potato, zucchini, chickpea soup with mint

I rather liked the way this came out. It’s been hot here in Boston this week, so on Sunday I made myself cook something that would last me a few days.

First of all, this recipe won’t be for everyone. I like fresh mint and not everyone does. In fact, some people hate mint like I hate cilantro. I understand that.

But don’t let the mint stop you. I think that it’s probably easily replaceable with basil or parsley.

potato, zucchini, chickpea soup with mint
adapted from Cuisine At Home

a bunch of leeks, cleaned and sliced
two medium sized potatoes, diced (I left the skins on)
two medium sized zucchini, diced (I left the skins on these too)
oil
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
salt and pepper to taste
lemon juice, to taste
about 1 1/2 tsp fresh mint
Tabasco, to taste (I skipped and used a pinch of cayenne pepper instead)

Saute the leeks and potatoes in some oil using a soup pot over medium heat. Cook until the leeks are softened, about five minutes, stirring frequently so that the potatoes and leeks don’t stick to the pot.

Then add the chicken broth, zucchini, chickpeas, and (in my case) cayenne pepper to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, turn down the heat to a simmer, and let it cook at least 20 minutes. You want the veggies to be soft, so don’t worry if it ends up being 30-40 minutes.

When the veggies are done, remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper as you like. Add the mint. Add the lemon juice to taste (I only used a couple of teaspoons).

Puree the soup. I have a stick blender just for moments like these… so much easier than trying to puree in a blender or a food processor.  I originally left the skin on my veggies because there didn’t seem to be a reason to peel.  I knew I was going to puree it all.  I’m glad I did – it left nice flecks of color in the soup and kept it from looking boring.

And that’s it. Done. For my purposes, it made three large bowls and one small bowl. I’ve been having soup and sandwiches for dinner for the last four nights. I haven’t had to cook a thing since.

Too bad I’m all out. It’s still hot tomorrow. I guess I’ll need to cook something small.

~Mikan

 

I haven’t forgotten this blog… so here’s a bread post

I have things I want to try… a restaurant review that I should be posting for Addis Red Sea… and I just haven’t had time lately for everything.  Or least it feels that way.  Maybe I’m just being lazy?

So, in the meantime, here’s the bread recipe post that I’ve been promising since the winter.  *eep!*

I haven’t completely given up on preferments just yet, but I’m beginning to think that I’m not that impressed (Asano-mama got the CookWise book recently, so I’d like to try a Shirley O’Corriher recipe before giving up on preferments completely).  I apologize in advance if some of the measurements seem weird.  I was converting them from an existing recipe from the UK.

I did try the recipe below a second time without the barley flour.  I still wasn’t wowed as I had hoped I’d be, but your mileage may vary.

Slow fermentation, adapted from Andrew Whitley

I came across an interesting radio piece after some googling – it was about slow fermentation and bread as presented by the BBC.  It was kind of fascinating.  Half of the show was talking to a die-hard-slow-fermentation-all-natural-all-local bread maker and the other half was talking to we-are-the-bread-federation-of-Britain man.   Ok, they aren’t called the “bread federation of Britain”, but they were definitely the federation of something.  (haha!)

Basically, the whole radio show can be summed up as thus: “no one can prove that slow fermentation is healthier, but it probably does taste better although less squishy.”

Some searching gave me an Andrew Whitley recipe for a basic bread.  Since I live in good ol’ New England, I had to revamp the recipe for use with my measuring cups and such.

First, here’s the Andrew Whitley version (cut and paste):
source – http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/apr/16/recipes.foodanddrink/print
This is the way most bread was made until the dawn of the era of high-speed mixing and “no time” dough. Although it involves a long rise, it doesn’t take any more of the baker’s time than fast-made bread. It uses less yeast, too, and the long fermentation gives great flavour and additive-free keeping quality. This makes a dozen rolls or two small loaves.

1. Overnight sponge
5g fresh yeast (or 3g dried yeast)
130g water (at about 20°C)
150g stoneground wholemeal flour
[285g total]

Dissolve the yeast in some of the water and add it to the flour with the rest of the water. Mix until the dough has “cleared”, that is, all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. There is no need to knead the sponge, since time will develop the gluten sufficiently. Put the sponge in a bowl large enough to allow it to expand to at least three times its original size. Cover with a lid or polythene bag and leave it at room temperature for 12-18 hours.

