CombODDnation: Ginger Spaghetti Squash

Here's a really simple one, only a slight twist on the usual.  You'll need a spaghetti squash, a small ginger root, brown sugar, and water.  Olive oil too if you're doing the seeds up (as shown at end of post).

Start by coring the seeds out of both halves of a spaghetti squash.  

Keep those seeds, we'll talk about those a little further down this post.

Put these cavity side up in a pan (this is a clear pirex pan so you can't see it very well).

Slice the ginger root and place the slices in this cavity left from the seeds.

Put 1/4 cup brown sugar in each seed cavity.

Putt approximately 1/4 cup water over all this.  The cavity should be filled about half an inch from the top.

Put in Oven at 400 degrees.
One hour and thirty minutes for this medium sized hybrid squash.  Bigger squashes may need longer.

Here's to realizing that not everybody knows how to scrape this squash into spaghetti form, eh?
I use a my silicon hot mits to hold the squash while it's still pretty warm, and use a long tines dinner fork to scrape at the squash flesh.  Start from the sides, like so.

 

Once it's all loosened up, you can actually just put the squash shell in a bowl and eat the spaghetti right out of that, or you can lift the strands into a bowl for serving.  You will be lifting out portions then going back to scraping again.  Doesn't hurt to cut the strands a bit, these will be long spaghetti strands.

Feeds two.  Goes well with the juices poured over it, the now candied gingers can be diced and put on top.  Tomato sauce on top is also fantastic.

Sorry, that's totally my yellow tomato and hot pepper tomato sauce I canned from garden surplus last year.  Just add lemon juice and you can make that too by following any standard canning recipe for tomato sauce, but ya gotta grow the tomatoes and peppers first!

Now!  SEEDS!  Actually, I do these as an appetizer when I put the squash in the oven.

So what's the easiest thing to do with the bits inside a squash or pumpkin?  I do my seeds up like so...

Put about 2 Tbs oil in a skillet on low heat.
Scoup out the squash and put everything that comes out of that center portion straight into the oiled skillet.  Stringy stuff and all.

In 10 minutes, flip this stuff over.  Go for another 5 minutes on this side.

Let cool and start munching.

You know, for as much as I love squash (OMG love love) the terms I use in describing it aren't as appetizing as they could be.  So far I've used "cavity" and "flesh" so I may as well let you know that the stringy bits that come out with the seeds from pumpkins and squash, yes, I'm silly, I call those entrails.  Oh deary me.

CombODDnation: Pork Bake

Hey guys, I used the chicken rice bake recipe with pork tenderloin boneless cuts this time, and it also turned out delicious.

Using the exact same recipe as the chicken rice, I came out with this:

Pork tenderloin packed into the top, water up to the bottom of the pork.  Rice and vege underneath.  Exactly like the chicken recipe from earlier, check the link for details.

 

Here is is, after I served a couple helpings making sure all was right (90 minutes on 410 degrees) here is the lovely outcome of this endeavor.

Just thought I'd let you know!

CombODDnation: Blackbean brownies re-up

I took these to my mom, who eats normal food all the time, and she declared these were like a semi-sweet fudge.  My brother and his girlfriend agreed on the yumminess verdict.  I think that is a good enough review to warrant posting.  You've probably seen blackbean brownie recipes online here or there, and if you haven't, you easily can.  The idea is easily googleable.  I just overhauled the more common recipe to suit me, and I find it to be better than the original, so here it is.  

Ingredients, to start:

3 cups black beans (I used beans that are cooked from dry-pack to reduce salt content as compared to canned.  After cooking a large batch of black beans, I freeze three cup portions in mason jars.  I do the same with chick peas.  Because canned beans have SO much salt I can feel it.  This is, however, also the same as two 15.5 oz cans of black beans, if that is how you prefer to do this.  If using canned beans, rinse them thoroughly with hot water before using.)
3 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
3tsp baking powder
1/4c baking cocoa powder
1/2 c milled flax
1/8c olive oil
1 c semi sweet chocolate chips
(The tiny red octopus hugging an even tinier ninja is an optional component.)

