come together fairly nicely like so...

Then it's time to knead. Knead the mixture on floured surface for just a few minutes until the dough is smooth and you can form into a ball similar to this one:

Place your ball of dough in a bowl that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Cover the dough, place somewhere warm and let raise at least 30 min. After the dough raises, you get to be a little violent. Punch it down.

My punched down bread.

After you beat your bread up really good. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray and transfer the dough into the pan. Squish it around really nice so it forms a nice looking loaf. Cover the dough, and let raise for another 30 min. Bake the bread at 350 degrees for 30-35 min or until you hear a hollow sound when you tap the top of the loaf. The top will look pretty dark, but it is wheat bread, so don't worry. Remove to a wire cooling rack immediately. I like to brush the top of my loaf with a little butter while it is still warm. (I highly recommend this step).  I cut it while it's still warm, mostly because by the time it's done I'm hungry and want to eat some.

The finished product.

Since there are only two of us that currently eat solid food in my house, I only make one loaf at a time. (Well that and the fact that I only own one loaf pan). Feel free to double the recipe and make two loafs if you feel so inclined. The crust has little crunchy chewiness to it, but the inside is pretty soft, but still hearty. I love it, but if you are used to eating white sandwich bread this probably isn't the bread for you.

Lemon Pepper Chicken and Noodles

I said I was going to post a few things in week...yeah that obviously didn't happen. I get distracted by this:

Can you blame me?

Okay recipe time.

Ingredients:
2-3 chicken breasts
The juice of 2 lemons (you can just use lemon juice, but I don't know the exact conversion)
2 TBS vegetable oil
1 TBS vinegar
1 TBS sugar
2 tsp lemon pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp basil
A bunch of spaghetti noodles, cooked according to package directions. (I really don't know this exact measurement, Daniel boiled the noodles for me and I forgot to see how much it was...whoops.)

Mix all ingredients besides the noodles and chicken to make a marinade. Once your marinade has been concocted, marinade the chicken for 30 min, longer if wanted.  After you have marinaded, cook the chicken in a skillet over medium heat. Don't waste any of the marinade, poor that straight in the pan as you are cooking. Once the juices run clear, put the chicken aside. Take your cooked noodles and pour them into the pan. Cook and stir for just a couple minutes until the noodles have absorbed all the extra marinade the chicken left behind. They will be a nice light brown color. Return the chicken to the pan and you are good to go! I guess you really don't have to return to chicken to the pan, you could just eat it...yeah.

The flavor really yields better to the chicken than the noodles, so if you just want to make the chicken that is fine. The noodles are still pretty good, but some people may think they need a little salt.

So, you may have notice no pictures...*insert lame excuse here*. It really is a simple recipe. I have faith you can all follow it perfectly without pictures, and if you can't, too bad! Okay, kidding. I'm always happy to answer questions in the comments.

Behind the Scenes

I have five recipes posted now, and it seems like a good time to say a few things about my cooking/blogging style.

We eat a lot of chicken, not because I think it's most awesome thing ever, but because it's cheap, and we are (I'll admit it) poor. I do really like chicken, but the cheapness factor influences a lot. 

For the same reason I use margarine instead of butter. Butter generally works better in baking, so if you have it, use it.

After I make the recipes I plan on posting, I ask Daniel "Is this blog worthy?" He has never said no, but like I said last post, he is easy to please.

I don't believe in just posting a recipe. I want you to get a taste of my personality when you read my recipes, so I try to use my writing skills as well as my cooking ones.

We are hoping to move fairly soon, and the kitchen will be a major determining factor in the place I choose.

The kitchen is really important to me because right now I have a teeny tiny kitchen. (There is a picture at the end of the post).

My baby "helps" me cook. I stick her in her sling while I'm doing things, unless there is a knife or heat involved, in which case I stick her in the swing, bumbo, or bouncy chair in a place she can watch me.

I'm better at making up main dish recipes than desserts, but I wish it was the other way around. I'm working on that.

There are parenthesis around Chinese and Mexican on my labels because my food is not authentic and I don't want people to think I am claiming that it is.

I try to blog more than you think, but inevitably Juliet gets fussy at those exact times. I figure she just doesn't want food network to sweep me making me spend less time with her. Ha.

