When I was in high school, I started seriously reading cookbooks — trying to decipher how to cook. My obsession began with vegetarian ones (I was a vegetarian at the time). I collected them, paging through the recipes and imagining the day when I could figure out how to take those words and translate them to my plate. I could picture the dinner parties I’d host where I would wow my imaginary guests with my kitchen prowess. There was only one little problem: all the recipes seemed impossible. They were filled with ingredients we never had or riddled with processes and terms that I was completely unfamiliar with.

It was kind of sad. So instead, I would microwave a cheapie personal cheese pizza, adding olives, and feel accomplished.

At the time, I had pretty much zero cooking skills. Unless you count microwaving marshmallows till they puff and explode as “skills.” No? Right, so no cooking skills to speak of. And worse, I was afraid to really try. While I had grown up making potato pancakes and applesauce with my aunt, I really was clueless in the kitchen. Frankly, I worried that if I would poison everyone if I undercooked something or mixed it in the wrong order or combined the wrong mix of ingredients. Back then, I didn’t realize that cooking and baking were different beasts (it should be noted that I could, however, bake cookies like nobody’s business). I had no idea that cooking could be so forgiving.

Now I do.

And I hope you do too. Because being afraid to experiment in the kitchen is just silly — it’s the combination of flavors and re-imagining of foods that keeps cooking interesting. It’s how food is reborn and remade and modernized. And best of all, anyone can do it. Anyone can switch things up a little bit and create a new dish that is absolutely mouthwatering. You can do it. Just be fearless in the kitchen.

This weekend I was stuck at home (Shawn’s car is awaiting an important repair), and suddenly wanted to make pasta for dinner. And by “make pasta” I mean mix up eggs, flour and a few other things to make fresh dough and then roll, cut and cook it. Yeah, that kind of make. It wasn’t my first time. In fact, I have had the pasta attachments for my KitchenAid for more than eight years. They were a wedding present from one of my high school friends. But I can’t say I use the attachments that often — I should, but I don’t.

I mean making pasta? It just sounds like so much work. And for what? Something I can buy all ready to go?

Yep. It’s easy to think like that. Even if it’s really not quite true. In fact, when I buckled down and just did it this weekend, I remembered how easy it really is to make homemade egg pasta. Honestly, after making this pasta this week, it’s going to be hard to return to the box.

Hear me out for a second.

The idea of this is daunting, but the process is really simple.

Homemade pasta starts with a simple dough — this homemade egg pasta dough is my favorite and it has only five ingredients. Nothing fancy or unfamiliar. Just stuff that you may have or that you can readily get at the grocery store. Or the corner store. Or wherever is closest.

You mix together the ingredients and then knead it until it’s smooth (I let my stand mixer handle the kneading). Then you wrap it up and let it sit and rest a bit. Next, you roll it. You can use the pasta attachments for this, but I just do it by hand because it’s easy. And simple. And fast. Working with one-quarter of the dough at a time, I use my trusty wooden rolling pin to get the dough super thin and then I run it through the pasta cutter. Easy as can be. But don’t worry if you don’t have a pasta cutter – you can also cut it by hand (use a pizza cutter for super easy cutting!).

All this work (really, it’s not a lot of work) has a big and worthy payoff. The pasta itself.

Nothing compares to fresh pasta like this. It’s truly a revelation. This Homemade Egg Pasta is rich, silky and so full of flavor that it really barely needs to be dressed. A drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of parmesan, salt and pepper is heavenly. A toss with sauteed garlic and olive oil is inspired. Dotted with sweet roasted veggies is something to write home about. But the fresh, homemade pasta is a star itself — not just a supporting character to a flavorful sauce. You’ll see. Nothing in a box compares.

I really hope you try this. The recipe is adapted heavily from Vegetarian Pasta Cookbook by Sarah Maxwell — one of the cookbooks I read on my bedroom floor as a teenager. And it’s even better than I ever imagined — and so much easier than I expected.

Come on, now. You can do this.

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These might look a lot like roasted pumpkin seeds. But they aren’t. They’re actually from a spaghetti squash. And they’re just as delicious.

Ok. Are you ready for this? This might blow your mind a little … You can roast seeds from any squash for a delicious snack. Seriously. Squash seeds are edible and can be roasted to use as a garnish or eaten as a snack. So when you crack open a butternut squash or a spaghetti squash or an acorn squash or whatever, save those seeds. But just as a note — this works best with meatier seeds (sorry summer squash!).

