Spinach Artichoke Spaghetti Squash Casserole

This is a slightly more involved (and slightly less healthy) riff on my Spaghetti [Squash] Pie. So I've had this can of artichokes sitting in my pantry since the spring. I don't buy artichokes often, but I had added it onto an Amazon Fresh order when we were scared of going to the grocery store, in order to meet the minimum. There was a period early on when EVERYONE was getting online groceries and things kept going in and out of stock and they didn't have much selection. I remember looking through all the departments just to find something in stock to add on to meet the minimum. Hence, canned artichokes.

Then I remembered spinach artichoke dip is delicious - I'm not sure I've ever made it, but seemed like a good cold weather casserole thing. And a spaghetti squash came from Hungry Harvest, so...mix em up! According to the internet I'm not the first person to have this idea, and recipes I found varied a lot. Some use cream cheese and/or sour cream, some use a white sauce, some factor in mayonnaise (which I think is traditional for the dip). As per usual, I made up my own thing.

I added chicken to this, but that's totally optional - easy to keep vegetarian. And like with the Spaghetti Squash Pie, you can use all spaghetti squash for the base and keep it slightly healthier/gluten free. I like to add some angel hair pasta to make it a little more substantial. I recommend seeing how much "spaghetti" you get out of your squash and then judge your quantity of angel hair. The squash I used was pretty big, so I used about 1/3 a box of angel hair.

Warning: as was observed by another eater, this does look a bit like "android guts" when you cut into it. But it's delicious!

- 1 spaghetti squash: halved, cleaned, roasted & forked into strands (more info here). 
- 1 large chicken breast, seasoned & cooked as desired - cube or shred (optional)
- 1/3 - 1/2 box angel hair pasta, cooked until just al dente (optional)
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 bunch or small bag spinach, washed & chopped (or use frozen spinach)
- 1 can artichoke hearts (packed in water - not the marinated kind), drained & chopped
- 1 8oz block cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- grated italian cheese blend or mozzarella (I used most of a small bag)

Put your cooked spaghetti squash strands in a large bowl. Add cooked angel hair, season with a little salt, and toss together with 2 forks until combined.

Saute onion in olive oil until lightly cooked. Add garlic & stir for about a minute. Add spinach & cook until just wilted. Add chopped artichokes and cooked chicken, turn the heat off.

Mix together softened cream cheese, sour cream, garlic powder & some salt & pepper (I added some cayenne as well). Add to squash/pasta mixture and mix until thoroughly combined. Add spinach/artichoke mixture. Taste and make sure it's seasoned how you want it.

Lightly grease a 9 x 13 pan and add in the mixture, spreading it out evenly. Top with grated cheese. Bake in a 375 oven for about 30 minutes. Let sit for at least 5-10 minutes before serving.

A Small Thanksgiving

Like most people this year, we did a small Thanksgiving at home - my husband and I, and we ended up inviting one additional family member. We were a little conflicted about the safety of even that one addition, but we planned to eat outside if at all possible, and wear masks in the house. It ended up being a gorgeous, mild day - so eating outside was perfect!

Even if it was just the two of us, I figured I'd cook a whole turkey dinner - kind of had a craving for it, and thought it would be nice to have leftovers. I've cooked a whole Thanksgiving meal before, but it's been awhile. So I decided to document the recipes and timing of everything in case I have to reference this in the future. Timing everything is the trickiest part, but this worked out well. This is a relatively simple meal with a couple shortcuts like a packaged stuffing mix, making a gravy "base" while the turkey cooks, and canned cranberry sauce. I like homemade cranberry sauce and it's not hard to make, but I also like the jellied canned stuff. But that's one of two things I would have done differently: I bought Lidl brand jellied cranberry sauce, and it was semi-liquid! No satisfying "plop" of the canned shape with nice slices. I'll stick with Ocean Spray brand next time. The other thing was that I added some lemon slices to the bottom of the Dutch oven along with onion slices to rest the turkey breast on. I think it made the juices a little too acidic for the gravy, so I didn't end up using all of it.