2. The final dough
285g overnight sponge (from above)
450g flour (wholemeal or a mix of white and wholemeal)
5g salt
270g water (warm to the hand, i.e. 30-35°C)
15g butter or olive oil (optional, but makes rolls a bit softer)
[1,025g total]

Mix all the ingredients into a soft dough. Knead without adding extra flour until it is silky and slightly stretchy. Cover and leave to rise for 1 hour. Divide into 12 pieces (or two for small loaves), shape into rolls, dip into wholemeal flour to get a good covering, and place on a baking tray with about 2cm separating them. Cover with a large polythene bag but don’t let it touch the rolls. Let them rise until they are just touching each other, then bake in a hot oven (220°C) for 10-15 minutes. They should have a thin floury crust and feel soft after they have cooled.
© Andrew Whitley 2008.

Now, the US friendly version as adapted by me:

1. Overnight sponge
1/2 tsp instant yeast
1/2 cups plus 1 Tbsp water
1 cup plus 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour

Mix until well combined.  Cover with a lid or plastic wrap (but not too tightly).  Let this fart around overnight.

2. The final dough
all of the overnight sponge from above
3 1/2 cups of flour (all-purpose, bread flour, whole wheat or any mixture of the three… I used all-purpose with one cup of barley flour out of curiosity)
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp mild olive oil

Mix all together.  Try not to add extra flour, but I found that I had to.  I added only a tablespoon at a time.  The dough should be “silky and slightly stretchy.”  Cover and let this rise for an hour.  Divide in in half, and shape into a ball.  I didn’t bother covering this with flour.  I put both dough halves on either side of my biggest sheet pan.  I loosely covered with plastic wrap that had been sprayed with oil (oil side touching the dough, duh), and let the doughs rise until about double in bulk and almost touching each other.  Cut a slash on top.

Bake in the oven at 425F for 20-25 minutes.

Let cool on a wire rack.

Overall, I liked the results.  They were like giant dinner rolls, reminiscent of bread rolls from Bertucci’s.  *grin*  I have mixed feelings about the barley flour I used.  Over time, the barley flour just make the bread taste “healthy” (less noticeable when still warm from baking).  Not necessarily in a bad way, mind you, but I’ve never used barley flour before I’ve seen it described as a mild, sweet flour.  So, I guess I was a little let down.  I wouldn’t mind using the barley flour again, but I’ll have to use less than a cup.

As for the overall method, I thought the sponge (aka preferment/biga/poolish) was kind of fun.  It’s kind of cool to see the sponge be all bubbly.  It worked fine, and I’ll probably work with more preferments in the future.

~Mikan

 

Victorian milk bread, with quinoa flour

The weather here in Boston has been slowly getting warmer.  Better temperatures for rising dough, but less ideal for turning on my oven.  On top of that, my weak/bad wrist is tempermental whenever I’m kneading.

I think this might be my last loaf for the season.  I might try some no-knead recipes, but the bulk of my bread experimentation will have to wait for the weather to get cold again.

I realize, too, that I’ve been promising one or two posts on breads with a pre-ferment, but I haven’t posted them at all due to… well, a lack of interest.  More pathetic is the fact that I had one completely written up and saved on my computer.  I am lame, lame, lame.  And it isn’t the fault of the bread recipe.  I’ve just realized that I don’t think I like the flavor of my breads with a pre-ferment.  The best of the pre-ferment experiments is the one that I had written up, so perhaps I’ll still post it.  But not today.

And I apologize for the lack of pictures.  I’m trying to get back into the swing of things.

* * *

So, I’ve had a box of quinoa flour sitting in my pantry for at least a couple of months.  I’ve never cooked/baked with it before – I was just curious.  (but I have cooked with quinoa itself, and I love it)

Searching for bread recipes that 1) weren’t gluten-free and 2) used the flour and not cooked quinoa proved to be a little tricky.

Eventually, I started searching for milk bread recipes since I had some whole milk to use up and came across a recipe for “Victorian Milk Bread” which I used and fiddled around with for my purposes.

Here’s what I used:
1 1/4 cups lukewarm milk
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cups quinoa flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoons SAF instant yeast
2 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten

General instructions:
Mix everything into a bowl.  Personally, I found I had to add 1-2 tablespoons of water to make the dough wet enough.  Then, knead for 10 minutes.  Put the dough in a bowl to rise, and cover with a bit of plastic wrap or a damp towel so that it doesn’t dry out.  Let rise for about 4 hours or until doubled in bulk.

