Butternut and Boursin Shells

IT IS FALL.

THAT MEANS SQUASH.

So in this episode of "Marg Meets a New Squash," I decided on butternut. I have never worked with or eaten butternut squash, so there was no time like the present. As long as the present is, you know, fall.

Just from cutting it, I could tell that it was going to be sweet. Are all squashes sweet? I worked with acorn squash a couple weeks ago and that was pretty dang sweet as well. Acorn squash definitely didn't smell sweet though. I mean, it didn't smell bad or anything, but when I was cutting/grating the butternut squash, it smelled almost like a melon, which is pretty dang sweet.

I used a Martha Stewart recipe, because Martha Stewart is the go-to for all new recipes/ingredients with which you are unfamiliar in my opinion. The woman is a genius/goddess/supreme leader/someone I admire. Her recipes are tried and true and the flavor complexity she accomplishes is astounding. I know I'm talking about Martha Stewart like Alex Trebek talks about his wife ("My beautiful wife Jean..."), but I just like to give credit where credit is due. And man does she deserve a ton of credit.

I pretty much followed her recipe, except I changed the arugula to spinach because I absolutely despise arugula, and I use spinach in basically all of my cooking (omelets, smoothies, salads, etc.), so it made more sense for me to buy spinach rather than arugula. I also seasoned the cubed butternut squash with crushed red pepper in addition to salt and pepper before placing it in the oven. Like I said before, it smelled super sweet, and I thought adding a hint of spice would be appreciated to the overall flavor. I also added some chicken because I was hungry and thought I could either eat all 4 servings in one sitting or I could add some protein so I wouldn't be ravenous after one serving. I think I made the right call, as I still have leftovers in my fridge, and you know what that means! Lunches/dinners for the rest of the week are already prepped!

I've attached her ingredients and directions in case you didn't feel like cooking on the link.

I really liked this recipe. The toughest part was grating the butternut squash. I don't know if I have a terrible grater or my squash wasn't ripe enough or what, but man I worked my arm off getting that thing grated. In the future, I might cheat and just use the potato peeler, since the grated shape/texture isn't instrumental to the dish - it ends up all being blended up anyway!

The only real things I had to buy for this recipe were the squash, Boursin, hazelnuts, and spinach, which makes it a pretty easy recipe to be able to throw together if you don't know what you can make for dinner. I recommend finding a grocery store that sells in bulk, so you can buy just as many hazelnuts as you actually need for the recipe, unless you're someone who uses hazelnuts like I use spinach ("you get spinach! you get spinach! you get spinach!").

Since this was my first experience with butternut squash, I have to say I liked the flavor a lot. It wasn't as sweet as I was expecting from the smell, but it had an almost delicately refreshing flavor that was both comforting as well as satisfying. In addition to the flavor, I absolutely loved the color. I could see how it would be fun to mix into a cheese sauce to hide some veggies, or maybe even just hide with some shredded cheddar for tacos and/or baked potato toppings. I'll have to mess around with it some more.

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Hash

Hello again!

I am back in the swing of Sunday brunches, and this past Sunday I decided to make black bean sweet potato hash, which for the most part, I got from Tasty. However, I added turkey breakfast sausage and changed the yellow onion to red onion because I like to add more color to dishes.

I garnished with an egg and avocado, like Tasty did, but then I also added a sriracha swirl because are you really a millennial eating brunch without sriracha?

The dish is pretty spicy, thanks to the red pepper flakes I added to the sausage and the sriracha, but luckily, the potatoes, avocado, and sweet red bell peppers help to tone it down so you're not running to the refrigerator for yogurt or milk to douse the fire.

I was full for hours on this recipe. I'm one person, and the recipe says i'll get 4 servings out of it, so I'm very much looking forward to leftovers this week. I can heat it up pretty fast and then fry an egg to go on top in a matter of minutes. A fiber filled breakfast with the satisfying ground meat and eggs in about 5 minutes time? Not too shabby. Move over oatmeal, there's some REAL fiber in town.

I think if I made this again, I might add corn to the mix, and maybe leave out the red bell pepper. That substitution would save me some time in the chopping department, add a bright speck in the mix of the darkness that is the rest of the hash, and also add in some sweetness.

I highly recommend this recipe. It's super satisfying, full of good fats and fiber, and its complex flavor profile will make every bite reveal a new depth of flavor.

-Margaret

Salmon Eggs Benedict

Today was a great day. I woke up early, biked over to my friend's house, then we ran 5 miles, and then I biked home and made brunch. I almost got hit on my way to my friend's house, but it was ok because she was eating a peach while she almost hit me, so that made everything - JUST PEACHY. But back to brunch.

What a brunch it was. This week's brunch inspiration was a ridiculous question we had on our last exam. Did you know that calcitonin comes from salmon? No? Well now I sure do! So of course, all of us were angry about this stupid trivial "trivia-like" question, so we've all been texting about salmon all weekend since. Which means I have been thinking about salmon all weekend long. And given that we are a million miles from any saltwater (or freshwater, for that matter because salmon are weird ass fish), fish does not enter our vocab very often. THAT's how pissed we were.

Now I have bagels, but salmon on bagels is SO easy to do. That's something I could make during the week. I can't have such a quick dish for a weekend meal, so I made eggs benedict...sort of.

Instead of an English muffin, I did a baguette, which I sliced on the diagonal in order to maximize surface area for the hollandaise. Underneath the poached egg, I put some smoked salmon, so there's the salmon!

Why a baguette instead of an English muffin? Well, I don't know a lot about French cuisine, but I know it centers on fat and oils and eggs and more fat. So with all the eggs and the fat going on with this dish, I figured a French baguette would feel right at home. English muffins are great and all, but I imagine the English are feeling a little out of place around the EU right now.

Then of course I added avocado and bacon because is any meal really complete without avocado and bacon? Scratch that, is any brunch complete without avocado and bacon?

This was probably the most delicious thing I've made in a while. You're probably thinking "of course it was delicious. There's bacon involved." And while that does have a really big impact on how delicious this ended up being, it was really the contrast in flavors between the hollandaise and the salmon that made the dish. The salmon had that nice smooth slightly salty taste, which was a stark contrast to the lemony-butter goodness that is hollandaise. In comparison to what I made last week (poached egg stuffed avocado wrapped in bacon), this was much simpler, and I would argue more delicious.

The good:
FAT. So much fat. I had just gotten back from my run and bike ride, and so naturally I was starving, but this kept m full for hours. It has the oh-so-feared sat fats with the bacon, hollandaise, and eggs, but let's not forget about those amazing fish oils and avocado oils! Life is about balance, and brunch imitates life.
Clean up was also fantastic. I used a sauce pan to poach the eggs, and a frying pan for the hollandaise, and that's it. Two things to wash and everything else is dishwasher safe? Not bad.

The bad:
The price. Man salmon, it's a good thing you're delicious, or else you would NOT be used. But like I said before, I already have bagels and cream cheese, which means that I can have salmon on my bagels for the rest of the week.

The ugly:
The bacon and the smoked salmon. Smoked meats and the crazy stuff they do to bacon increases risks for all kinds of cancer. And while I thought I was being all Californian with my avocado and salmon, I might have been more Ca like Cancer, not California.

Areas of improvement:
I think a little bit of spice would be appreciated. Or sweet. Just a different flavor than the overall savoriness of this dish. So maybe a fruit salad would be better next time, or add some red pepper flakes to the hollandaise.