My Tasty Space

As I’ve mentioned a time or three before, I LOVE Fall squash season!  There’s just so many varieties of squash and ways to cook them, and they’re all SO YUMMY!

I recently took advantage of some great sales on Delicata squash, which some call the sweet potato squash.  They’re small, delicious and easy to handle and cook quickly.  I’d also bought a bushel of apples (York) and the two just sort of came together.

I began with 4 Delicata squash and approximately 4-5 apples, some butter.

• 4 Delicata squash
• 4-5 apples – peeled, cored and chopped
• 2 Tbs. flour
• 2 Tbs. butter, melted
• 2 Tbs. brown sugar

1. Begin by washing the outside of your squash. It has, afterall, been living in the ground for the last 5-6 months or so.  Once they’re washed, take the tip of a sharp knife and pierce the side of the squash.  CAREFULLY, split the squash lengthwise.
2. Use a spoon to scrape out the inside pulp and seeds. 
3. Poke holes into the flesh of the squash but try not to pierce all the way through to the outside.
4. In a separate bowl, the apples with the flour just to coat them.
5. 
   Sprinkle the brown sugar over the mixture, and then add the melted butter to the mix – toss again (gently). You should guard against unauthorized taste-testing – it can be hazardous to your dinner!
6. In a foil-lined baking dish, place the squash cut side up. Spoon the apples into each half of the squash and then sprinkle with cinnamon.
7. Bake at 350°F for 30-40 minutes or until you can easily sink your fork through the squash.
8. Enjoy!

 

*Note: The final photo does not do this delicious dish justice!  The beautiful squash melts into a gorgeous color, the apples actually crisp up – just fabulous!!!

This dish is perfect to make beforehand for the upcoming holidays.  You can do this the day before, then just keep them covered until the big day – just throw them back in the oven or microwave!

Gobble Gobble,

The holiday season conjures up many feelings - joy, nostalgia, sentiment, and the desire to carry on past traditions and create new ones.

Often times, holiday hosts will adorn their Thanksgiving tables with treasured family heirlooms like Great-Grandma’s gravy boat, Papa’s Silver Carving Platter, or China received as a wedding gift – each with its own precious memory. 

Yet, many hosts also want to infuse their own unique personality into their celebrations and look for creative ways to make guests feel just as warm and welcome as the celebration itself.

MyPunchbowl.com, the leader in start to finish party planning, offers FREE online Thanksgiving invitations that will immediately engage the recipient and generate such excitement and anticipation, they’ll think they can already smell the turkey roasting!   And remember, the etiquette pros always say to send invitations out a month in advance!

Here is just a small sample of the FREE online invitations for Thanksgiving:

I love the turkey one!  But they also have tons where you upload your OWN photo to include on the invitation. Being a photography LOVER, that’s a great feature.

Who wouldn’t love to receive a warm, welcoming online Thanksgiving invitation to join in the celebration?

A MyPunchbowl.com membership is absolutely free and offers a huge array of standard invitations templates and eCards for any celebration or occasion.  They have everything you need from online invitations to party supplies, personalized favors and much more.

And online invitations save times, money, the environment, and, let’s face it, your writing hand!!

And of course, because this IS a recipe blog, some recipes!  This first one isn’t going to wait for Thanksgiving Day, I’ll tell you!

Cinnamon Apple Muffins for Thanksgiving Day Breakfast

Muffin or cupcake liners
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ tsp. of baking powder

¾ cup of sugar

1.5 tsp. of baking powder

1 tsp. of ground cinnamon

½ of a cup of whole milk

1/3 of a cup of melted butter

1 egg

1 cup of peeled, cored and diced Granny Smith apples

1 cup of cinnamon chips

To make: stir the flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon together in a medium-sized bowl. Add the milk, butter, egg, apples and cinnamon chips next, stirring together until the mixture is smooth. Fill each muffin liner about 2/3 full, then bake in a 365 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Allow the muffins to cool for at least 5 minutes before serving them.

Non-Alcoholic Thanksgiving Cranberry Punch

2 Bottles of chilled cranberry juice
2 Containers of lemonade or orange juice concentrate
1 Bottle of chilled Sprite, Ginger Ale or seltzer water

Cranberry Pomegranate Thanksgiving Punch

2 bottles of cranberry pomegranate juice
1 container of orange juice concentrate
1 bottle of flavored seltzer water
Vodka, Grain Alcohol or Rum to taste
Garnish: slices of fresh fruit oranges, lemons and limes

What’s your favorite holiday tradition?

One lucky reader will receive a PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP UPGRADE!  All you do to enter is:

• Tell me your favorite holiday tradition.  Be sure to include your email address so I can contact you!
• If you’d like extra entries, tweet up this post. Use a seperate comment to let me know you’ve done it.
• Buzz me!  Visit my Food Buzz profile (click on that button up on the right corner) and view my recipes there. Buzz up the ones that you like :)
• Become a fan on Facebook, a follower on here, subscribe to my feed.  You know the deal :)  Just be sure to leave an entry for each thing that you do.
• ENTRIES THAT DO NOT INCLUDE EMAIL ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED.

Winners will be chosen by random.org on November 13th!

Hey, check meout! I’m on Foodie Mama’s front page with my winter squash article.  Go reaaaad it! :)

I'm famous now!

I am writing this  on all my blogs in order to reach a large audience.

As some of you may know, we are a homeschooling family of 3 kids. I was thinking that it would be a fun geography lesson for at least the 2 oldest ones if we could organize a holiday card and/or ornament exchange with people from around the world - or at least the ones that respond to my plea. :)

I figured what we'd do is, each day that we got a card and/or ornament from a new person, we'd research that area that day. It'd be a great way to "meet" some of my facebook/blogging buddies, as well as to introduce my kids to different areas of the country and world without TOO much hassle.