Remove the dough from the bowl and shape into a loaf.  Place the loaf in a standard bread pan and let it rise (again, loosely place some plastic wrap over it) until it’s above the rim of the pan, probably about an inch above.  Hmmm, I think it took about an hour or so for me to get there.

Pre-heat your oven to 350F and lower the oven rack to bottom third.

Bake 30-35 minutes.

Overall reaction?  Quinoa flour does not remind me of quinoa at all.  It’s less sweet.  I think the gluten was a good call, considering that I did not use bread flour at all.  It makes for a decent everyday bread.  I now know that I am not very enamored with quinoa flour but I don’t know how else to use it up.  Having said that, the results here were very acceptable.  I’ll see about using it for a no-knead dough.

Comments on the general recipe?  Easy, forgiving and easy to mess around with.  I think I’ll need to remake it but using my buckwheat flour next time around.

~ Mikan

quick notes: 1) bread flour has more protein than wheat flour or AP flour and quinoa is gluten-free, hence my addition of wheat gluten; 2) I did not want to make a gluten-free bread because you generally need a mixture of gluten-free flours which I do not have; 3) for my wheat and AP flours, I only use King Arthur.  Different brands make a huge difference.

 

A Tale of Two Cookies

Sometimes, a person comes across something so intriguing that action must be taken up at once.

I had that moment recently, and it was called Peanut Butter Rosemary White Chocolate Chunks cookies. Peanut butter and rosemary? When a blogger mentions being a trained pastry chef in a meme, you don’t take such odd recipe posts lightly.

Asano-mama didn’t sound very optimistic about this recipe, which only fueled my determination. I set about making these cookies, starting even with the rosemary powder.

I think the rosemary powder is an excellent idea in general. However, I admit that it was my stumbling point. After one whole hour, I only had 3 tsp of rosemary powder. Why? I was using a tea strainer as my “fine mesh” accessory, and this tea strainer had really, really small mesh holes. Plus, the strainer was a little deep for the size of my hands, which just made an arduous task more difficult. o_O

The most evil part of the whole night? Realizing when I went to bed that I had a strainer/skimmer that would have been the perfect size for the task. *facepalm*

Oh well, 3 tsp was pretty close to the original 3 1/2 tsp requested in the recipe. The cookies came out just fine.

So, back to the idea of peanut butter and rosemary – wow, they paired really well! Once I smelled the cookies baking, I knew that there was no question regarding the yumminess factor of these cookies. Straight out of the oven, the peanut butter pretty much was the dominant flavor. If I hadn’t known that rosemary was in my cookie, I might not have noticed it. The rosemary was delightfully subtle. Overnight, the rosemary flavor has gotten stronger, but nothing to worry over. Without question, I’m keeping this cookie recipe in my favorites.

cookie recipe here – http://clumbsycookie.blogspot.com/2009/03/pbrwcc-cookies.html

rosemary powder instructions here – http://clumbsycookie.blogspot.com/2009/03/rosemary-powder.html

And then this morning, I tried a batch of Trader Joe’s Cranberry and Oatmeal cookies. They’re “break and bake” cookies, except without the breaking part. These cookies are frozen in their individual, pre-measured amounts. And you know what? They’re wonderful. Great for when you need to impress people (or in my case, share with my cello classmates) but with very little effort. Such a stark contrast to my one-hour-making-rosemary-powder! Plus, it’s a nice change from chocolate chip break and bake cookies.

Thumbs up for Trader Joe’s. ^_^

(I admit, there are a number of Trader Joe’s products that I’m in love with. I’m considering posting reviews and pictures of them. I haven’t totally decided yet.)

~Mikan

 

sometimes, simplicity is best

I’ve been wanting to cook with fennel for some time now. It’s got a lot of vitamin c, fiber, potassium, maganese, folate, etc.

I guess I just hadn’t found a recipe that called out to me until today. I don’t even remember how I came across it, but I found a recipe for fennel soup.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fennel-Soup/Detail.aspx

I reduced the butter to 2 Tbsp, and added a drizzle of oil to brown the fennel in. I think, next time, I’d cut the fennel in smaller segments. Fennel bulbs are not small, and even though I picked the smallest bulbs I could, quartered fennel still yields pretty big pieces. No big deal, it just means that I let the soup simmer for ten minutes longer. (By the way, how does fennel smell almost meaty as it is browning? I was impressed.) The only other change I made was to use chicken broth instead of veggie broth.