Preheat to 375

SO, let's get started.  In a large food processor!  Or if you only have a small one, do it in thirds.  This 10 cup food processor is the best $50 I've ever spent, in case you were wondering.

Put 3 cup black beans and 3 eggs and blend together.

 Add 1 cup brown sugar, 3 tsp baking powder, 1/4c backing cocoa powder, 1/2c milled flax, 1/8c olive oil.
Blend together.

Add 1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips (these are mini chips but the size really doesn't matter at all here.)
Blend together.

You will likely need to use a spoon or spatula to get the even texture, since the edges tend to hold some of the dry ingredients in clumps and those need spread in.  You'll get this texture in the end.

Spoon into an 8x8 pan.  Spread to even thickness.

Bake for 40-45 minutes.  At 375 degrees F.  Fork should come out clean from center.

 Let cool a minimum of 5-10 minutes.  Longer if you can stand to wait a bit.  It stays extra melty for a little while, the cake structure doesn't hold up as well to cutting when it's still very hot.  But it's SO yummy when it's that warm and fresh that I couldn't wait for my first bite.  Heh.  So suit yourself.

Cut and serve, and enjoy!

The original recipe from online is copied on yellow.  I'm laying my new recipe over the old one in my photo album recipe book.

CombODDnation: Chicken and Rice Simple Bake

This is so simple, and such old hat to me, I make this every week!  I don't usually even think of these sorts of weekly mundanes as worth posting, until I get to chatting with a friend, and here we go.

You need:

Brown Rice

Any form of vegetable

Any cut of chicken (Yummiest with something bone-in-skin-on)

Water

(Ginger root is a special treat in this, but I was out of that today.)

Preheat oven to 410 degrees Fahrenheit.  

(Re: heat, I would say 425, but I just learned that some of the off-brand glass bakeware can only withstand temperatures to a max of 425, and I don't want to risk that.  So many people have had glass bakeware shatter on them recently.)

Take any size pirex or pan.  Yes, really any size.  Make sure your chicken will fit in it, that's all.  Here I'm using my new bake-able tupperware container, it's pretty deep, but usually I use a 9x11 inch.

Start by covering the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of brown rice like so.  This is about a 1/4 inch deep, that amount or less is good.  

(I have used baby lima beans for this step instead of the rice, and that is also fabulous.)

 Then put your vegetables on top of the rice, it helps to chop them to chunks that are kinda close to bite size.

If you're adding ginger root, this is the time to do it.  Chop the root up to small peices, like the size of a pencil eraser or so, and put that on top.  Not shown, because like I said, I don't have ginger root today.

Put your cut of chicken on top of all of this.  Here we have a half chicken.
Normally I just get the family sized pack of chicken thighs because that lasts me for every lunch for the whole week, allowing me to take lunch in just once on Monday, stick it in the fridge, and have a little every day.  However this week, I'm on winter recess, so packing lunch isn't on my chore list!

Fill water into this until the water just touches the bottom of the chicken cut.

Put in the oven at 410 degrees.
In a shallower pan, adding 2 more cups of water half way in to the cooking time is helpful.  In a deeper pan like this, that isn't necessary.

Bake for an hour and a half to two hours, skin will be crispy brown and the meat will be firm.  (Other signs of it being done are the juices all running clear when pricked with a fork, and a meet thermometer registering at 175 degrees.)

Crispier than what's shown is okay, too.  If you don't have a meat thermometer, then crispier is recommended.

Let cool enough that you're not going to burn your mouth, and dig in!  The meat will just fall right off the bone.

And now I'll help you go a-wandering to find some other... 

Dinner-type recipes I've posted:

Crock Pot Apple Chicken

Beet Chicken Roast

Sweet Pumpkin Beef

Lamb Stew

Breakfast-type recipes I've posted:

Flip-spice eggs

Sausage foldovers

Baby Tomato Sausage

Oopsie, I'm disorganized, apparently.

I wrote and made a successful carrot cake.  Took all the pictures, served it to rave reviews at a party, AND lost the recipe notes.  Guess I'll have to make it again and see how I do just based on following the pictures!  Being that I was able to make it in just one try on the first effort, it seems very likely that photographs ought to be sufficient for subsequent success.  DERP!