So here's the menu, shopping list and timing/steps of everything - plus a bonus turkey stock recipe!

Menu:
- Herb-butter roasted turkey breast
- Apple-herb stuffing
- Mashed potatoes (skins on for more fiber and less work!)
- Roasted brussels sprouts with bacon (optional!)
- Bourbon-cider gravy
- Cranberry sauce (canned)
- Store-bought pie

Grocery List:
- Bone-in turkey breast (this was a little over 5 lbs)
- Pepperidge Farm cubed herb stuffing mix
- Yukon Gold potatoes
- Onions
- Celery
- 1 apple
- 1 lemon
- Brussels Sprouts (~2 lbs)
- Fresh sage
- Thyme
- Bacon
- Chicken broth
- Butter
- Sour Cream
- Milk
- Cranberry sauce (beware the off-brand!)
- Apple cider
- Bourbon (optional)
- Pie of your choosing

If turkey breast is frozen, make sure it's thawing in the fridge by Tuesday!

Day Before:

- Prep Brussels Sprouts: wash, trim & halve. Coat with olive oil, salt, pepper & garlic powder. Roast on baking sheets at 425 until just browned (about 15 mins). I already had cooked bacon, but cook 3 strips of bacon if you want.

- Prep stuffing: chop 1 onion, 3 ribs of celery, 1 apple (peeled) and a few leaves of fresh sage. Melt 1/2 stick butter in a large casserole. Saute onion & celery until just tender. Add apple & sage, saute about a minute. Add 2 cups of chicken broth & bring to a boil. Turn off heat and add stuffing mix. Taste - it probably won't need salt. Leave to cool, then refrigerate.

- Prep herb butter: soften 1/2 stick butter. Add some finely chopped sage, some dried thyme, and the zest of 1 lemon.

Day Of:

- About 4 hours before dinnertime, take turkey and the herb butter out of the fridge. Unwrap, pat dry with paper towels, and trim off any bits (I cut out part of the backbone with kitchen shears and saved it for stock). Rub kosher salt under and over the skin. Put back in the fridge for a bit.

- Wash potatoes, cut in half if they're large, and place in a pot with water. Set aside.

- About 2 1/2 hours before dinnertime, preheat oven - I variously saw recommendations to cook turkey breast at either 325 or 350, so I split the difference and did 335. 

- Rub softened herb butter under and over skin of turkey breast. Peel and thickly slice one onion, and lay on the bottom of Dutch oven. Place turkey on top, breast side up. Put in the oven. You want to cook it til it reaches 165 temp, and it's around 15 minutes per pound or so. I ended up cooking mine a bit over 2 hours but it probably didn't need that long - some parts were testing about 150, but I think I could have taken it out earlier. 

- Take stuffing out of the fridge to come up to room temp before baking.

- Make gravy base - melt 3 tbl butter in a saucepan over low heat. Add 3 tbl flour. Whisk for a couple minutes, until bubbly and starting to brown. Add 2 cups chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and cook until thickened and reduced a bit, whisking frequently. Cover pot and set aside.

- Boil potatoes (add salt when boiling). Bake stuffing at 350 (it fits in my convection toaster oven, which is handy!). Takes about 30 minutes and then you can hold it on warm. Chop 3 slices of cooked bacon, add to brussels sprouts, and spread on foil lined baking sheet.

- Drain & mash potatoes - add about 1/4 cup sour cream, a couple tablespoons of butter, and enough milk to make it creamy. Add salt & pepper to taste. Cover and keep warm over low heat.

- When turkey reaches 165, remove to a plate along with onions. Put the Dutch oven on the stove over medium heat until juices are bubbly. Add a splash each of bourbon & apple cider, and reduce until browned & starting to thicken. Add this to gravy & reheat.

- When the turkey comes out, put brussels sprouts in to reheat.