I have several recipes I am posting this week, so watch for them.

Yeah, that is my WHOLE kitchen.

Orange Chicken

Hey, let's be different this time and jump right into the recipe. Sound fun?

Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 c corn starch
2 TBS flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 TBS olive oil
3 whole carrots

For the Sauce:
4 oranges
4 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp teriyaki sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp red pepper

Cut your chicken into about 1 inch cube-like pieces (I say cube-like because last I checked chicken isn't square shaped, so it's not going to be perfect). Mix the corn starch, flour, salt and pepper in a medium (size 4[heh, inside joke]) bowl. Toss the chicken into said bowl and mix around until the chicken is well coated. Your hands are really the best tool for this, sorry cooking can be yucky, that's why we invented soap.

My coated chicken.

After the chicken is coated, you are going to want to cook it. Heat a pan to medium heat and add the olive oil followed by the chicken. Brown the chicken nicely, stirring occasionally.

My browned chicken.

Since I only told you to stir occasionally, you can make the sauce while the chicken is cooking. It is really simple. Just juice your oranges (I do it over a sieve so no pulp gets in my sauce), then add the rest of the ingredients under the "for the sauce" section. A whisk is a great tool for this task. Also, take those 3 carrots, peel them and slice into 1/2 inch pieces. Once you have the sauce mixed, the carrots cut, and the chicken nice and browned, add the sauce and carrots to the chicken and slightly reduce the heat of the pan. Get out the pan's lid (uh yeah make sure you use a pan that has a lid), cover and simmer the mix for about 10-15 min. You will want to stir it a few times during this process. If everything goes well, it should turn out a bit like this:

My chicken has a little bit of a kick that hits you at the end. If you want a more kid or heat intolerant friendly dish, simply leave the red pepper out. I like my orange chicken better than most restaurant ones, mostly because it doesn't have super thick breading that has obviously been fried. Daniel said "I don't really like orange chicken, but this good." That is encouraging, but Daniel is easy to please. He eats most everything...other than cherries.

Mushroom Chicken Enchiladas

Awhile back I wanted to make chicken enchiladas. We ate them fairly often growing up, but I was without my mom's recipe. I was just going to make them from memory when I realized I had no cream of chicken soup. I decided to try my own variation, using cream of mushroom soup instead. I hate to say it, but I like these better than the original, sorry mom. I made the dish again tonight, so that, as per request, I could share it. Here is the recipe I came up with. Oh, guess what? This time, I took some pictures! Woot!

Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 tsp chile powder
1/4 tsp red pepper (the spice, not the vegetable)
1/4 tsp garlic salt
2 TBS butter (optional)
8 oz can can of mushrooms
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (divided)
A splash of milk (uh, yes that is a totally a technical food term...maybe like 1/8 cup)
Tortillas

First off, cut your chicken into strips, about 1/2" wide. This really isn't a necessary step, but it will make cooking much easier. Place your chicken in a preheated frying pan (I put a little drizzle of olive oil in the bottom of mine just to prevent sticking) over medium heat (350 on my electric frying pan) and season with the chile powder, red pepper, and garlic salt. I'm not a super huge spicy fan, but it is nice to have a little heat in "Mexican" dishes, plus we will counteract it later with the sour cream. Stir the chicken until it is cooked all the way through, if you cut into strips, this shouldn't take long, possibly 10 min. Because of the spices, the chicken gets a really nice color. Mine looked like this:

Once the chicken is ready, place it in a container and stick it in your freezer. We want it to cool down, and fairly fast, so that we can shred it later. In the meantime it is time to make the sauce. Before I make mine I like to saute my mushrooms. Canned mushrooms aren't known for fabulous flavor, so I saute mine in the 2 TBS of butter until they start getting golden brown edges. Like so:

Okay, it's hard to see the golden brown edges, but I swear they look different than when they came out of the can. This is a totally optional step, I just like the flavor a bit better. To the mushrooms add the cream of mushroom soup, sour cream and 3/4 cup of cheese. Simmer the mixture over low heat for about 10 min. While this mixture is simmering take your chicken out of the freezer. Things are about to get a little messy. Shred the chicken with your hands, the smaller the chicken pieces, the better it will incorporate into the sauce. After the sauce has simmered, take out 1/2 cup and save it for later. Add the chicken to the remaining sauce mixture. The combination of the two should look something like this:

Now is the time to get rolling. Pull out your tortillas and place a bit of mixture in the middle, like so:

I fold in the ends and then roll, but do whatever works for you. I was able to get 7 enchiladas, yeah I know 7 tortillas don't come in a pack, use a little less filling in each and you could get 8. Place the enchiladas in a greased cake pan. Remember the extra sauce we set aside? Well, whisk in the splash of milk and pour the mix over top of the enchiladas. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese (or more if you are feeling daring). Bake the dish at 350 for 15-20 min. The cheese should be melted and the sauce bubbly. This was my final result:

I love these enchiladas, maybe it's the whole mushroom part of it. I have already ranted to you guys about my love of squash..mushrooms are another food high on my list.

I'm going to say the difficulty of this recipe is easy, though I would raise it to intermediate if you have a screaming baby while making it, which I did.

Give the People What They Want!

See that little cutie? She is the reason this blog has been neglected for so long. Fortunately, we are getting into a better rhythm, and I'm finally starting to cook again. Daniel is extremely grateful. He has missed my cooking.

I have a menu planned for the next few weeks, and I thought I would share it with the tasteful people who read this blog, whoever they may be. Your job (yes, YOU! I have a job for you. No more laissez faire blog reading allowed.) is to tell me which recipes on my menu you would like to see me post. It's not that hard, just leave a comment and I will listen. Don't ignore me people, pick the ones you want to see...or no more cute baby photos for you!

Without further ado... items from my menu (most vegetables and other simple dishes have been removed):

• Mushroom Chicken Enchiladas
• French Toast
• Meat Loaf
• Garlic Mashed Potaoes
• Roast Beef
• Peach Cobbler
• Lasagna
• Corn Dogs
• Oven Baked Fries
• Orange Chicken
• Vegetable Stir Fry
• French Dip Sandwiches
• Lemon Pepper Chicken with noodles
• Broccoli Cheese Soup

Not everything on my menu is listed, but I'm sure you don't need a recipe for a hobo dinner...then again maybe you do, who am I to judge. The menu is pretty simple this go around, simply because my baby is only 4.5 weeks old, so amazing culinary delights are still a bit hard to accomplish.

Remember to leave your comments, you wouldn't want to spoil the cute baby photos for everyone!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

First off I have a few disclaimers for this recipe. Yes, they are peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, but they aren't very peanut buttery. The peanut butter just adds a bit of depth and a slight flavor, so if you aren't a huge peanut butter fan, don't be afraid. This isn't going to be like eating a Reese's cup. Also, I once again have no pictures. I planned on posting the recipe if the cookies turned out well, but I wasn't sure that was going to happen, so I didn't take pictures along the way. I was going to take pictures of the end result, but I found out my camera battery was dead...oh well. Just use your imagination. They look like cookies.

Ingredients:
5 TBS butter, softened
1/4 c peanut butter
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup (1/2 bag) chocolate chips (I use the dark chocolate kind)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter, peanut butter, sugars, egg and vanilla until smooth. Smooth means no little butter chunks. Add the dry ingredients,(the flours, baking soda and salt). Mix until well combined. Add the chocolate chips and stir until they are evenly incorporated. Pull out your favorite cookie sheets, grease them, and drop rounded teaspoonfuls of cookie dough on them, about 1 1/2 inches apart. Next you are going to want to bake! 8-10 min in your 350 degree oven should do the trick. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or two before transferring them to a wire rack. My yield was 28 cookies.

If you don't have any wheat flour, you can just use all white flour, not a problem, but the wheat flour does add a little something. There is just something about wheat flour that add a nice chewiness, it isn't just a health food ploy. Besides, most of us could use a bit more fiber in our lives anyhow. Dark chocolate chips are nice too, I highly recommend them. (Of course, dark chocolate makes everything better in my opinion). If you want to use a whole bag of chocolate chips, just double the recipe. There are only 2 of us in my house, so we don't need a ton of cookies, otherwise I would have likely just made the recipe double in the first place.