I served it with poached chicken, and I don’t think there was anything more perfect for such a small amount of effort. It was reminiscent of chicken soup; it was reminiscent of a bowl of pho.

I was in soup heaven, I think.

There’d be a photo if I hadn’t downed my bowl in like 30 seconds. ^_~

~ Mikan

 

Chinese Black Sesame Soup (dessert soup)

(In advance, I apologize for the lack of pictures. When I first thought about writing this post, I felt that it was too early. Now that I am ready, I do not have the soup thawed out for the task of photo-taking, but I don’t want to wait on this post any longer.)

Recently, I attended a soup swap. What’s that, you might be asking. Well, it’s a gathering of sorts involving something like a game. All of the attendees bring six quart-sized containers filled with a frozen homemade soup/stew of their choice. All of the soups are lumped together in a spot in the room. Then, attendees pick out a number, and proceed, in their numbered order, to explain what they brought in. Once this is completed, the guests then  take turns picking out a new soup container to bring home. So, you bring over six quarts of your soup, and you bring home six quarts of someone else’s soup.

This year, I decided on a Chinese dessert soup – black sesame soup (aka “hak zi ma wu”). Researching only provided me with two recipes that looked usable.

Recipe #1
http://chinesefood.about.com/od/desserts/r/black_sesame.htm

Recipe #2
http://www.flavorandfortune.com/dataaccess/article.php?ID=219

The first time I made this soup, I followed recipe #1 exactly. This time around, I followed recipe #1 in general measurements, but tried the methodology of recipe #2. I had hoped that recipe #2 would be a time saver, what with the rice being blended before cooking. In the end, I got a superior result to my first attempt… but it didn’t take any less time.

The long of the short of it? You must blend your ingredients before and after it is cooked. This is the only way you will hope to obtain the same thick but silky texture that you’ll find in a restaurant. (I guess I would liken the viscosity to something like honey.)

Ingredients:
1 cup white rice (long grain or short grain)
1 cup toasted black sesame seeds
7 – 8 cups water, depending on how thick or thin you want the soup (you may even want to go down to 6.5 cups of water if you plan on freezing this as defrosting seems to affect the texture a little)
1 cup granulated sugar (the amount of sugar is up to you – my family found that the original half cup specified was not sweet enough, so I prefer using one full cup at least)

1. Soak your rice in cold water for at least an hour.
2. In a blender, crush up the sesame seeds. Add half of the rice and crush this as finely as you can. Add about a cup of water, and then blend well. Tip this out into your stockpot or large saucepan. Crush up the rest of the rice, add another cup of water, and blend well. When done, tip this out into your pot too.
3. Add the remaining cups of water into the pot. (I have found that I like the consistency of about seven total cups of water. If you want it thinner, use more water.) Bring to a boil and turn the heat down to medium. Meanwhile, make sure that you stir continuously. Until the rice is cooked, it will sink to the bottom of your pot. If you don’t mix continuously, you will run the risk of burning the bottom.
4. Add the sugar (this can be honey, or a mixture of the two… or you can be silly like me and use powdered cactus honey which was purchased some time ago on a whim). As the sugar dissolves, you will notice that the consistency of the soup has gotten thicker. After about 5-8 minutes, the sugar is completely incorporated and the cooking is done.
5. You can try using an immersion blender, but I prefer letting the soup cool a little and blending it in a normal blender. Blend the finished soup to make sure that you have a silky texture (it’ll lumpy if you don’t… perfectly edible but totally lumpy).
6. Serve the soup. I prefer this soup warm-bordering-on-hot, but my mother says you can serve it cold. (Personally, I have never seen this served cold.)  And enjoy.  ^_^

~Mikan

 

A white bread with mahleb

I made another loaf of bread – a white bread from Beth Hensperger’s “Bread Made Easy” book. And it was the prettiest loaf I have ever made. I fiddled with Ms. Hensperger’s recipe a little by throwing in some mahleb. Mahleb is the pit of the sour cherry. Once crushed, it’s often thrown in to Greek breads (things I learn from our very own Asano-mama). Anyway, I finally bought a small jar of mahleb from Penzeys in December and decided “what the heck – let’s throw it in.” Now, I don’t know if mahleb is easily obtained at a store in ground form. Penzeys leaves their product in the pit form. After some googling, the recommendation is to crush only as necessary and to store the mahleb in the freezer, because, like nuts, it can go rancid. Mahleb is pretty easy to crush with a mortar and pestle, so it’s not particularly inconvenient.