- Slice turkey and plate up everything!

Turkey Stock:
- After all meat is removed, break carcass into a couple pieces. Heat oven to 425.
- Roast saved turkey backbone for 15 minutes, then add turkey carcass pieces. Roast about 30 minutes more, until browned.
- Heat a large stockpot over medium heat. Add a bit of olive oil and saute 1 onion (unpeeled, quartered), 3 carrots (chopped in large pieces), a few celery ribs + leaves and 1 head garlic (unpeeled, halved). Saute a few minutes, until starting to brown. Add a splash of water & scrape up browned bits. Then add plenty of water to cover, plus a couple bay leaves and a few peppercorns. Add browned turkey parts, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 2 hours.
- Strain out solids, add a couple teaspoons of salt, then cool & refrigerate. Skim off any fat.
- Use for soup and/or freeze.

Turkey & Stuffing Meatloaf

One of my "comfort-habits" is watching various sped-up cooking videos...there's one called Tasty which is Buzzfeed's cooking division, another called Twisted that I think is British and is mostly ridiculous super-caloric creations (stuff like Garlic Bread Mac & Cheese Chicken Alfredo Lasagna or perhaps a Giant Fried Chicken Donut Sandwich. Twisted indeed!). Most of the stuff I have no interest in making; I just find the short videos relaxing in some way. Well, Tasty had one for Turkey & Stuffing Meatloaf that actually looked decent to prepare, and suddenly I had a Thanksgiving craving...

Their recipe uses a glaze with cranberry sauce & ketchup. I wasn't sure if I was going to try that, and then we switched up our last grocery trip to Lidl and they didn't have cranberry sauce, so I figured I'd make a simple gravy. They also did not have unseasoned stuffing, so I bought a box of their off-brand Stove Top.

I looked up some other recipes before making this, because I don't make meatloaf very often. And wow...there was quite a variance in quantities of the ground meat, stuffing mix, eggs and cooking times/temps. I am also not going to do things like measure 1/2 cup of diced celery...one stick is good, thank you very much. I'm gonna say quantities are pretty flexible. And if you do use unseasoned stuffing, you might want to use chicken broth to moisten it and add more salt/seasonings.

- 1 stick celery, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 small apple, peeled & chopped (optional, but I thought it was good)
- pinch dried thyme (if you have sage or poultry seasoning that would be good)
- 1 box (6 oz) seasoned stuffing mix
- 1 package ground turkey (about 1 lb)
- 1 egg, beaten

1. Saute vegetables in olive oil until tender. Add garlic & apple, a pinch of salt & pepper and the thyme. Stir a couple times, then turn off heat and let sit. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Pour the stuffing mix into a large bowl and moisten with 1 cup water. Add turkey, egg, about 1/2 tsp of salt and some pepper, and the sauteed vegetables. Mix well. You may want to cook a small chunk of the mixture in a pan to taste and make sure the seasonings are how you want them.

3. Grease a loaf pan. I put parchment paper in mine as well, per the Tasty recipe, but I'm not sure that was necessary. Pack the mixture into the pan and bake for 45 minutes. Let sit for about 10 minutes before slicing.

Gravy:
- Melt 2 Tbl butter in a small saucepan on medium-low.
- Add 2 Tbl flour, whisk and cook about a minute, until bubbly.
- Add about 1 1/2 cups chicken broth (or sub a bit of apple cider for some of it).
- Increase heat to medium and whisk until thickened.

Serve with mashed potatoes for sure (I have been making instant potatoes quite a lot during the pandemic, no shame!), and a veggie (roasted brussels sprouts?)

Kona Banana Bread

I guess I should document this here, as I often have to ask my mom for the recipe when I want to make it! This is our family banana bread recipe: rumored to be my maternal grandmother's, but my mom (whose memory is excellent) says her sister (my Aunt Barbara, who sadly passed away earlier this year) found the recipe in a women's magazine after returning from her honeymoon in Hawaii - must have been late 1950s. She had excellent banana bread there, and said this recipe came close.

