Eating Gluten-Free Doesn't Mean Sacrificing Great Food!
Twice baked potatoes are a fun way to make our friend the potato something special. If you use a microwave to cook the potatoes, this comes together pretty quickly on a weeknight.
The key to twice baked potatoes is what you do with your mashed potato filling (plus, well, that sprinkling of cheese on the top of the potatoes). You can go as basic as salt, pepper, and butter. Or you can fancy your potatoes up with Greek yogurt or sour cream. Whatever strikes your tastebuds.
It took me a long time to come to pesto. In theory, it was everything I loved, yet my first experiences with it were…underwhelming. I just didn’t like it. This was disappointing.
Then one day, I decided it was time to try pesto again. This time, our relationship took. I try to find ways to add pesto to everything. Sometimes this is not the best of ideas, sometimes it works out amazingly well.
As in this recipe. When my husband saw what I planned to do, he wanted no part of it. Rice should be rice, and pesto goes on pasta (and pizza and…). Then he tasted it, and wondered why I thought it would be a bad idea. Yeah.
Also, this is a quick way to gussy up weeknight rice (and use up leftover pesto sauce, if you have any). Since I always do a big batch of rice in the steamer to make meals during the week go faster, I just heat what I need in the microwave.
Pure Fall (or any season) yumminess! I find butternut squash adds a lovely sweetness, while the sausage adds fat and salt and flavor. The quinoa gives the dish body, and the spinach, well, how can you go wrong with spinach? I toss in a little ricotta for extra flavor. It’s all good.
This works equally well with acorn squash. If you are going with butternut squash, make sure it is relatively symmetric. A very large head and small tail will cook at different levels, leaving the the tail done long before the big part of the squash is done. This leads to an especially tender tail — meaning you have to be extra careful when scooping out the flesh.
For a quick side dish during the week, nothing beats a sweet potato hash. This whole recipe comes together quickly, and can be modified to suit your meal — play with seasonings to match your main dish.
When life — or the season — gives you sweet potatoes, the creativity comes out. It turns out, these great veggies are pretty much in season all year round in Southern California. What I used to think of as a holiday food, served over-sweet and mushy, is now an everyday part of my cooking repertoire.
Thus, yes, allowing me to prove I can serve meals that don’t feature ordinary rice or variations on regular potatoes. Add the obligatory comments about the healthiness and lower calorie count of sweet potatoes here (and those claims are, of course true).
Since I’m not Jewish, latkes are just another way to make potatoes interesting. And since I usually have more sweet potatoes than regular potatoes on hand, well, the connection was obvious. When I searched for basic recipes, I was pleasantly surprised to find a recipe by my friend Sarah topping the search results (see the link in the Notes section). Her recipe was the basis for mine.
Needless to say, I make enough for leftovers during the week. Yummy!
As you might guess, I am a huge proponent of roasting vegetables. Maybe it’s because I’m rebelling against my canned-vegetable youth. Or maybe it’s because roasted veggies are just so, so good. Or, more likely, it’s a bit of both.
Roasting brings out deeper flavors from vegetables, and it’s a year-round preparation. Once grilling season starts, substitute the grill for the oven. And note how the change in cooking method impacts the flavor.
No matter how you do it, roasting veggies, including carrots, requires just a few ingredients. You can, of course, play with flavors (I love my carrots with curry spices or just a dusting of cumin).
Some years, the butternut squash never seems to stop coming. Sure, it makes for excellent soups, but even I can only eat so much of the stuff. And since I love roasted veggies, it only makes sense that a roasted butternut squash dish is in my repertoire.
I’ve served this as a side at dinner and as an appetizer at parties. I’ve also witnessed my husband snatching cubes of squash from the baking sheet while I’m busy with other tasks. Of course, I’m guilty of the same crime, so I can’t complain.
