Savory Bread Pudding, a la Kingsolver/Madison

I just finished reading a fantastic book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. And true to the "Boston Sunday Globe" quote on the second edition cover, this book did change my life.
Not saying that to be cliche or corny, but in reflection of the fact that the book is truly eye-opening, and inspiring, regarding that small choices by everyone help to shape who we are, our health, the economy, and the world's health.
I emphatically recommend this book, for all the information about food, gardens, farms and the agriculture/food economy, fun recipes, refreshing ideas about life philosophies, and great stories Kinsolver shares about her and her family member's life.

I tried one of the first recipes from the book ( all the recipes can be found online, too:
www.AnimalVegetableMiracle.com

So this was the recipe for "Asparagus and Morel Bread Pudding"
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/BREAD%20PUDDING.pdf
I think bread puddings are exciting, so tried this one, substituting some other things that *were* in season (in line with what the book talks about!) and substituted freshly steamed green beans for the asparagus, and regular brown mushrooms for the morels, and that turned out great! (I only used about 1/2 as much cheese though, I think it'd be a tad too cheesy with the 3 cups the recipe called for. Good recipe to play with, substituting different veggies for the season!

Squash Soup

A muscat squash (left) and pumpkin

Squash is in season!!!

I love making squash soup, and I love even more getting to make a great meal out of the squash, and then getting the bonus of roasting the seeds into a delicious snack.

After halving the squash, I scoop out the seeds--for the seeds I make a general purpose seasoning salt including roughly 1/3 salt, then the rest some unmeasured proportion (in roughly decreasing quantities) of onion powder, garlic powder, paprika (some mild some spicy), ground thyme, ground oregano or any other herb I have handy, celery salt, and maybe some pepper.
I then sprinkle the seasoning salt over the seeds, and bake in the oven along with the squash @ about 350-400F (170-190C)--the seeds finish a lot sooner for a pre-dinner snack!
a big squash like this butternut often takes about 1.5 hours in the oven-- I just keep baking it till it's the right scoopable softness, then put that in a big pot, with some boullion/broth, maybe add some thyme, pepper, (a pinch of nutmeg seems traditional in this type of soup), use my nifty immersion blender to combine, and bring up the volume to the right texture with milk+cream, then check that there's enough salt-balance coming from the boullion, otherwise to adjust that at the end.
Another winter squash...type=?

Butternut squash halves

"Veggie dogs" in a blanket :-)

I just wanted to share one of my favorite from-scratch 'comfort foods' of a sort-- a variation of "pigs in a blanket", where I make a soft whole-wheat-flour dough (using some olive oil in the dough to make a softer type of roll), and then after cutting the triangles, stuffing them with a segment of veggie-dog, various vegetables (sauteed onions and bell pepper, steamed broccoli, maybe green beans, or any other that fits the day's fancy), and a small stick of a medium-sharp cheese (here, I like to use Gruyere, Sbrinz, or a sharp Emmenteller best). Bake for about 20 minutes and that's a fun dinner...

Baba ganoush Pizza

This ended up being a tasty random thing to do-- a thin layer of strong tomato-pizza-sauce, then dollops of a freshly made batch of baba ganoush from a batch of eggplants I grilled that afternoon. Then load up the favorite toppings-- and it ended up being one of my favorite pizzas I've made yet! :-)

Sundried Tomato, Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli

A tasty way I like to do ravioli is to puree some sundried tomatos to use in the pasta dough for extra flavor. Then the filling I did about half and half using sauteed and seasoned spinach, and ricotta cheese--turned out really tasty. I still need to find the ideal perfect sauce to go with that dish. With the ravioli so packed with flavors, I'd like to have a light-flavored sauce, such as just a very lightly-seasoned whitesauce.... but still not convinced on that pairing.

In any case, with quite a bit of work, it made for a fun ravioli dinner!