Stuffed Acorn Squash w/ Quinoa, Dried Fruit and Nuts

If you have been reading this blog from time to time, you know I'm no vegetarian. But sometimes a meatless meal is a nice change from ham, sausage, pork chops... Anyway, I came up with this recipe as a vegan entree for festive holiday meals. Quinoa is a superfood of sorts in that it has a very high amount of complete protein, so it's all you need. This recipe does have that 1970s Rodale Cookbook feel, but it's a great winter dish anyway. Just don't serve it with steamed brown bread.

Ingredients: 2 acorn squash, 1/2 cup quinoa, 1/4 cup dried fruit (apricots, cranberries, currants, cherries are all good), 1 diced onion, pinch of sage, pinch of thyme, cinnamon stick, 1/4 cup chopped pecans, 2-3 tbsp. shredded unsweetened coconut.

• Halve each squash and scoop out the seeds (The truly frugal will roast those for later snacking. I will not).
• Slice just a little bit off the bottom of each half to make a flat surface
• Roast open side down at 375 for about 45 minutes or until soft but still structurally sound
• In a rice cooker, combine quinoa, fruit, onion, herbs, cinnamon and 1 cup vegetable stock or lightly salted water (you can of course make it on the stovetop, but maybe w/ more water)
• Scoop out 1-2 tsp. of squash flesh and stir into the quinoa pilaf (this helps it hold together)
• Sprinkle the coconut and pecans - you can spray a little oil to make it stick, and press the nuts in a little.
• Bake at 375 for 30 minutes
  

Serves 4

Notes: The pre-roasting of the squash and the cooking of the quinoa pilaf can be done a day or two ahead. This is also good with curry powder. The natural sweetness of the squash and fruits may make you want to go all out and make this a sweeter dish. I haven't tried, but I will warn you that unsulphered apricots can get a little bitter and when cooked this way, so taste the pilaf before you stuff.

Frugal Factor: Hard to estimate on this because most of the ingredients are pantry items I usually buy a lot of. The squash were $3 for 2 at the discount produce; at $4/lb bulk, the quinoa would be $0.70, everything else was maybe $1.50. That's $1.30/serving.

Venison and Butternut Squash Stew with Dried Cherries over Quinoa

I haven't posted here for a while as I have been eating through the last few months of frozen food to make room for the 1/2 hog that I am splitting with my uncle (so that's 1/4 hog... good thing Marquita mailed us BBQ sauce for a Christmas present). So as a heritage hog somewhere in Lancaster County whiles away his last free-ranging days (perhaps occasionally looking over his shoulder) I'm back with some more recipes.

Speaking of free-range, my uncle also recently brought over a few pounds of venison from his wife's nephew in Virginia. Some people may blanch at eating Bambi's mother, but hunted meat is probably the most humane solution to "the omnivore's dilemma." I won't subject you to further ranting on the subject (that's Ted Nugent's job) but I will share an easy slow-cooker recipe.

The ingredients, if not the preparation, are based on a wonderful meal I had in New Orleans in November of 2004. My wife and I got tip from a staffer at Tipitina's to go up the street to this Dick & Jenny's. We arrived at the tucked away clapboard restaurant just as they were opening. Jenny led us to a pine table with mismatched wrought-iron chairs. Dick was in the kitchen. They had a few New Orleans-themed dishes on the menu but it was a cold night and I ordered the special, a seared venison loin over acorn squash with a cherry wine reduction.

Our meal arrived on mismatched plates with a cruet of wine, and I was so engrossed in my meal's surprising melding of flavors that I did not notice the crowd forming in the waiting area, a shed/indoor patio packed with folks on lawn chairs drinking wine and having a good time. Apparently Dick and Jenny's was a poorly-kept secret among the locals and they didn't take reservations, so we were lucky to get there early. Dick and Jenny apparently sold the place soon after the flood. Some say the magic is lost. (For all you Philadelphians, think Django).

