Better than the Box Stroganoff!

Butterballs!  My dear, sweet, Butterballs!
Happy 2014!  I've missed you so!  We really must catch up.  Since we last chatted we, of all things, acquired a dog!  Butters needed a BFF, so we adopted a really cranky, adorable Brussels Griffon named Dexter!  He's the best, we haven't had to mop since he's been here because that guy is SUPER good at licking the floor!  He and Butters were insta-brothers, and they love each other very much. He crawled his stinky, stinky way into our hearts, and ate all of our food and our cat poop. 

We have actually been cooking a whole bunch, regardless of what this blog would indicate.  This is actually a good thing, because it means that I have a wealth of recipes just waiting to be penned to paper!  Or typed to interweb, whatever. 

Something that happens a whole bunch when you have a cheap ass microwave is that when you thaw meat, it cooks it on the ends, and stays a meat-cicle in the middle, so the natural course of action is to turn it into little meat strips and make stroganoff.  Stroganoff is what the Russians made when their cream would get sour, and their microwaves screwed up the steak their fathers-in-law gave them, and dill was all they had in their специй's - for those of you who are reading from Mother Russia, you know that I Google translated "spice rack"!  That's "spetsiy" for those of us who are not doing that, but might be drinking Chianti, watching New Girl, using Google Translate and blogging while they fight off a cold and their husband's work in the basement. 

This came about one night while I was mulling over a box of Hamburger Helper (read: DON'T).  I was thawing some steak to turn it into Steakburger Helper, when all of a sudden it turned into already cooked eraser meat (so... this sounds disgusting, I promise I'm getting to the good part...).  Then I also discovered that Hamburger Helper is crap, and if I was going through all this trouble to thaw something, I just as well make something good, because did you know that you have to "simmer meat with contents of flavor packet" for like, 45 minutes?  You can make some seriously good shit in 45 minutes.  So I cut up literally 3 lbs of sirloin that was a silicon breast implant on one end and cryogenically frozen on the other and made some tasty ass stroganoff.

You will need:
2 lbs or more (depending on how anemic you are that day) sirloin or other choice of beef meat cut into strips on the bias
1 onion, sliced into strips
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 and 1/2 cup sour cream (you can also use milk, but you'll have to reduce more)
4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tsp dill
1 and 1/2 cup stock of some variety, I used chicken
salt and pepper to taste 
some variety of flat noodles, I used whole wheat egg noodles

Start by browning onions and mushrooms in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.  Reserve in a bowl.  Add meat to pan, cook through, add in vinegar, cook until evaporated (for tenderness).  Add in onions and mushrooms, add COLD stock to pan (room temp at the warmest), stir in sour cream, this will keep it from curdling.  Stir in completely (you could also do this before adding both the stock and the cream to the pan).  Add in dill, salt and pepper, reduce over medium-high heat until creamy (you can add in some thickening flour like Wondra to speed up the process).  Serve over noodles.  This whole process takes about 20 minutes. 

We served it with roasted asparagus and red wine.  Because everything in the world except for maybe white wine goes with red wine, and I'm certain that's debatable.

In closing Butterballs, may your New Years Resolutions be more like guidelines, may you be ever grateful for and proud of what you've already achieved, and may your bellies and hearts be full to bursting of whatever makes you happiest!  Here's to more food, less worries, more kitty and puppy kisses, and less "flavor packets".  Much love and best dishes!  Mwah!






 

El Pollo del Diablo (Or how to use a whole bottle of sriracha...)

Hey there lovely Butterballs!
My, what a lot of time we're spending together lately!  Also, thanks a bunch for reading!  My views have almost doubled in the last month or so! 

Butters, Matt and I have been doing an obscene amount of entertaining lately.  I realized just how many people have been coming and going when I went to fill the dishwasher this evening, and there were 23 cups of different varieties, and 2 plates.  This might also speak to what kind of entertaining we've been doing, but this is a family show. 

As you know, Pecker has been here for the week, and just departed this morning.  Upon her arrival last Saturday, I wanted to make something super special.  Our typical go-to for grilling is bratwurst.  You could blame our time in Austria for this, but really it's because they take little to no effort and you can eat a lot of them before you're full (or maybe that's just me...).  I put chicken legs on Matt's shopping list, but nothing else.  Then I decided I'd make a tasty marinade!  But with what?  SOOOOO MUCH SRIRACHA. 

Earlier this summer, I planted an herb garden in our former BBQ that I've painted purple and yellow.  It's life as a BBQ ended tragically short when some holes rusted through the bottom, and hot coals would fall out the bottom onto the sidewalk.  In between being a BBQ and an herb garden, it sat in the rain for a while and got all rusty.  Apparently this is the perfect storm for growing crap, because my herbs are HUMONGOUS.  Particularly my parsley.  It's almost as big as Butters, and you know that's saying something.  So my next step was to chop a lot of parsley.  My lovely pal Guido went to Albertson's to fetch me some lime juice since we didn't have a speck of citrus in the house.