My sister and I both entered this in our county fair in different years and won blue ribbons! We were in 4H clubs as kids, and entered food/crafts in the fair every summer. I have a vague memory of having something advance to the state fair one year - it might have been this, or maybe brownies? None of us can remember. Anyway, my mom had told me to add a note for the judges - and I'll include it here - that due to the higher sugar content in this recipe, it bakes up darker than many other banana breads. So don't worry if it seems to be overbrowning!

The original recipe uses shortening (Crisco) and that's what I used most recently. We have also made it with butter and it's good that way, but shortening is the classic recipe. I also highly recommend the addition of chocolate chips! If you're a nuts person you can add chopped nuts, or my aunt suggests dried cranberries - about 1 cup of "additions." But it's quite good on its own! 

- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 large very ripe bananas, mashed
- 1 1/4 cup sifted flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Cream shortening & sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Stir in mashed banana. Sift dry ingredients together. Add to banana mixture and blend just until mixed. 

Pour into greased loaf pan, or 12 lined muffin tins. Bake loaf 1 hour, or muffins 25 minutes. 

Pork Tenderloin with Cider-Mustard Sauce

I didn't manage to grab a photo of this one, but it was so good and easy I have to document!

I've had a pork tenderloin in the freezer since about May, when I went in on a meat delivery from a local farm with a neighbor. I don't cook these very often but finally decided to cook it once the weather cooled down. I searched for various recipes and couldn't find one with the flavors I wanted that wasn't for a larger "pork loin roast" - our tenderloin was maybe 1.5 lbs and I knew it wouldn't take that long to cook. My meat thermometer isn't working anymore so I had to guess, but it turned out perfectly! 

I roasted some potatoes & carrots separately in the oven to serve with this. You could probably even throw them all in the Dutch oven together, but I wasn't sure how they'd all cooperate with cooking times, and I wanted the veggies a little crispy. This took under an hour start to finish, so I'll have to keep this one in mind if I get tenderloin and have apple cider again! This would also be good with chicken thighs, I imagine. The apple butter is optional, but if you have it, it adds a nice sweetness/richness to the sauce. You could also add some apple slices in with the onions if you want to full-on-apple-it. Two of us ate half of this and I saved the rest for leftovers, but honestly could demolish the rest of it easily myself. Not a bad idea to double it if the meat's on sale...

- 1 pork tenderloin (1-2 lbs)
- spice rub: I used salt & pepper plus thyme & garlic powder (maybe a 1/4 tsp of each), plus some Penzey's 33rd St which says it's a pork seasoning
- 1 onion, halved & sliced
- 1 cup apple cider
- 1 Tbl mustard (I used dijon; a grainy mustard would be good too)
- 1 heaping Tbl apple butter

Mix the spices, sprinkle over the pork and rub on all sides. Let sit for a few minutes while you prepare other things. I cut the tenderloin in half so it would fit in the pot a bit better.

Heat a Dutch oven on medium-high, add some olive oil and sear the pork for about 4 minutes on each side, until browned. Remove to a plate.

Add the onion and saute a few minutes (the bottom of the pot should have a good amount of browning; you want this!). Add the cider and scrape up the browned bits as it bubbles. Add the mustard, apple butter and a pinch of salt. Put the pork back in, cover the pot and simmer on medium-low for about 15 minutes.

If you have a meat thermometer, 145 is the temp to aim for, but mine seemed done. Take the pork out to rest for a few minutes. Turn up the heat and let the sauce bubble to reduce a bit. Taste for salt.

Slice the pork and spoon the onions & sauce over.

Refried Bean & Veggie Burritos

This almost isn't a blog-worthy entry, but I've been making these on the regular and they are good and cheap and easy! 6+ months into the pandemic (good lord), I at least don't get anxiety any more about grocery shopping, but we still try to keep it to a minimum - a big shop every 2-3 weeks and we're still getting a weekly fresh produce delivery from Hungry Harvest. These burritos are good eating for when you're just down to pantry staples...the sauteed veggies are optional and you could just bean/cheese/rice/salsa it up.

