Pasta with Butternut Squash, Sage and Pine Nuts

I don't remember where I found this recipe, but when I found it I really wanted to make it. My housemate Heather is your resident butternut squash expert. She quite often makes butternut squash soup. I've never made butternut squash anything myself so I asked her to join me! When we were shopping she taught me the secret to picking squash. All the good stuff is in the stem, so you want one with a big stem. The butt end is where all the seeds and 'guts' are.
We chopped off the skin of the squash rather than peel it. Either would work, but my peeler is crap. She was my little chopping machine and did all the chopping until she started crying after the onions. I'm thankful that she cut the onions cause they always make me cry.

The mix of squash/onions/garlic/sage are in the oven right now. Smells SO good! I'm pretty excited to eat this. The recipe suggests putting oil in a pan and mixing the sage in. I used butter instead because that sounded more delicious. It also splits the recipe in two at the end, but I had a pan that was big enough to do it all out!

This was really good. Really really good. And so simple. And really good.

Homemade Gnocchi

Lindsey asked me if I had any dinner plans, to which I said no, and then she said "Can we make homemade gnocchi?! I've always wanted to make gnocchi!" To be honest, I've never had that urge myself... but we set out to do so anyway! I don't think I'd ever tried gnocchi either, so it was a first!

Essentially it just tastes like pasta, but more filling. It reminds of tortellini in the way that you think you can eat a lot, like normal pasta, but then it fills you right up! The recipe we used called for only 2 potatoes. We thought that was just silly and no way could it make the right amount. We were severely wrong. We decided to double the recipe and now we have gnocchi for days.

The recipe we used is really simple. However, per suggestion of another one I looked at you, add the egg first to the potatoes, mix it and then slowly add the flour, instead of all at once!

We topped it was a tomato sauce I whipped up!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I finished my paper so I decided to bake cookies upon Heather's request. We made oatmeal raisin the other day, so we went with that again. When I suggested we should bake something else I got an evil glare. I used this recipe and it worked out very well. I thought they might be a little moist when I'd mixed everything together, but they baked perfectly at 12 minutes.

Brunch Quesadilla

I'm calling this a brunch quesadilla because it could be eaten for breakfast or lunch. I was calling it my breakfast, then I realized I was eating it around lunch time and I'd technically already had a yogurt before my 10am class.

I fried up some mushroom and red pepper in butter. Added garlic and then a handful of spinach. Sautéed it until the spinach had wilted. Meanwhile I beat an egg with a little milk, salt, pepper and thyme in a bowl.

In the same pan where the vegetables were heating up I put two sliced of serrano ham and let them heat up/crisp up a little. I put goat cheese on a tomato-basil tortilla, covering the majority of the surface. I then put the serrano ham on the top and bottom (so when it was folded there would be some on the bottom and top). After the vegetables were ready I poured the egg over top to make a scrambled egg. When the egg was cooked I put it on one side of the tortilla and folded it over. I put it back in the pan for a few minutes a side to toast it up.

Chicken Wrapped in Serrano Ham in a Pesto Cream Sauce

There is no short way to say this recipe name. My brothers girlfriend pinned this recipe for chicken wrapped in serrano ham in a pesto cream sauce and asparagus a few months back. I never got around to making it, but Lindsey asked me to make her dinner tonight so I was going through my bookmarked recipes and thought I'd give it a shot. Very easy to make and very delicious. The only word of caution is make sure your chicken breast is thin (either slice it in half or pound it) so it can cook through or just give it some extra time when frying it.

The website is in polish but Google chrome automatically translated it for me. Just in case that doesn't happen for some of you here are the steps:

Step one: mix flour, pepper and salt (just a little bit as the ham is salty) and coat chicken breast. Wrap with serrano ham, set aside.
Step two: Cut asparagus into bite size pieces and boil until tender. Strain and place in cool water, set aside.
Step three: Add 2 tbs of olive oil to a pan on medium heat. I found myself draining the extra olive oil (as the pesto would be oily) when it was all cooked. Place in wrapped chicken. Cook for 6 minutes and then flip to cook the other side for 5 minutes. When I did it, it was more for 7 minutes and then 6 minutes, and I still had to cook it for a little bit longer after the process was done because it was a little pink inside. 
Step four: Add 80ml (1/3 of a cup) of 30% cream to pan. I used 35% cream (aka whipping cream) and this seemed like very little to me, I added about 1 cup of  it. Then add 4 table spoons of pesto. My table spoon wouldn't fit into the jar of pesto so I used a smaller spoon and just did it to taste. 
Step five: Add asparagus. After boiling remove from heat and let thicken.

The recipe calls for eating it with potatoes or bread, which I find a little weird. I actually just ate it on its own. I was considering doing it with some pasta, which I'm sure would be good, but honestly it was enough just by itself!

Christmas Baking with Lindsey!

Wooooo Christmas spirit! Why catch up on work when I can bake cookies! Lindsey and I set out to make an army of gingerbread men. The house smells so delicious right now. Recipe I linked to was followed exactly. They're delicious and super adorable.

We also made homemade icing - Sift 4 cups icing sugar, 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar and mix with 3 egg whites.

Spinach Artichoke Pasta

My sister sent me this recipe from Pioneer Woman a few weeks back. She had made it and said it was absolutely delicious and told me to make it myself. Pioneer Woman is hilarious. Her food blog is not only saliva inducing, but makes you laugh.

I finally had a lull in my work so I cooked it up. Pretty good! I don't think mine was cheesy enough or had enough of a kick, but definitely good.... just ask my housemate who scarfed it down rather quickly! Although that could also have been because she hadn't had a lot to eat today.  Okay, so I just had a second helping. Definitely needed more cheese.  I also wish it was a slight more artichoke-y... but I'm not sure how I could have encompassed the flavour anymore. I should have topped it with more cheese too.

Pioneer Woman's original intentions we to bake it, but she skipped that step because she wanted to eat it. I think it would have benefitted from being baked. Maybe next time! Also, this would have been really good with some chicken in it.