Cooking & Entertaining | The Adventure Bite

Stuffed Butternut Squash

By Dani, on January 16th, 2012

Last night as I stared at the almost completely empty fridge (sans leftovers that smell funny, condiments, and the ever prevalent gallons of milk thanks to WIC) I threw this together. Fast (in actual hands on prep time), somewhat healthy, and a switch up from another night of spaghetti….not that I actually had the ingredients to make spaghetti but… you get the idea.

Split the butternut squash down the center and pull out the guts. If you have a ridiculously long butternut squash like mine (which I admit I picked out because it was a humorous looking shape then split it in four pieces.

Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and garlic powder.

Toss it in the oven at 400 degrees until it is fork tender.

Start some brown rice in the rice cooker.

After you do something else for a half hour or so….chop an onion and garlic (I didn’t) and brown some sausage up (I had hamburger) with it. Season with salt and pepper and a little spice if you like. Then add liberal amounts of rosemary on it….fresh would be best but did I mention the state of my kitchen last night?

Pull the squash out of the oven and spoon some of the flesh (seriously who decided this should be called flesh?) into the pan with the meat/onion/garlic combo. Throw some of the now cooked brown rice in and mix. This would also be a great time to add some cheese! Because everything is better with cheese. Which is why all my cheese was gone already.

Toss it all back in the shell and back into the oven while you fix a salad and some nice crunchy bread. Oh yes I ate all that with the cheese for lunch…..

‘That’s it…I’m going grocery shopping.

Durian tastes like…..

By Dani, on January 9th, 2012

Ask five people what Durian tastes like and you are likely to get five different answers. Some drool over it, some run in horror and some, like us, just really want to put new strange things in our mouths.

They come frozen at our favorite Asian market because they smell terrible when they aren’t frozen apparently. Our friend Shireen took us on an amazing foodie adventure to said Asian market when we first arrived in Georgia and we have been addicted ever since. She insisted that we taste a Durian.

So taste it we did.

We hacked it open (note that we are outside while doing so!)

Opened up the pods.

And dug in!

Kevin and Shireen swear that it tastes sweet and desserty. All I could taste was Walla Walla sweet onions. But….I was pregnant so that could be part of it. It was pudding like texture and kind of mushy which was strange. I could see it in a savory type of dish or maybe a sweet dish if it had plenty of sugar in it.

All in all….not my cup of tea, but…..Adventure Bite conquered!

Tomatillo Pork Burritos

By Dani, on August 21st, 2010

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Many months ago Kevin and I slipped out of the house for our “Date Night”. i.e. stuff your face in public.

(We have decided now that we much prefer stuffing our faces at home)

That epic night it was elected that it should be the local Mexican joint whom would be graced by our presence. Little did we know what was in store for us that night. What we found was the humbly named Burrito Verde….not very impressive on paper by any counts.

Pork served in a green sauce wrapped in a flour tortilla served with beans and rice.

What it should have said was the following,

“Pulled pork simmered for hours with tangy yet savory tomatillo sauce that gush in your mouth like a stew wrapped in a tortilla covered in cheese. Slurping goodness.”

We returned the following week for taste comparisons, again. And then set to work.

One pork roast. One crockpot. All day they must dance together.

First order is to pull out your bag of beautiful sticky husked tomatillos.

(Any self respecting hispanic store will carry these)

Pull off the husks and wash them under warm water to get rid of all the sticky.

Chop ‘em all in half

Like so….

And throw them all on a cookie sheet. Set them to broil while you fix the rest of the ingredients.

Serious amounts of lime, cilantro and as many jalepenos as you can stand. Don’t be afraid to be generous with the jalepenos….it can take it.

At this point in the game I thought it was great fun to chop up all the jalepenos with my bare hands….ahh ha ha. All was good until after I sat down after finishing the recipe and scratched my nose.

Only after three hours, ice cubes, rubbing alcohol, a gallon of tears and finally dipping my face in milk did the pain end.

Please wear gloves.

p.s. the next time we made this I did yet again the same mistake. But Kevin handed me a stalk of aloe vera, patted me on the head and I was fixed in ten minutes flat. Ahh husbands.

Back to work, deseed them and take out most of the membranes (leave them if you like your face to burn off)

Yummy.

Chop up an onion. Don’t worry about it being too fine its going in the blender.

Pull out the tomatillos when they are good and black and bubbly.

Throw everything in the blender. Jalepenos, cilantro, lime, tomatillos.

Add some salt and pepper and a generous helping of garlic powder.

We also like to dust in some cayenne and the slightest bit of cinnamon.

Delish.

Whirl away!

We like ours on the slightly chunky side.

Pour over the pork and stir.

You should ideally let this cook in the sauce all day. But if you’re like me and you didn’t remember the tomatillos until you are driving home from work you can let it simmer in the sauce for an hour or so and call it good.

Oh my goodness.

Wrap in a warm flour torilla, top with cheese and flame broil it for a second.

Preferably serve with homemade refried beans, rice and a margarita.

I’m going into a carb comma…..I need beans….now.

Update: This sauce really benefits from the addition of a few cans of these:

Cheesecake Recipe

By Dani, on May 3rd, 2010

This is my favorite cheesecake recipe….but due to how expensive it is to buy all the cream cheese and how much I don’t need a cheesecake floating around my thighs refrigerator, I have only made this recipe once.

It was a beautiful glorious sight to behold.

You’ll have to imagine it with me ’cause I have no pictures to speak of….yet.

Here you go:

White dessert plate decorated with chocolate sauce. Gingersnap crust topped with creamy, white, dense, sweet cheesecake. Dollop of homemade whipped cream. Tart, winter blackberries gracing the top and sides.

Or you could just imagine heaven. It would be equivelent.

Without further ado, the recipe:

Gingersnap Cheesecake

Crust:

6 tbsp butter, melted

1 1/2 cups crushed gingersnap cookies

1/4 cup sugar

Put crushed gingersnap cookies in mixing bowl. Add sugar.

Add melted butter.

Stir or blend together with your hands.

Press into the pie plate or springform pan (if you want crust only on bottom make sure to grease sides of pan)

Pre-bake the crust for 8-10 min in a preheated 350 degree oven.

Filling:

4 or 5 8-oz packages cream cheese

1 3/4 cups sugar

3 tb flour

1 1/2 tsp grated orange rind

1 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind

1/2 tsp vanilla

5 eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 550 degrees. (Yes, that’s correct!) Put a pot of hot water on to boil.

Place cream cheese in large mixing bowl. Beat at low speed until packets are combined well.

Add sugar gradually, beat 2-3 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients in order listed. (Add eggs one at a time)

When smooth, pour into precooked crust pan.

Place in pre-heated oven. Add a container (pie pan or whatever shallow pan that is oven safe) of boiling water into the oven.

Bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 200 degrees. Cook for 50 minutes. DO NOT PEEK AT IT!

Turn oven off and leave cheesecake in oven (door closed) for thirty minutes.

Open oven door and let cool an additional thirty minutes in oven.

Finally, pull out and cool until room temperature (could take several hours) and then put in refrigerator for as long as possible (overnight is best).

Note: If your kitchen is warm go ahead and pull cheesecake out to counter and let cool. If it’s on the chiller side open the oven door and sit it on the oven door (just dont let your kids/pets/husband’s touch it) and let it cool in there. The idea here is to SLOWLY cool the cake, otherwise it will crack in the middle.

Top with homemade whipped cream, chocolate sauce, or berries. Or if you are like me and believe that if you’re going to eat dessert it might as well taste excessively delicious use all three

Cheers!