It was a fun experiment. However, since I’ve never made this particular white bread before, I had nothing to compare my results with. This is a repeat occurrence in my life – experimenting without a controlled result.

Adapted from the milk bread master recipe in Bread Made Easy by Beth Hensperger.

one standard size bread loaf pan
3 to 3.5 cups of all-purpose or bread flour
1 Tbsp sugar (I always cook with cane sugar these days)
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm milk
1/8 cup boiling water
1 1/2 Tbsp of mild olive oil (this is the same as 4 1/2 tsp)
1 1/2 tsp crushed mahleb (if you can’t find it, skip it)
1 egg mixed with 1Tbsp milk for glaze (optional – I didn’t bother with it)

Start by mixing 2 cups of flour with the sugar, yeast and salt in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix the milk, boiling water and the oil (this should not be above 125F – it should feel hot to the touch… then again if you’re me and you forgot to warm the milk before mixing all of the wet ingredients, do your best to warm the mixture as best as possible and don’t worry that you’ve ruined it).

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and start incorporating the wet ingredients. Once this is well mixed, add the remaining flour until it becomes a stiff, shaggy dough that is clearing the sides of the mixing bowl. Move the dough onto a clean counter, and knead for 5-8 minutes, adding flour only as needed to stop the dough from sticking to everything.

Let this rise until double in bulk in a greased container. If your kitchen is cold like mine is (hello! I live in New England and it’s winter here!), don’t worry if the dough takes more than 2 hours to rise. Yeast loves temperatures at around 80F – any hotter and you risk killing your yeast, but any colder and the yeast just takes longer to do its stuff.

Grease your bread loaf pan. When the dough is ready, turn it out onto the counter. The dough will softly deflate, don’t worry about punch your dough down. Cut the dough into half. With each half, roll the dough with your palms until you have a log about 10 inches long. Wrap the dough logs around each other for a twisted effect. Place this in your pan and left rise until double in bulk (the dough will probably rise to about an inch or so over the pan rim).

Bake at 375F for about 40 minutes. You want a nice brown color to the crust and it should sound hollow if you knock on it. Remove the loaf carefully from the bread pan when done, and let the loaf cool on a wire rack.

~ Mikan

 

Rosemary for a birthday boy

I guess, if there is one, the theme of my cooking attempts this week has been “rosemary.”

It started with baking cookies for a friend’s birthday. This friend is most near and dear, and I wanted something that I thought he’d like and something that didn’t require a whole lot of effort. He’s tasted my cooking… oh, only the one time I think (plum pie), and for some reason my head thinks this is an insult to my cooking abilities. Or something like that.

Well, if my weakness is for the color blue, then his is for the taste of rosemary. So, when I came across a recipe for rosemary butter cookies, there was no question in my mind. He was getting rosemary cookies for his birthday.

I made a half batch, just in case this experiment went terribly wrong, and had the household sample it. Plumduff, Asano-mama, and I were strangely addicted. Stealth Eater said they weren’t bad, but the rosemary confused her tastebuds. She kept saying that they were “interesting.” When prompted, she wouldn’t say good-interesting or bad-interesting, just “interesting.”

I was impressed enough, and the birthday boy was given a baggie of little cookies. The result? Well, he asked for the recipe (which I forgot to give to him), so I think that’s good sign.

Another good sign was yesterday at work. I made another half batch since I had too much rosemary still in my fridge, and subjected my co-workers to my baking efforts (last time, it was sesame seed cake which was so “meh” in my opinion that I wanted to redeem myself). They were very, very well received. Wow!

So, now I’m thinking about making another batch of rosemary cookies, just because I can.

Recipe came from here – http://foodloveswriting.com/2008/09/03/rosemary-cookies-from-heaven/

And although there are no pictures of it and I don’t plan on making a more official post on it, I also used the rosemary for some fish tonight. I tried my hand at fish en papillote – I used salmon, salt and pepper, slivers of sweet onion, bits of portobello mushrooms, a large sprig of rosemary, and a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar. I cooked it a little too long, but overall I was pretty happy with the results. Onion and portobello with rosemary was delicious. The salmon didn’t pick up the rosemary as much as I would have liked, but it was still there and yummy. Next time, I should sandwich the rosemary between the salmon and the onion/mushrooms.

