Try Something New: Fall Edition

Last Saturday we decided to experiment in the kitchen a bit. Saturday is such a nice day to spend cooking, especially in the fall. The cool, windy weather made it feel so cozy to be inside with the warm oven and wonderful smells.

Our cooking adventure actually started earlier, when we decided to make a run to the neighborhood Co-op, Mississippi Market, for groceries. Mississippi Market is within walking distance of our lovely abode, making it the grocery store of choice for us most of the time. We grabbed our handy-dandy market bag (hand-made by ME!), the dogs, and walked to the store together. It was a beautiful fall day, after all.

We walked the 8 or so blocks to Mississippi Market, and I stayed outside with the dogs while my husband dutifully took the shopping bag, our short list, and the money and went to collect our goods. He emerged a few minutes later and we walked home. At home, I emptied the bag and pulled out something called feta cheese. THAT was not on the list. RICOTTA cheese was on the list. Feta just looks...ugh. Anyway, the miniscule amount of fossil fuels we saved by walking to the store in the first place were then lost as my husband got into our Buick to return the feta for ricotta. An auspicious beginning, no?

The recipes we tried were roasted beets with dill dressing and wild rice stuffed acorn squash. I have been wanting to try the squash recipe for a long time because it looks so pretty in its picture in The New Whole Grains Cookbook, which I own and love. (I own several cookbooks. I have a collection which I love dearly. Am a bit odd that way). These seemed like nice recipes that would go with our boring old (yet very good) raspberry chipotle chicken breasts we had planned to eat that night.

cooking the wild rice and the squash

I thought the squash would be fussy, because it looks so pretty, and let's face it: stuffed anything is kind of a pain. But this really wasn't bad at all. The beets, strangely enough, were the part that sucked. We read that we could drizzle olive oil over the beets and roast them in the oven in about an hour and then the skins would slip off easily. Bullcaca. It took over 2.5 hours, and they still weren't all the way done. The ones that were perfectly roasted - those skins did slip off rather easily, but the rest had to be peeled, and our hands got stained, and by this time it was nearly 10pm and we were pretty hungry and crabby. We just did our best, poured the dressing on the beets, and finally ate our dinner!

roasted beet salad with dill dressing

Everything turned out really good, especially those pesky beets! The squash were REALLY filling, though. It was very difficult to eat an entire one, and I would suggest cutting each one in half for serving purposes, although they look so pretty whole.

I would make the beets again anytime, as long as I can get the roasting figured out. The squash I would make for special occasions. It would be gorgeous at Thanksgiving, for instance. It's always interesting to try new things.

Raspberry chipotle chicken breast, roasted beet salad, wild rice stuffed squash