I've never been a big refried bean person...I will eat them when they come as a side at a Mexican place, but I've never bought them regularly. Black beans are usually my legume of choice. Then we discovered these Safeway brand spicy jalapeno refritos - and man, they've got a kick! And for burritos I think refried beans hold things together a bit better.

The store was out of them on a previous trip and we tried El Paso brand spicy refried beans...sadly there was distinct lack of kick, so I doctored those up with chili powder and hot sauce. These store brand ones are also vegetarian, without the lard that's in "traditional" refritos. I'm not opposed to lard in the right applications...but anyhoo these beans are good 'n spicy! One can will make 4 burritos.

I am still not very good at rolling burritos, but they get into our bellies nonetheless. My husband eats his with a fork & knife anyway (I think it's a beard thing?) and I wrap mine in foil. There are different schools of burrito rolling (yes, I researched this). I've been putting the ingredients on the lower half, folding that over almost in half and then squishing/compacting, then folding in the sides and rolling. I also toast the burritos in a hot pan and that seems to seal the bottoms a bit. 

Obviously put whatever you like in or on these: sour cream, avocado/guac, other veggies/meats, etc.

The players:

- Refried beans: I use 1/2 can at a time for 2 burritos, and nuke them for ~30 sec. You can mix a splash of milk in to make them a little creamier. If your beans are bland, you can add chili powder / hot sauce.

- Cooked rice: optional, but I like it. You don't need much, just a couple spoonfuls per burrito.

- Grated cheese

- Sliced onion & bell pepper: saute these until tender, then add some frozen corn. Season with chili powder.

- Salsa

Nuke your tortillas for a few seconds and then layer ingredients - don't overfill! I spread the beans on first, then cheese, rice, salsa, and the sauteed veggies. Roll up and toast in a hot pan for a few minutes on each side: 

Wrap in foil if you like. Not photogenic, nor fancy, but it's good!

Tofu "Egg" Salad

This is one of those things I've made before that I'll forget about for a year or two and then suddenly remember. Perfect for no-cook food in the hot summer! The tofu is a really good fake-out for hard-boiled eggs - this really does taste like egg salad. I'm not vegan, and used regular mayo, but have made it before with vegan mayo. Vegan mayo isn't particularly "healthy" either, but if you're watching your cholesterol, this is certainly a good alternative if you like egg salad.

Basically, just take your favorite egg salad "recipe" (I do not measure anything for stuff like this) and substitute drained/pressed tofu, adding some turmeric for a yellow color. You'll want to make sure the dressing is well-seasoned as tofu is bland on its own - and refrigerate it for at least a little while to let the flavors soak in. I added celery, green onions and grated carrots to mine.

Most recipes you'll see online will suggest medium-firm tofu for the best "egg" texture. My store only had one package of extra-firm left (which is what I usually use for stir fries), and that's what I used - it was fine. Some recipes say to mash to the tofu, others have you dice it into small pieces. The small dice is more "eggy" I think - though I did end up mashing a little bit of it to get it to hold together better.

1. Drain a block of tofu and press between paper towels under a plate and heavy object while you prepare the other ingredients.

2. For the dressing, mix together to your taste preference: mayo or vegan mayo (start with 1/4 cup and add more if you like), dijon mustard, vinegar or pickle brine (I used apple cider vinegar and a little brine from some pickled okra), salt, pepper, turmeric (1/4-1/2 tsp), and any other spices you like (I added a shake of smoked paprika & some cayenne).

3. Dice tofu into very small pieces, and/or mash with a fork depending on the texture you want.

4. Add to the dressing along with any other additions you like: celery, green onions, grated carrots, pickles, fresh dill, etc...

5. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

6. Eat as-is, over lettuce, or make yourself a sandwich!