So, how did I discover this? Well, it all started when I was roasting a spaghetti squash last week. When I cut it open, I noticed how much the seeds reminded me of pumpkin seeds. And a little spark of an idea was born. Once the squash was in the oven, I dashed off to consult with my friend, Dr. Google. He’s a helpful one, that Google. Well, turns out that seeds from any squash can be eaten. Then it dawned on me: No more wasting seeds in this house! Also, why wait for pumpkin carving to roast seeds when I can roast up all the seeds from all the squashes we eat?

I’m excited. And I wonder why I never noticed the resemblance between different squash seeds before. Have you?

Yes, this is easy — but it does take a little while. These squash seeds are tossed with a little oil and some Five Spice Seasoning. And salt too. You can’t forget the salt. Then they are slow roasted to crispy perfection. Yum.

Roasted Five Spice Squash Seeds
yields depend on squash

seeds from 1 squash (such as spaghetti squash or butternut squash)
1 tsp  extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp Five Spice Seasoning
kosher salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line a baking sheet with nonstick aluminum foil.

Thoroughly wash the seeds, removing any pulp. Then dry on paper towel. Toss seeds with olive oil and seasonings. Spread out on the foil.

Roast the seeds in the oven for 1 – 1 1/4 hours, until lightly golden, stirring every 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

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So. I’ve had a couple of butternut squashes in my fridge. They’ve been taunting me. Staring me down. Begging me to do something, anything with them. But I was nervous. It’s been years since I handled and cooked squashes in their whole form. Typically, I take the easy way out and buy squash that’s already been peeled and cubed. But I couldn’t let the squash go to waste. I had to overcome my nerves and just use it.

Turns out, working with butternut squash is way easier than I remember. Since I ultimately wanted cubed squash, I cut the ends of the squash off to make them flat — easier to work with the squash that way. Then I used a regular ol’ vegetable peeler to peel the skin (which wasn’t as tough or thick as I expected), taking care to peel away until I saw orange flesh. Finally, I sliced the squash in half length-wise, removed the seeds and stringy things and sliced the squash into 1/4-inch slices. I used what I needed immediately, dicing it,  and stored the rest in an airtight container in the fridge.

Honestly, working with a whole squash wasn’t any harder or more time consuming than cutting down the big chunks of butternut squash into a quarter-inch dice. And it’s way more cost effective. Guess what I will be buying in the future? Yep … no shortcuts needed on this one.

I’ve been roasting most of the squash and using it in different dishes. When you roast butternut squash, it becomes soft and sweet — a natural, light caramelization that’s just awesome. For this, I tossed the squash with a bit of olive oil spray, cinnamon, paprika and salt (a killer combination on orange veggies), which gives it a rich savory sweetness once it’s been roasted for about 25 minutes.

One of my favorite things to do with this roasted squash is to sprinkle it onto salad. It’s amazing, and a little unexpected. This salad combines the sweet, soft bits of squash with sweet-tart dried cranberries and warm, meaty toasted walnuts. It’s served on a bed of romaine. And one of my favorite things about it? It didn’t take more than 30 minutes to make. Okay. maybe 40 minutes, if you haven’t already peeled and sliced your squash.

It’s a great fall salad for lunch or a light dinner. Who doesn’t love a great salad?

What shortcuts do you take in cooking? Dish in the comments.

Butternut Squash, Toasted Walnut and Dried Cranberry Salad
serves 4

2 cups diced fresh butternut squash (1/4-inch dice)
olive oil spray
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground sweet paprika
kosher salt, to taste
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
8 cups washed and torn romaine lettuce
1/2 cup dried cranberries
dressing of your choice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with nonstick aluminum foil. Spread the butternut squash over the baking sheet. Spray with olive oil spray. Sprinkle with the cinnamon, paprika and salt. Stir and toss gently to disperse the seasonings throughout.

Bake for 22-25 minutes, stirring once, until the butternut squash is golden brown and tender.

Meanwhile, in a small warmed skillet set over medium heat, toast the walnuts for 1-2 minutes, until warmed and slightly browned. Remove from heat.

Arrange two cups of lettuce on each of four plates. Top with 1/4 of the butternut squash, toasted walnuts and dried cranberries. Drizzle with dressing, as desired.

Serve immediately.

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When you mention figs, many people hesitate to answer. There’s this pause, a long trying-to-find-the-most-non-offensive-thing-to-say pause. And then, there’s an “Eh … ”

Except most often, when you press those same hesitant people, they admit that their exposure to figs has been limited to a certain cookie and other baked goods. They haven’t experienced a delicate fresh fig, and they don’t know what a fig really tastes like.

So, I want to ask you all: Do you like figs? Have you had fresh ones?