In return, we'd be happy to return a card and/or ornament to you as well!

If this is something you'd be able to do, please contact me via email (dawniemom at gmail.com) so we can work out details, addresses, etc. The more, the merrier!

Thanks,
Dawn :)

I know- I'm all Paula Dean now, right? I love Paula. I covet Paula. I want to make sweet, sweet pancakes with Paula.

ahem.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I haven't actually fallen off the face of the Earth. Just to West Virginia. I joke, I joke. Seriously, though, we did MOVE to West Virginia a few weeks ago, and before that, we spent a ridiculously huge amount of time and money hunting for a place to live in West Virginia. Why West Virginia? Because it's one of the only states that I mess up EVERY SINGLE TIME I TYPE IT.

Oh - and because hubby FINALLY got a job, and it happens to be in (can you guess?)


.......drumroll please.............

Maryland.

Ha! Almost had you there, didn't I?

Ok, so Maryland is more expensive to live in, so we're in WEST VIR GIN IA. There, I didn't screw it up that time. I know, I know - it's way easier to just type WV - but then the tens of thousands of NON-USA'er fans/followers/stalkers would have NO idea what WV is and would be all "wtf is WV?" so I suffer and type West Virignia. Crap. (see what I mean???)



In any case, it's FALL! I love Fall. I love the smells and sights of Fall. I especially love the foods of Fall. Squash & apples - apples & squash. Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, you'll see squash & apples for sale. Here in West VIR GIN IA, they have apple orchards and peach orchards seemingly on every corner (well - mostly). We visited a 1,000 acre farm this past weekend, and we were AMAZED at all that they had to offer. I swear, they grow every fruit possible. We picked our own raspberries - IN SEPTEMBER! We picked our own GRAPES! (We didn't like the grapes though - blech!) We did not, however, pick our own apples. For some odd reason, that wasn't an option. The website says their apple season starts next week
end, and so maybe then we'll go back and get our OWN apples.





I've NEVER had fresh raspberries that tasted this good, I literally ate them off the plant. Never! The ones I've bought in the market have always been too sour/bitter. These things - these little baby bundles of berry goodness - I could have just eaten them all - every single one!

We wound up picking 2 pints of berries - which they charge by the pound for, and wound up spending $3.47! In the market, we'd have spent about $10 for them!

Ok, so enough about the raspberries, I know. But still!


I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm back - I've already got a new post brewing in my head for a recipe celebrating Fall, too! I'll have that up soon. In the meantime,

I first made turkey pomodoro back in 2006, when I was following my low-carb diet. I even wrote in my original blog post that it was simply FANTASTIC. So I have no idea why I haven’t made it since! But when I was rifing through the freezer the other day, I found I had a package of turkey tenderloin and remembered this recipe – decided to revisit it.

Turkey Pomodoro

• 2 Tbs. whole-wheat flour
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• salt & pepper to taste
• 4 turkey tenderloins, sliced 1/2” thick
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 1/2 c. chicken broth
• 1/2 c. white wine
• 2 Tbs. lemon juice
• 1/2 c. tomatoes, chopped
• 2 Tbs. fresh chopped basil
• 1 Tbs. butter

As I was preparing this, now that I have to follow a low-fat diet, I knew I might have to make some adjustments to the original recipe – so for me, I only used 1 Tbs. of butter, and maybe only 1/2 Tbs. olive oil – but it still came out wonderfully.

In a large ziplock-type bag, I combined the 2 Tbs. of whole wheat flour, garlic powder (which I know I used more than 1 tsp!), salt & pepper. Then I took each slice of tenderloin and 1 by 1, dropped them into the bag, shook them gently and removed them to a plate. I did them 1 at a time because it allowed it to get lightly coated, and not caked on. As a result, there was just enough of the flour mixture to coat the turkey, and as you can see, they were not cakey.

In the skillet, I heated the olive oil and then placed the tenderloins. All you want to do is brown them, but not necessarily cook them all the way through.

Once they’re browned on both sides, remove them to a plate and cover them with foil.

Now you’ll add the chicken broth and wine to the pan, deglazing with a whisk. Add the tomatoes, basil & lemon juice to the broth. Bring to a simmer and reduce a bit. When the sauce is almost done (the tomatoes are soft), add the butter and mix into the sauce. The butter serves to slightly thicken the mix, so it’s important not to skip this step in order to lower the fat content.

Place the cutlets back in and allow them to warm completely. Serve with the sauce on top.

I serve mine atop some angel hair pasta, and finish it off with some freshly grated parmesan, and it was just F A B U L O U S! Seriously.

To be honest, I have no idea what the nutritional info is on this, as I made it 2 weeks ago and didn’t run it through any program to check. I will say, though, that I didn’t have any stomach problems afterward, and that’s all that matters to me LOL

Also, this could easily be done with chicken or pork. In fact, my family all thought it was pork LOL

Enjoy!

Start here with your content. Replace this paragraph, and everything down to AND INCLUDING the word: STOP. DO NOT REMOVE OR CHANGE THE CODE BEYOND THE WORD STOP BELOW! This has been the most requested theme, so I hope we have a record turnout. Please put up a post with your favorite recipe, or if you don't have the recipe, a photo of your favorite dish and a description. Here's a sample post I did for you: http://www.mcklinkyblog.com/2009/07/mcklinky-blog-hop-for-july-21-2009.html Also, be sure to submit your recipe here too: http://www.mcklinky.com/recipes.asp! I WILL CREATE A MckLinky RECIPE BOOK, AND MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO ALL BLOG HOPPERS FOR FREE! ...STOP