Saturday, September 8, 2012

Butternut Squash Cakes, Honey Ginger Apple Shredded Pork, and Butternut Squash Pie

The garden up the road has bunches of butternut squash, something I've heard is wonderful, but never used before.  I need to figure it out though as I know they store really well and would be awesome to store for use in the winter.  It looks like it can be used for delicious soups, savory dishes, as well as in place of pumpkin for pies.  It pretty much sounds like the best all around vegetable out there!  Sweet as well as savory, can't beat it.  I just wish mine had made it this year, all my winter squash plants decided to die on me early on, and it was too hot to replant, or at least, I didn't... I sure wish I had...  So anyways, I'm going to make a Faux-pumpkin pie out of one or two of them here today or tomorrow, but for now, I'm making Butternut Squash Cakes for lunch!  Cooking is super pleasant right now, the lovely cool front made it actually cold in my kitchen, I can cook without sweating.  Usually it's over 90 in the kitchen, today it's in the 70's.  Plus the Pork Roast is in the crock pot, I started it a couple hours ago, and it smells delicious!   The squash cakes used up 1/2 of a butternut squash, though it only made 8 patties so I'll probably double it next time.  Here's the recipe, I used a potato peeler on the squash and it worked well, and then a hand grater, it worked quite well, though it you're doubling it it might be nice to use a food processor.

They are delicious, I ate three with sour cream on top, I wish I had some sort of a curry to eat with them, but I don't have time or energy to make any, I'll plan better next time.  A lentil curry sounds really good, or my Paneer Masala that I thought I'd posted before but don't see on here so I guess I'll have to post soon, if you desperately want the recipe email me, it's to die for.







Frozen roast with lots of yummy stuff
Finding new pork recipes is now my goal in life, we have so much in the freezer and it's not something I've cooked much in the past, and I certainly love hunting for recipes.  I found this one recently and put it on my to-do list.  I love my crock-pot but have to remember to get cooking early so it's done by supper time.  I did manage that this morning, it's so nice to have yummy smells permeating the house all day long, and to not have to stress about supper come supper time.  I even had all the ingredients, which means it's simple!   I of course didn't remember to get this out of the freezer ahead of time, so I googled "frozen roast in crockpot" and came up with bunches of people saying they did it all the time, and a couple saying that the USDA says "no, you'll die if you do that".  Since I say screw the USDA, they don't know what they're talking about 90% of the time, I put it in frozen.  If I die in the next few days you'll know I was majorly wrong and please pre-thaw your roasts.  I did put it on high until it seemed completely thawed, which took about two hours, then put it on low for another 8.  Though actually, that'll be 9:00 at night so hopefully it's done well before then.  Dang it, I guess I didn't get started early enough...  I'm thinking that maybe I could put everything in the pot the night before and put it in the frig, then just stick the pot on to cook first thing in the morning, though that'd require quite a bit more forethought than I'm usually capable of, I'll let you know if it ever happens.   Oh, I also wanted to add, for those of you who like ginger but never can keep fresh on hand because it goes bad before you need it.  That's what always happened to me, until I had a brilliant thought (make note of it, doesn't happen often), now when I buy a ginger root, I throw the whole thing into the freezer, then pull it out and slice off what I need when I need it.  It only takes a couple minutes out of the freezer to soften enough to cut, and it's super easy to scrape off what you need.  This way one big ginger root will last me 6 months to a year and I always have it when I want to whip up something yummy.

Then I decided to go ahead and make butternut squash pie, why not, I had the other half that was leftover from the cakes so I put that plus another squash, chopped in half and deseeded, in the oven for 45 minutes to cook.  Then I scraped the meat out of the skin into the blender, threw in 5 eggs, 4 ladlefulls of cream (I'm guessing about 2 cups), cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla, and stevia.  Blended it all up, dumped it in a 13x9 and threw it in the oven, I'm thinking 45 minutes will do it, we'll see.  I think I'll make some whipped cream to go on top, that'd just be so yummy.

Coming back to finish writing this after supper.  The pig turned out delicious and super tender, it took about 3.5 hours on high and 5 hours on low, I had to bump it back up to high at the end as we were hungry and tired of waiting.  Of course, starting out with a thawed roast will definitely shorten the cooking time, but all in all, starting with frozen and only taking about 8.5 hours isn't bad at all for a crock-pot. 

And I never got around to whipping cream for the pie, but it was delicious without it.  Maybe next time.  Hey, I just noticed all of these dishes are or can be easily dairy free!  You can put a can of coconut milk in the pie instead of cream.   Sweet!   Dairy free cooking is something that doesn't happen too often here, though I know it's important for many people.


Butternut Squash Cakes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup diced onion
2 cups grated butternut squash, packed
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup garbanzo flour
3 tablespoons almond flour
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup sour cream for garnish (optional)
2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds for garnish (optional)


Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion; cook and stir until onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Place butternut squash in a large bowl, and season with curry powder, cumin, sea salt, and black pepper. Toss with a fork, then stir in the egg, garbanzo-fava bean flour, and corn flour. Mix in cooled onions.
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Scoop about 1/4 cup of the butternut squash mixture into the pan. Flatten to a patty about 1/4-inch thick. Pan fry until crisp and browned, about 3 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining squash mixture.
Top with sour cream.


Honey Ginger Apple Shredded Pork
2 lb pork shoulder roast (or any other roast you prefer)
1 yellow onion, sliced
2 apples, cored and sliced
2/3 cup beef or chicken broth OR water
1 tablespoon raw honey
2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger (use ground ginger if you don’t have fresh on hand)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1 bay leaf

Pull out your crock pot and dust it off.
Add your broth or water, then onions, then pork, then apples then all your spices/garlic clove/and bay leaf.
Cover.
Cook for 8-10 hours on low or 6-8 hours on high.
Use tongs or a fork to shred your pork.




Butternut Squash Pie
1 large or 2 small cooked butternut squashes (about 3-4 cups)
2 cups cream or 1 can coconut milk
5 or more eggs, more will make it more custardy
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
stevia or honey to taste

Blend all the ingredients until smooth, dump into 9x13 dish and bake on 350 for 45 minutes.






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