Honestly, I fell into the hesitant category of people until a few years ago when I tasted fresh figs at an event held at Tom Colicchio’s Craftbar. A black mission fig was served with a piece of Olive Oil Cake and Rosemary Ice Cream … and though I was skeptical at first bite, I quickly discovered that I loved figs.

What are figs? Figs, pictured above, are a teardrop-shaped fruit with a smooth, edible skin, sweet flesh and tiny seeds in the middle. They can be eaten raw or used in fig recipes like fig jam, fig tarts and fig bars. I’ve also had figs on kabobs with Halloumi cheese – delish.

Figs are also rather good for you. According to the California Fig Advisory Board, figs are high in dietary fiber and have a good amount of calcium, iron and potassium too. They’re a total eat-without-guilt food.

The California Fig Advisory Board recently sent me a generous package of California Fresh Black Mission (top), Sierra (middle), and Brown Turkey (bottom) figs to experiment with in my kitchen.. Since this was the first time I used figs in my home cooking, I decided to ease in with a really simple fig recipe that I’ve been eying in a cookbook for years. This recipe with figs comes from Curtis Stone’s Cooking with Curtis.

Although the cookbook suggest this as an appetizer, it also makes a really easy lunch. It was the perfect re-introduction to figs. The salty prosciutto, sweet figs and sweet-tart balsamic with the crunchy grissini have all the right contrasting flavors and textures. It was amazing … and perfect for a quiet lunch while the kids were at school.

Prosciutto with Figs and Balsamic Vinegar
serves 1
Adapted very slightly from Curtis Stone’s Cooking with Curtis cookbook

4 thin slices prosciutto
1-2 figs, quartered
balsamic glaze
grissini (breadsticks)

Drape the prosciutto on a small luncheon plate. Place the quartered figs on and around the plate. Drizzle with balsamic glaze. Serve with grissini.

Note: Balsamic glaze is a reduced balsamic vinegar that becomes syrupy. It can be purchased in some specialty food stores. Or you can make it at home by reducing balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan set over medium heat.

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Disclosure: The California Fig Advisory Board provided me with figs for cooking and experimenting with. However, I wasn’t required to write about them and all opinions expressed are my own. I was not otherwise compensated for this post.

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Every time I look at this sandwich, my mind goes blank and I start to salivate a little. It’s not just a BLT — it’s something to behold: creamy, crispy, salty, sweet and juicy. The mind blankness makes it hard to write … let alone come up with some entertaining introduction. So, let’s pretend that I already gave you some well-written lead in. Please?

Ok. So, this sandwich … I’ve been lovingly calling it the BLAT, which stands for Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato Sandwich. It’s amazing. Creamy avocado, sweet heirloom tomatoes, salty bacon and crisp lettuce – like a bite of heaven.

BLT sandwiches became a minor obsession of mine in early August. As soon the first heirloom tomatoes appeared, visions of colorful slices in bacon-loaded sandwiches danced in my head. I couldn’t wait to have one. This whole thing came as a surprise though since I have never been a big BLT fan. I mean, it’s just lettuce, tomato and bacon, right? That’s what I have always thought.

I was wrong. So wrong. A BLT sandwich can be something amazing, if you do it right. And by that, I mean that it’s all in the ingredients.

You have to start with good bread. I like a nice semolina bread with a soft crumb and a not-to-hard crust. This loaf that I came from the bakery of my local grocery store and was very good — similar to my favorite semolina loaf that I buy at the farmers market whenever I can. But whatever bread you love works. Perhaps a few slices of a fab multigrain loaf?

Next to the bread, the most important part of a BLT is the bacon (of course!). I like my BLT bacon to be thick, meaty and really flavorful. It can’t be salt-overload. It needs to have subtle whispers of layered flavor. As for cooking method? Use whatever method you prefer … but I totally baked my bacon to avoid the mess.

Then there is the other fillings. Don’t let up on the quality now. The better your ingredients, the better your sandwich. I swear. For this one, I used heirloom tomatoes, avocado and really good, fresh green leaf lettuce. Because I added avocado, I skipped the mayo. The avocado adds the right amount of creaminess to the sandwich on its own.

Once you have all that, you only need to put it together and enjoy. How could you not?

Do you like BLTs? What are the most important components?

Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato Sandwiches
serves 4

8 slices great bread (such as semolina bread from a bakery)
1 Hass avocado, pitted, peeled and sliced
1 heirloom tomato, sliced
4 leaves green leaf lettuce
1 lb really good bacon, prepared

Lay out four slices of the bread on a cutting board. Top each with 1/4 of the avocado slices. Follow with tomato slices, lettuce and finally bacon. Enjoy immediately.

