Kabocha Squash Cinnamon Rolls

I did a lot this week. 

I finished a book (while trying to ignore my messy apartment).

I officially switched from working at a winery (and occasionally a food truck) to working at a pasta restaurant. Glamour shots from my ride back from work below.

Last night, I made myself go out after work to shake out some worries and loosen up. I danced so much that my neck, shoulders, knees, and hamstrings all ached this morning. 

So I made cinnamon rolls and used up the last bit of squash in the fridge. 

This has happened before, if any of you remember this post from a while back. There's a definite correlation between how frequently I go dancing and how frequently I make cinnamon rolls. In any case, this time I remembered to take pictures during the actual mixing and rolling process. 

Hello, Pot. 

We start with the squash. In case you aren't familiar with Kabocha, here's a handy guide. I find the sweeter, orange kabocha the absolute best squash to puree because its flesh seems to have very few strings. 

Since we're making cinnamon rolls, I don't care how much butter goes into the greasing of the squash for the roasting. Not that I usually care how much butter I consume. That happens to be a weakness of mine.

Clean up the apartment while the squash is roasting. 

Gorgeously roasted, time to sieve it!

This is what happens when you mash roasted Kabocha through a fine sieve. How cool is that??

Okay. Squash sieved. Now the dough. 

I'm working from this recipe from Joy the Baker, and this one from the Sprouted Kitchen. JTB for the basic roll recipe, and SK for adjusted moisture amounts. 

First up, milk, butter, and sugar: heat on the stove until warm and sugar is dissolved.

Then yeast. 

Is that the milky way? No? Are you sure?

Then flour. (Wait - I need to talk about this flour.) 

I am so excited about this. For months I've been mixing store-bought all-purpose flour with the rougher, grainier soft and hard red wheat flours from Longspell Point Farms. BUT, now I've got my hands on their fine, lovely, red wheat pastry flour. I love buying local. 

Now squash! In!

And a little more flour! Possibly I didn't follow directions to the letter, but I needed a little more than four cups to get my dough to Joy's consistency in her recipe. This could also be due to the flour's lower water-retension capacity.

Find a warm spot... hmmm, this'll do. Now wait an hour. 

After an hour, it didn't really look too risen, but that's okay. I forged ahead anyway and mixed in the rest of the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Onto a surface, and knead, knead, knead!

Smack and roll flat, 

 butter up, 

and sugar that dough.

(1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg)

Now roll!

And slice and place. Nobody slices in perfect rounds, don't worry.

If you want perfectly round rolls, I suggest putting individual slices in the cups of muffin tins. 

There's butter, brown sugar, and honey in the bottoms of these pans, by the way.

A sprinkle of chopped walnuts, and they're ready for some heat.

In the oven at 375F for 20ish minutes. 

Ta-daaaaa! 

Enjoy, folks. Have a piping hot roll, wrap up, go out, visit a vineyard, birdwatch, be merry.

Let's Talk About Stock

Well, it's here. Winter. Halloween was a perfect Fall day: all hard, bright sunlight and yellow leaves and purple shadows. And I didn't even have my camera. 

Now, the second of November, it's cold and rainy and the breeze is gusting from gentle to frantic every fifteen minutes. We are in the final season, and it's time to pare down, catch up on paperwork, and think about peace and quiet and this incredible view.

Or, you know, go dancing. 

Balkan style.

Occasionally everyone needs a good shake-up to jitter and jangle the cold-weather blues out of your bones. Sure, we'll be cozy and hibernating sometimes, but that's no reason to stop moving completely; you'll atrophy. 

Thanks to Oro! Orkestra (once again) and Winehardt (making their debut on this blog) for providing me an appropriate environment to throw my limbs everywhere, spin around in circles, and dance with complete strangers while getting a headache from smiling too much.

So, the stock talk. 

Remember Chicken Sofrito? Well, the inedible leftover bits have been in my freezer, just waiting for their moment. Never throw out the bones until they've given up every last molecule of flavour they possess. 

Chicken bits.*

*In the years since I originally posted this, I've started tossing these leftover chicken bits with cooking oil and roasting them at 400 for 20 - 30 minutes, stirring/flipping them halfway, just until they brown evenly. THEN they go in the stewpot.*

You can use this broth to make lots of things. If you're braising or stewing or making soup (souping?), this liquid is so much better to use than plain water. And a great thing about it is that you can personalize it. 

Below: juniper berries, salt, fennel seeds, coriander, peppercorns, mustard seeds. This is my preference. If you want, you could throw in chicken, onions, and salt and have done with it. However, I like a little spice. 

What flavours do you like? Pepper? Basil? Parsley? You can use those if you like them. I like fennel, and onion, and bay leaves. 

These are actually the leftovers of the veggies I used in the sofrito, frozen as well. It's good to add in a couple fresh veggies though, in case the frozen ones are just bits and pieces. 

Throw everything in the pot. 

Add water to cover.

Put this on the burner at medium heat, covered with the lid. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to a gentle simmer. This should ideally stay on the heat for three hours at least.

 If you have a slow cooker, this is a perfect recipe to throw together and leave on the counter all day on low heat. 