Recipe: Venison and Winter Squash Stew over Quinoa (six servings)

Long hours in the slow cooker make the venison fork tender and the squash nearly falls apart. That, along with the dried cherries and spices, makes the dish reminiscent of a Moroccan tagine, so I served it over quinoa, a super-healthful whole grain that cooks up very similar to cous cous and stands up to a heavy sauce better to boot. Those without a slow cooker can instead use a dutch oven or a deep skillet with a tight-fitting lid. Just put it in the oven at 225 and check it a few times and add some water if needed. Even more than other stews, this tastes better the next day. In fact, I got a late start so the meat in mine was still a little tough at bed time Sat. night. I was too tired to let it cool long enough to put it in the fridge, so I just left it in the pantry overnight (this being winter, my unheated shed pantry was 34 degrees).

Ingredients: 1 1/2 lbs. venison roast, 1 butternut squash, 1 red onion, 1 apple, 1/4 lbs. raw sage breakfast sausage; 1/4 cup dried cherries, 1/2 cup port; a 2" cinnamon stick, 2 tsp. dried thyme, 1 tsp ground allspice, ; 1/2 tsp paprika, 1 tsp. salt.
1 1/2 cups quinoa, cooked with dried fruits (cook like rice - use 1:1 ratio of quinoa to water on stovetop, 1:3/4 in a rice cooker)

• Peel squash, cut in half, scrape out seeds and slice into pieces about a half inch thick and one inch long and toss in the crock.
• Slice onion coarsely and toss that in too, along with the cherries, port and seasonings and toss .
• Cube the venison and place on top of the vegetables. Break up the sausage and put it on top
• Chop venison into 1" pieces and put it on top of the squash (don't stir it in).
• Break up the sausage and crumble over the venison and. Cut the apple in half and put both halves on top, skin up.
• Cook for 6 hours on low, 2 hours on your slow cooker's highest no-stir setting (the long, slow heat cooks the meat, while the squash requires higher heat). When done, the squash should be almost falling apart and the meat fork-tender
• Salt to taste and serve over cous cous or quinoa. When cooking either one, toss in a few more dried cherries for added yumminess.

Notes and Substitutions:

• If nobody has hunted you some venison lately, you have two choices. You can spend a little extra to buy some from a tempermental man with antelope blood on his apron or you can use stewing beef or lamb from the store. In either case, if the meat you buy has fat, you may want to then omit the sausage - it's needed to provide to baste the venison, which is quite lean from running around the forest, not often a problem with farm-raised meat. Add some more of the herbs and spices to compensate for those in the sausage though.
• If you don't have any port, any light-bodied red wine (like pinot noir or Beaujolais) will work with a tsp. of sugar. You could even use Manischewitz (without the added sugar!).
  
• Dried cherries are hard to find and rather pricey, but their deep flavor and tart nature are worth it. However, you could substitute other dried fruits such as prunes, currants and raisins.
• Many slow-cooker recipes ask you to brown the meat and sometimes saute the veggies before placing in the slow cooker. However, simply keeping the meat on top of the vegetables in the crock serves much the same purpose without dirtying another pot.
• By the way, although it would be a very different dinner, a can of chick peas (liquid and all) could actually substitute for the meat and make this vegetarian.
  

Frugal Factor: The venison was free for me, but supermarket chuck roast is running $3.29/lbs at the right now so let's say $5 (I have no idea what Sonny's charging). The squash could have been got cheaper but it was $2 at the co-op where I also spent $5 on a bag of cherries and used about 1/4 of the bag, so that's $1.25. Everything else I already had, but I would overestimate the cost at $2.50 for the apple, onion, port, quinoa and spices. At six servings, that's $1.79/serving (or $0.96 with the free meat).

Pumpkin Seed-Crusted Goujons of Chilean Hake w/ Butternut Squash, Leek and Turnip Saute

One reason I started freezing some meals in quantity was because other dinners are not even good reheated at lunch the next day. Fish, particularly fried fish, is one of those. Generally awful reheated, plus your coworkers will hate you for stinking up the kitchen. After consuming a lot of heavy stews lately, I was really needing to cook and eat something a bit more delicate.