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When my power went out on Sunday and I couldn’t work on Monday and Tuesday, it wasn’t a restful few days vacation. There was the stress of having no power and no running water, the worry about the kids safety and health and the extreme concern over my job and freelance writing. It was unsettling, to say the least.

And yesterday and today? It’s been a relief to be back to work and back on track … but there is still so much stress. My week’s worth of work has been condensed into a mere three days. And the recipe development work that was due this week? Hard to do when the grocery store is still restocking after losing power themselves. Tomorrow will be a whirlwind of finishing recipes, processing photos and writing. Oh, the writing I have to do still. It’ll be something.

So tonight’s post? We’re keeping it simple. I’ve been meaning to talk a little about my new favorite way of making bacon: in the oven. What I love about it is that I can minimize the mess (no splatter on the stove! Easy grease disposal!).

You start with good bacon. This is Nodine’s Apple Smoked Bacon, which I totally teased you with yesterday. I discovered this bacon a few years back when I first got interested in eating locally. It’s meaty and filled with a lovely sweet smokiness — perfect for a great brunch or making a killer sandwich. We’re huge fans, and I love buying it even more because it’s made here in Connecticut in the town where I first worked as a newspaper reporter post-college.

But if thick bacon isn’t your thing (and it’s not always mine), don’t worry. These directions for baking bacon can be used for both thick and thin styles.

How to Bake Bacon with Minimal Mess

NOTE: This technique works equally well with thin- and thick-cut bacon. Cooking time for thick-cut bacon is toward the longer end of the 15-20 minutes total.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. You’ll want the foil edges to trail up the sides of the pan. Top this with a wire mesh cooling rack.

Place the bacon on the cooling rack close together without overlapping. This allows you to maximize how much bacon you cook.

Bake the bacon for 10 minutes. Using tongs, carefully flip every piece of bacon. Return to the oven and bake for 5-10 minutes until cooked through and browned. Be careful, those last 5 minutes are critical. The bacon goes from brown and limp to crispy to burnt really fast, so you need to keep an eye on it.

Remove from the oven and transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate.

Enjoy.

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There comes a point in every season where it almost feels like you just want to get on with it. It’s not that I dislike summer (or fall or winter or spring). Not at all. But when we start to hit transition, I get a little antsy.

As I sit here in my living room, feeling the chill of nighttime spill in the open windows, I know that’s where we are now. It’s literal. It’s figurative. It’s happening. And I am ready for that thing that comes next — the whole fall/school/back to seriousness thing.

In case you missed it the 5 billion times I have mentioned it, it’s also the last week of summer vacation for the kids … we’re moving from our summer anything-goes schedule to our rigid school year schedule. Of course that means that my nights of leisurely dinner making are O-V-E-R too.

So it made sense that today was the day that I finally started prepping some food for the school year. Well, besides the frozen Swiss Chard and Kielbasa Pasta that I tucked in the freezer at the beginning of summer.

Today’s task? Freezing corn. We all love corn and eat it all year, but nothing compares to the amazing sweetness of fresh corn in the summertime. That’s why freezing it is awesome. When the dead of winter hits all I need to do is pull out a bag of fresh corn and it will be, if only for a minute, summer again.

How awesome is that?

How to Freeze Corn

You’ll want to prepare the corn for cooking by peeling it. I like to toss my peels into the compost pile. These directions come from my cousin, a farmer. She knows her stuff.

Step 1: Blanch the Corn

There are two ways to blanch the corn. You can either steam the corn for 8 minutes or boil it for 4 minutes. My cousin suggests doing this is small batches of three to four ears, but I typically do eight ears at a time

Step 2: Cool the Corn

You will need to handle the corn in step three. The most efficient way to do this is to plunge the corn into a bowl of ice water and let it sit there for a few minutes. Of course, you could also wait for it to cool down enough to handle … but that takes a lot longer.

Step 3: Cut the Corn from the Cob

If you have a corn zipper, this is the time to break it out. Don’t worry if you don’t though. I use a knife to cut down the ear of corn, removing the kernels. It’s very fulfilling. Serious. Be sure to keep the knife as close to the cob as you can when cutting.

Step 4: Freeze the Corn

Transfer the kernels to a freezer bag, seal and freeze until ready to use. This is going to be a great treat in late January when I start to really hate winter.

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More Freezing Food How-Tos:

- How to Freeze Pancakes

- How to Freeze Fresh Strawberries

- How to Freeze Fresh Blueberries

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