But yeah, still good. And I am very full.

~Mikan

 

No four and twenty blackbirds in this pie

For the first time, I have made a pie completely from scratch. It was a spiced plum pie with a butter pie crust.

I thought that the crust was my greatest obstacle as I had never made one before. I didn’t have a pastry cutter so I made do with a fork and a potato masher. XD

It wasn’t pretty, but the dough came together and I kept it in the fridge overnight. This kept it nice and cold, but, unfortunately, made it very painful to roll out into a 13″ circle. Yes, painful. I’ve had wrist problems in my left hand recently, so this was not one of my more stellar moments.

Then, I came to realize that my true obstacle was cutting, peeling, AND PITTING about 12 plums. I went through half the plums before finally finding some sort of a system. The procedure was eventually to cut up the plum in all of the wedges I needed. Then, I went about finding the one wedge that could slip out the easiest. After that, I set upon ripping out the other wedges until I was left with the pit on the final wedge, which I cut out. This took about an hour total. This would not have been so bad, except that I hadn’t started until 10:30p. (note: don’t help your father with paperwork before making pie when it’s already getting late.)

After the agony of preparing the plums, the spices and sugar for the filling was a nice, easy change of pace. But since it was fairly easy, I was done pretty quickly. (well, it would have been much faster if I didn’t need to go to the downstairs apartment to borrow cardamom. I was so sure I had some, but I couldn’t find it. I guess I was hallucinating.)

I put my pie crust in the pie pan, filled it with the plums and spices and sugar, and popped it into the oven that had been preheating for a very, very long time.

I accidently tented my pie with foil from the get-go. I didn’t read the instructions well enough. After 20 minutes, I finally realized to take the foil tent off. The foil stayed off for about 30 minutes, before I finally put it back.

All the while, it smelled lovely. And the baking finished at around 2am.

Fifteen hours later, the pie was finally cut into (it was one of three pies for our 4th of July BBQ) and lasted about ten minutes before it was whittled down to just one small slice. The crust was good. Asano-mama said it was flakier than the crust on her pies, and a friend of mine who really had not been subjected to my food experiments yet was also suitably pleased with the crust.

The plums were more tart than I expected them to be. (Thank goodness for vanilla ice cream and all things a la mode.) But I was fairly happy with my pie. I think I might like to mix the plums with something else like apples or pears or strawberries next time – something to balance the tartness. The same friend who was pleased with the crust commented that my plum pie reminded him of rhubarb. I can see that.

The verdict? It was a good way to spend some time and the results were better than good.

The pie crust recipe – http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/BUTTER-PIE-CRUST-236477

The spiced plum pie recipe – http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/SPICED-PLUM-PIE-232397

And just for fun, here’s a photo of Asano-mama in the middle of destroying killing pitting cherries for her cherry pie. ^_~

~Mikan

 

pale and beautiful

Call it chayote, merliton, hup jeung gwa, or whatever you want, it’s my favorite squash these days.

Zucchini and yellow squash doesn’t do it for me. They’re squishy. They’re lackluster. As far as I’m concerned, zucchini belongs in quick breads and not on my plate as a side dish.

Ah, but chayote? It’s such a delicate flavor – just barely sweet. It tends to absorb the taste of whatever it’s being cooked with. The texture? It’s on the firm side of squashes. I had googled “chayote squash recipes” one day and was thoroughly put off. So many recipes demanded that my little chayote be covered up in herbs, sauce, or… eww, cheese. I felt like it was misunderstood.

Tonight, I decided to go simple. I cut up three chayote squashes, one sweet onion, and lightly covered them in olive oil and a pinch of salt before throwing them in an oven, heated to 400F, for about 35 minutes. (Word of advice – chayote has a bit of a thick skin, so I recommend peeling it. However, it produces a very slimy film when you do that. The film washes off your hands easily enough, but it’ll really dry out your skin. If you can, peel them with gloves on.)

The result? Well, I ate two-thirds of it in one sitting. I’m so full right now, that I have to take a break before I finish the rest of my dinner. Sometimes, I’m such a glutton. *blush* On the bright side, it’s a fairly healthy side dish. I find that chayote does well when roasted. After it’s done cooking, it’s still wonderfully moist and pairs so well with just onion.

I remembered to take photos. I can’t let Asano-mama receive all of the attention for her whale cake, can I? 

~ Mikan