Brought to you by the color orange: Butternut Squash Lasagna

Dinner. I like food.


I'm not sure how this happens but every once in a while it seems like everything in a certain meal or the main course of all the meals for a day end up being the same color. Today our menu was brought to you by the color orange and by the color yellow, green made a guest appearance as usual though. Breakfast: egg sandwiches; Lunch: carrot and daikon radish salad; Dinner: butternut squash lasagna; Snack: clementine. The only way it could have been more perfect would have been to have a golden delicious apple for another snack. Oh, but I am having popcorn as I type this for a late night snack! That has some yellow/orange in it. Cool.

Anyway, I checked out several recipes for butternut squash and other similar recipes and created my own. I've made it before and the recipe I'm writing down now is a based more on the last one I made and not this one as I had to change it based on what I had available and time constraints.

Ingredients:

Enough lasagna noodles for a 9x13 pan, cooked (I like whole wheat)

White pasta sauce (my favorite is my own creamy pesto sauce), 24oz or so.

1 medium butternut squash, seeded and sliced and lightly roasted

1 16oz container of ricotta cheese

16oz of mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 cup walnuts, chopped

fistful of fresh basil leaves

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tablespoons brown sugar

salt and pepper to taste


Run squash through the food processor, mix squash and chopped nuts together with basil and oregano in large bowl. Set aside.

Mix ricotta cheese, cinnamon, brown sugar, salt and pepper in small bowl.

Starting with a thin layer of sauce, alternate layering the lasagna noodles, cheese mixture, squash mixture, and the shredded cheese topping it all with shredded cheese and extra nuts if desired.

Bake for 45 minutes, if possible, test the squash for tenderness.

Substitutes this time due to time and what I had on hand: Ritoni pasta (whole wheat) instead of lasagna. Jarred alfredo/three cheese pasta sauce (not as good, I think but time was short), dried basil instead of fresh, so sad. Please pardon the phone pics, I need new batteries for the better camera.

Cabbage and Sausage Stew

I'm going to write about dinner again. It was a good dinner, deserves a blog post. I'm even going to attempt to write the recipe out.

Since our trip we've been rather scarce on groceries and I've been putting it off but push came to shove and I had to go yesterday. Picked up a few things with the crew and planned a couple of meals. This one was in my head and I decided to give it a try today.

Ingredients:

Half a head of cabbage (I used the other half for col-slaw)
3 medium/large potatoes
4 carrots
1 turkey kielbasa style sausage, sliced
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
4 bay leaves
2 tsp oregano
2 cups vegetable broth

I had decided we were having a vegetarian week to kind of cleanse ourselves from the trip, obviously fell off that wagon.

So I threw all the veggies in the crockpot first. Tip: put potatoes in first- cabbage doesn't need to be on the bottom but potatoes and carrots sure do. Throw those veggies in and then the sausage and remaining ingredients. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. I did high for 4 hours because I started late but it worked perfectly though I really had to resist the urge to open the lid and stir but it was worth it.

This was a hit, I mean a really, really big hit. The girls devoured it, Evangeline ate everything but the sausage but only because I didn't give her any, Jessi said it was really good and added her hot sauce (the girl likes her hot sauce) and the real sign was when Jeremy said we could have it once a week. I will be making this again though I doubt it will be next week. However, I do love my crockpot. Which reminds me, I need to make a breakfast casserole in it before heading to bed. I love my crock-pot. I want another one, or two, or 4.

So for dinner...

I warned you, I'll talk about dinner.

We had this. It was made by 11am this morning, using the left over coffee in our French press from breakfast and I ran the dish washer and that was it. Except for slicing some cream cheese into the pot about 20 minutes before eating. It was so good! Granted, it has coffee, cream cheese, red wine, and a roast, how could it not be good but when all three of the big girls, Jeremy and I both clean our plates you celebrate a hit meal. Stephanie, AKA the crockpot lady is my new best friend even though she doesn't know it. Thanks to her blog I'm pulling out my crockpot more and my family gets to eat decent hot meals far more frequently than normal not counting Mac and Cheese. So far we've made Jamaican Pumpkin Soup, CrockPot Hash Brown Breakfast Casserole, and of course the Java Roast tonight. I've also tried my hand at a few of my own recipies and they've not been shabby either. Tomorrow might be my mom's recipe for Italian chicken stew. Maybe... Potato Leek Soup, Harvest Stew Recipe, and the Bean Stew Recipe, are looking good. Noticing a trend with soup/stew cravings. It's fall! ish.