Feels good to have my first dessert post, enjoy.

Super EASY Parmesan Crusted Chicken

I decided to make chicken for dinner tonight. I didn't have a whole lot of time, so I just kind of threw something together. After I made it, I realized that I should have written everything down. Wasn't that the point of this blog? To get me to start writing recipes down? Oh well. It was very tasty, so I decided to blog about the chicken from memory anyway. This one is more of an entry level recipe, so if I scared you with the pasta, don't worry this one is much more manageable. However, since the post was an afterthought...I don't have any pictures.

Ingredients:
3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 large egg
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 Tbs mustard
1 Tbs milk
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp pepper
Olive oil for cooking

First, if your chicken breasts are really thick, you probably don't need as many, but you will want to slice them so they are thinner. They will cook much better this way. I also tend to like smaller pieces of chicken, so I cut mine in half (the other way) anyhow. Once your chicken is pleasing to you, set it aside. Crack your egg in a shallow dish, and wisk it a little bit. Add the mayonnaise, mustard and milk and stir until smooth. In a separate shallow dish, combine the Parmesan cheese, flour, salt, basil and pepper.

Coat the bottom large frying pan with your olive oil and let it heat at medium heat for a few minutes. You always want your pan to be hot before you add food, especially meat. While your pan is heating, coat your chicken. First in the wet mixture; then in the dry mixture.  Add your chicken to the heated pan and cook, on medium heat, for about 6 min per side. The thickness of your chicken will affect cooking times. When the chicken is done, it should have a nice golden brown crust, and juices will run clear.

I served my chicken with a simple side of pasta in marinara sauce. You could put marinara on the chicken too, but it really doesn't need it.

Sorry again about no pictures. I'm still new to the food blog world. Things should improve as time goes by.

Roasted Butternut Squash Ravioli

The moment you have all been waiting for...an actual recipe! Yay!

A little background on why I decided to create this recipe. Oh, come on, you didn't really think I was just going to give you all my recipes without making you listen to me babble a little first, did you? I have always really loved squash. My mom even told me a story from when I was really young and just kept eating more and more squash for dinner. I apparently didn't eat squash for a awhile after that, but when I did, I fell in love with it all over again. While most people eat primarily ice cream and pudding after having their wisdom teeth out, I primarily ate mashed squash. So, a few years back when I went to a fairly nice Italian restaurant with one of my good friends, and saw butternut squash ravioli on the menu, I just had to order it. It was amazingly delicious and ever since I have been trying to find good squash ravioli other places, and I haven't been able to. This is what made me decide to try and make my own butternut squash ravioli, and I think it turned out pretty successful.
So, without further ado:
Roasted Butternut Squash Ravioli

Ingredients:
For the Filling:
1 whole butternut squash
1 cup chicken stock
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

For the sauce:
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup milk
1 TBS corn starch (dissolved in 1/4 cup cold water)
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

A good pasta dough recipe (There are plenty of them out there, I had to look one up too, don't expect me to do everything for you, sheesh)

Start by roasting your butternut squash. You can really do this in anyway you want, but I have a few tips that I think make this a little easier. First peel the skin off of your squash with a potato peeler. It may sound weird, but it's much easier than trying to scrape the cooked flesh out of the skin. Next thing to do is to get your biggest, baddest knife in your kitchen and giant cutting board and get ready to butcher that thing. Chop a little off both the top and the bottom of the squash, then cut it in half length wise. Next comes my least favorite task of all, getting out those pesky seeds. I usually start this task calmly, scraping with a spoon, but in the end I'm wielding a knife and cursing that squash need a way to reproduce. Do whatever works best for you. After the seeds are gone, cut the squash into about 1 inch cubes, place those on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray, sprinkle with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and stick in a 400 degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until the squash is soft. This is what my squash looked like before I exposed it to those grueling temperatures:

After the squash has roasted, let it cool down for awhile. The next thing you are going to want to do is blend the squash with the chicken stock, and it's never a good idea to blend hot liquids. To blend the squash, stick the cooled cubes in your blender, pour in the chicken stock (or broth, it doesn't really matter), stick on the lid and let the blender do it's magic. You may need to stop a few times to wriggle some things around and then start blending again. You want the mixture to be smooth, but not "I could feed this to a 6 month old" smooth.