After simmering is done, and the broth tastes good to you (that's important!), strain the liquid using a  large colander and then a fine sieve, if you don't like particulates in your stock. 

You can freeze this in airtight containers, but I wouldn't recommend more than two months on ice. One thing you can also do is freeze the stock in ice cube trays overnight, and then dump the cubes into a ziplock bag, so you can have the stock on call in small amounts. 

You can also make vegetable stock, which is a little more complicated because you don't have bones to work from. But we'll get there another day. For now, pull on your warm socks and snuggle up to a woodstove (or go dancing); we've all earned it.

Walnut Pudding

The weather has turned rainy and cold up here. Thank goodness I managed to make the most of the last sunny days. 

If you haven't been to Kejimkujik National Park, I recommend it.

 It's really a great place for the soul to start hunkering down and getting warm for the winter.

Walnut pudding is good for that too.

Pudding often gets a miss these days, since I think most people only get it in plastic cups in packs of twelve for school lunches. I love it, though. It can be warm or cold, thick or thin, savory or sweet. 

In this case, I wanted a Fall dessert for right after Thanksgiving. I'm mostly combining a whole bunch of Joy the Baker's many pudding recipes, the main one of which is this one. No cornstarch here, though, because I forgot to get some.

Here's what you need: whole milk, an egg, honey, salt, vanilla, and walnut butter.

Farms making cameos here include:

Jordan's Natural Acres (eggs)

Foxhill Cheesehouse (milk)

Limerock Orchards (walnut butter)

Brandt's Bees (honey)

Amounts are as follows:

2 cups milk

1/3 cup honey

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup nut butter

1 egg

 If, as in my case, you don't have quite enough walnut butter (you need about half a cup), you can always put some walnuts in the blender with a little of the milk and blitz until smooth.

Throw all the ingredients into your one big pot and whisk like your life/autumnal happiness depends on it. When the mixture is smooth, switch to a wooden spoon or spatula, whatever will get into all the corners. 

Taste occasionally. I added more honey. 

When the mixture is glossy and your chosen stirring implement starts to leave a trail behind it, you can call it quits and stop stirring. The pudding may still look runny, but will thicken as it cools. 

This is so good with nutmeg on top. I like mine warm, but it's good chilled as well.

 Here's to mist, rain, sleet, and spiderwebs. 

Chicken Sofrito

For Canadians, Thanksgiving has come and gone. Since I happen to possess both United States and Canadian citizenship, I'll be celebrating both in my own small way. 

Thanksgiving in my mind has gone through many different evolutions: it has been a day for remembering Christopher Columbus sailing across the ocean blue, for reviling the same man for his brutality and narcissism, for enjoying food and stuffing myself to bursting, for celebrating family, and finally, for being grateful. 

I have learned to be thankful every day for something. Today, it's warm Fall days and unraked lawns and this gorgeous cookbook, Jerusalem, from my mother. 

From this book, I made Chicken Sofrito, which is a cooking method that I love for its low maintenance and versatility. 

First, the chicken:

Featuring all the mess from last night, plus this morning's coffee. This chicken is from Jordan's Natural Acres, from whom I regularly purchase excellent eggs. Those will be coming up in the next post. 

Put the chicken breasts-down in hot oil, and sear until brown for three minutes. Flip the chicken and sear the other side for another three minutes. While this is happening (or before), make the seasoning!

This is paprika, turmeric, salt, sugar, and pepper. 

To these, add lemon juice and mix to a paste.

MIX!

It should end up like this.

Put this all over the seared chicken on both sides

Somehow, while you were doing all this, you also chopped a red onion and a bulb of fennel! 

This goes in around the chicken that you've seasoned, and now the heat goes to medium-low.

After one and a half hours of slow cookery, it should be falling off the bone.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Dessert to follow soon.

Acorn Squash Soup

Soup again! Squash, this time. This has been the shortest summer I've ever experienced, but I can't really complain, since that means it's hot soup weather.

Start with the squash. Cut it up into chunks and throw it in the oven for forty-ish minutes at 350F. I put some bacon fat at the bottom to prevent sticking.

Look at that orange glow.

This is one of the most beautiful sights of the end of summer. Beautiful, sunset-coloured flesh hidden in stony green skin. 

One more glamour shot, and then into the oven.

After they've been roasted, the squash pieces are soft all the way through, and steaming.

After they cool a little, I take the skin off. You can do this at the beginning instead, but I find it's easier to do so after the squash has been softened. In this case, the seeds and strings come out of the center much more easily.

I like this soup earthy, so that means sautéeing portobello mushrooms with onions and garlic until soft. 

Just to finish off the autumn taste in this soup, I add chopped, dried sage leaves to the onion mix. Put on the oven lid to sweat the leaves for about three minutes, and then stir to evenly distribute the flavour. I like a lot of sage, but it can be overwhelming.

After the sage has been added to your taste, add the chopped, skinned, de-seeded squash bits to the onion mix, and cover with water or chicken/beef/vegetable broth. Simmer for twenty minutes, and then blend the soup to your desired smoothness. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

A final reminder of the approaching Fall for you. Wrap up warm, and think about dried sage, nutmeg, and chestnuts.