I had a butternut squash that My Uncle and his wife grew in their community garden plot at the Schuylkill Center. I consulted the Silver Spoon cookbook, which has a recipe for every possible animal and vegetable. There, I found a recipe for pumpkin, leek and turnip w/ thyme and sesame seeds sauteed in olive oil. Since a butternut squash is pretty much the same thing as a pumpkin, I gave it a go. I didn't follow the recipe though - that book isn't long on detail. They wanted you to roast sliced squash in a foil packet. I gave it 90 minutes in the crock pot instead, and followed the recipe from there. I also saw a recipe for some kind of fish fried with crusted almonds. I had some kind of fish but I did not have almonds. I did have some tamari-flavored pumpkin seeds a bit past their prime, which actually worked with the theme better anyway.

I served it all with some fresh spinach salad.

Butternut Squash, Leek and Turnip Saute (serves 6, so I am serving it again tomorrow)

1 Squash, 1 turnip, 1 leek, olive oil, fresh sprigs of thyme, some sesame seed (optional)

• Peel Squash, cut in half, scoop out the junk and slice 1/4 inch thick.
• Toss squash with tsp olive oil, the leaves of one sprig of thyme and some salt.
• Precook squash in one of the following ways: wrap in foil packet and roast in oven at 350 for 30 minutes, place in slow cooker on high for 90 minutes or steam until just softened.
• Julienne turnip (cut into matchsticks)
• Slice white part of leek from the green part. Discard green part. Separate layers, wash them a lot, and slice thinly.
• Heat 2 tbs olive oil in hot frying pan on high heat. Toss in veggies. Allow to brown just a bit underneath and then toss a few times and cook until the turnips retain just a bit of crunch.

Pumpkin Seed-Crusted Goujons of Chilean Hake (serves 2)

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but there is a lot about cuisine, especially seafood, in which a name can make a $5 meal into a $20 entree. Such it is with my title of this dish. Hake is a fish I had to look up when I saw it in Silver Spoon. Turns out it is what people in England call the fish we call whiting (they have their own fish called whiting). Whiting is a dirt-cheap fish caught off the coast of Chile, sold frozen and filleted, $6 or less for a 2# bag.

1/2 pound hake/whiting filet (or other white-fleshed fishie), 1/4 cup soy sauce (preferably thick style, sold in Asian stores but nearly impossible to ID as such), 1/2 cup hulled pumpkin seed snacks (or almonds. pistachios might work too).

• If filet has skin on the bottom, take it off or leave it on. Up to you. I took it off, somewhat mangling the delicate filet in the process. That's how the filets became goujons, which is like a chicken finger, only with fish. In fact, some of them became nuggets. It's all good. So slice your fish into goujons if you haven't mangled it into them already.
• Coat fish with soy sauce, put on a plate
• Crush the seeds to a course texture (pieces smaller than rice). I used a mortar and pestle, but a small food processor or blender is just as good. You can use a chef's knife if you've got all day to chop.
• Coat fish in the crushed seeds, pressing firmly to adhere.
• In a non-stick pan, add oil to a depth of just under 1/4 inch and heat to almost smoking (peanut oil is best because it is great with high heat. Apparently grapeseed is too, but I'm too frugal to buy it).
• Carefully transfer fish to pan and fry for 2 minutes. Flip, cook for 2 more minutes. Remove fish to paper towel to absorb excess oil. Serve.

Frugal Factor: The fish (2 servings) was $5 for a 2# bag w/ 4 fillets. I used only one fillet. The pumpkin seeds were in my pantry for a year, but roasted shelled ones are sold for $2.29 for a 10oz bag. I used 1/2 cup (4 oz), so that's $0.92 (plus I ate some, so $1). Add .25 for the oil and soy sauce I guess. Price per portion: $1.25

Leeks are sold three to a bunch for $3. I used 1 (the rest will be used later). Turnips are $1/pound and the one I used was 1/3 pound. The squash was a gift but would have cost $2. This made 6 portions, at $0.55/portion.

The bag of prewashed baby spinach was $3.30 and I used about 1/3. $1.10/portion.

Total: $2.90/portion.