It's hard to really see consistency in the photo, but that is what my squash looked like. The next thing you are going to want to do is transfer that puree into a bowl and stir in the remaining filling ingredients.

Cover with plastic wrap and then chill for at least an hour. (I never said this was going to be quick tasty food)

While that is chilling, it's the perfect time to make your pasta dough. Making pasta is not for the faint of heart. If you don't have good kneading hands, can't handle touching raw eggs, or the thought of gross stick flour all over makes you ill, it may be best to opt out of making your own pasta. You still want to make the ravioli? Try using wonton wrappers as an alternative. It won't be the same, but it the results will still be similar.

My pasta dough recipe calls for it to sit for hour before rolling out, so while the dough is resting, move onto the sauce. Now if you have a sauce preference of some kind, go ahead and use that sauce. Like Alfredo? Go for it. A simple brown butter sauce sound better to you? Fine by me. However, I would steer away from red sauces for this particular recipe, the flavor profiles just aren't a very good match. If you don't have sauce preference, my sauce is pretty dang easy.

To make the sauce all you have to do is: Melt the butter over medium heat, stir in the chicken stock and milk. Then wisk in the corn starch mixture and boil until thickened. After it has thickened add the garlic salt, nutmeg, and Parmesan cheese, then remove from heat.

After this I poured my sauce into a microwave safe bowl. It sat in the fridge until the pasta was ready, then I heated it in the microwave for 2 minutes before pouring on top of the pasta.

At this point everything should made, and it's now just time to assemble. I have an awesome pasta machine, and a trusty sous chef (Daniel always rolls pasta out for me, it's so awesome) to help me get my pasta dough to the right thickness, but you can still make ravioli without those things, it's just going to take more work. Today, Daniel divided the pasta into three parts and rolled each one through the machine. You always start on the thickest setting and gradually get smaller with each pass. For this ravioli I recommend going to the 3rd smallest setting. Don't have a pasta machine? Get out the trusty rolling pin and roll out long, thin strips. Once the long strips have been obtained, by whichever method, it's time to start filling. You will want about 1 tsp of filling per ravioli, and each spoonful should be placed about an inch apart. You will want to drop the dollops of filling in the middle of the bottom half of the strip. This is hard to explain, so take a good look at the picture.

Once that is done, brush a little water on the top portion of the pasta strips, and fold the dough over.

You are going to want to seal around the filling really well at this point. It's pretty bad if the filling starts seeping out during the boiling process. I then cut the raviolis out using a round-scalloped cookie cutter. After they are all cut out my pasta looks like this:

At this point all you need to do is cook. You will want to cook the ravioli in batches. Bring about 2 quarts of water to boil and add about 6 ravioli. Cook for just a few minutes, or until the dough color lightens and pasta starts to float, remove with a slotted spoon and add the next batch. Repeat until all the pasta is cooked. I got about 2 1/2 dozen ravioli. Once all the ravioli are cooked, toss with the heated sauce and you are good to go. The sauce may not seem like a lot, but the ravioli have a lot of flavor so they don't need much. My finished product: 

I realize this is somewhat of a difficult recipe, and it is pretty dang time consuming, but I swear it is really delicious. I will showcase a variety of skill levels with my recipes, so if this seems a bit much for you, don't worry, shorter, easier recipes will be coming.

Getting Started

Hello blog readers. I am proud to introduce the launch of this, my new food-oriented blog. I think the hardest part of starting something new is almost always trying to come up with a name for the thing. I like to write poetry on occasion, and the title is almost always the last thing I come up with. Ugh, it's just so hard. So, it hopes to find an interesting name for my food blog I asked a few people what they thought I should name it. My brother Shawn being one of them. He came up with "Tasty Food for Tasteful People"...in about 2 seconds flat..I don't know how he does that. I decided not to question his creative genius and went with the name. So, here we are, Tasty Food for Tasteful People. A way for me to remember recipes and a way for you, the tasteful people, to get some ideas for your own food preparation. The first recipe will post this weekend. Thanks for joining me on this fun new journey.