Categories
Pasta

Butternut Squash, Blue Cheese and Rosemary Risotto — Chopping Block Report

This recipe called to me for weeks before I got around to making it.  And it was worth the wait!   

As is typical for me, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly.  I omitted the spinach, as I really wanted this recipe to be about the squash, cheese & rosemary.  In my opinion, even with this simplifying adjument, the recipe needed more squash and rosemary.  I realized this in time to add extra rosemary, but not to add extra squash.  Next time, I’ll use half as much rice for this amount of squash!

Categories
Appetizers & Snacks Soups & Stews

Something Old and Something New

We have started to see signs of fall, and summer officially ended this week, so I’ve had some of our favorite fall recipes on my mind.  Monday night’s dinner brought an old favorite with a seriously new twist:

butternut squash soup

crostini with blue cheese compound butter

I discovered this recipe for Winter Squash Soup with Gruyere Croutons last winter when I was trying to find new ways to use the squash that we were getting in our weekly produce delivery.  I typically omit the cream, and we don’t miss it at all.  This soup is great with the gruyere croutons described in the recipe, but I was inspired to pair the soup with blue cheese last year after I read this recipe for Butternut Squash an Apple Soup with Melted Blue Cheese.  Hence, our riff on the gruyere croutons. Since I typically don’t have apple cider in the house, I find the first squash soup recipe less complicated to make.  In this case, I made it the day before, and I only had to heat it up when I got home from work.

kale chips

These Tuscan Kale Chips were interesting.  In the words of my daughter, they were “the oddest thing I’d ever served!”  That said, we liked them quite a bit.  This recipe struck me as one of the many instances where cooking and chemistry really are one and the same.  Even if you don’t think you like greens like kale and chard, this one is worth a try!  It’s one of those recipes that I’ll pull out from time to time when I want to serve something novel to guests that can also serve as a conversation piece!