To make my chicken leg marinade you will need:
Roughly 3/4 cup sriracha (Yep.  You can use more or less depending on how spicy of a product you want.  Our end product was a little more than medium spicy.)
The juice of 3 limes (or about a 1/4 cup of pre-squeezed)
1/2 cup oaky white wine
1/2 cup olive oil
5 shakes tabasco
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 - 1 tsp of chili flakes
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh parsley (normally I'm all about substitutions, but the fresh parsley is an important step for texture...)
kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste

Whisk it all up, and reserve half of the mixture to baste your chicken with as you grill it.  It should look like this:

Let your chicken soak in the remaining mixture at least an hour, turning frequently.  Keep the raw meat in the fridge.  Read: SALMONELLA.  Make sure it stays cold until cooking!  Once you've started to cook your meat, don't cross contaminate your different containers of marinade.  Do not use the bowl that had the chicken in it to baste your cooking chicken.  I like to use a charcoal grill.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with gas, I just like the smokey taste that the charcoal gives whatever you're cooking.  Baste your legs as you turn them, making sure to get some of the parsley on all sides (this gives them an herby crunch once the herbs dry from cooking).  Cook until juices run clear, the meat should stay fairly juicy since you'll be basting it continually.  They should look like this! 

If you have some marinade left that hasn't been exposed to raw meat, you can serve it on the side for a saucier experience!  You could use any cut of poultry or pork with this marinade.  Enjoy, apparently it makes you have big cheesy grins!

Happy cooking, Butterballs!  Don't forget to like, share and follow, and most importantly, cook! 

Watermelon Balsamic Popsicles (plus how to make your kitchen super sticky...)

Howdy all, Butterballs!
Happy belated 4th of July!  I hope you blew a lot of stuff up and ate an unreasonable amount of grilled food!  I certainly consumed more than my fair share of polish sausage.  We aren't allowed to blow anything up in Missoula this year (though several of my neighbors did anyway...), so we settled for grilling a lot of different meats.

As many of you might know, my very best Pecker is in town for the week.  She hails from Seattle currently, and apparently it's pretty nice there his time of year.  She got here just in time for he temperature to rise 20 degrees, so it's been hanging out in the mid to high nineties the majority of the week.  We decided on Wednesday that we were way more into making something cold than something hot for dinner, so we blended up these balsamic and watermelon Popsicles/granita.  We also had salad, because that also does not require the gas range being lit.

Now, keep in mind that the heat had whipped us into anincredible delirium at this point, so this quickly turned from routine blending and chopping into us putting on voices and pretending to be the judges on Chopped.  Megan was Ted Allen, who in turn narrated all of their witty banter.

Ted Allen:  For all our viewers at home it looks like the challenger's basket is literally filled with watermelon and nothing else.

Alex Guarneschelli:  Well Ted, it's a good thing she has a lime in her pocket.  Also, any good chef knows it's beyond important to carry around your own balsamic vinegar.

Arron Sanchez:  I'm hoping she puts a little Latin flair in there somewhere, I hear Cacique Queso Fresco adds the perfect touch to watermelon.

Alex:  Shut up Arron.

Ted:  It looks like she's starting to break down that enormous watermelon.

Alex:  Those chunks are going to be far too big to eat.

Amanda Freitag:  I'm just wondering if she's thought to add an acidic element of some kind.

Alex:  Shut up Amanda, that it WAY too big to eat.

Geoffrey Zakarian:  When I cut up watermelon I use a Peruvian fish boning knife.  It's much more efficient than traditional fruit cutting methods.

Ted:  It looks like she's getting out the blender.

Alex:  That watermelon will NEVER fit in that blender.

Ted:  Now she's headed for the produce pantry!

Scott Connant:  If she comes back with a raw red onion I'm going to kill myself.

Ted:  Some herbs I think, is it mint?

Amanda:  Sugary fruit really needs an herbascious element to balance the sweetness.

Alex:  Shut up Amanda.  Her sue chef, Pecker is chopping that mint WAY TOO BIG!

Scott:  As long as it's not a red onion I don't care.

Alex:  Shut up Scott.

Scott:  Shut up Alex.

Ted:  Back on the floor our challenger seems to have abandoned the blender for the food processor.

Alex:  Told you it was too big.

Ted:  She's adding balsamic vinegar and red wine to her mint and watermelon mixture.

Amanda:  I'm still waiting for some acid.

Ted:  Aren't we all, Amanda.  Oh, she's blending in some lime.

Amanda:  Thank God.

Arron:  If she really wanted to pep it up she should consider some Cacique Queso Fresco.

Alex:  Shut UP Arron!  If you have to sell your ugly face to some cut rate Tex Mex cheese that advertises on daytime television you'll never make it as a real chef.

Ted:  Looks like she's headed to the blast chiller with that mixture!

Alex:  She licked some juice off of her finger.  I'm not eating that.

To make mine and Meggy's watermelon Popsicles/granita you will need:
Half of a giant, seedless watermelon, roughly chopped
A half cup of fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped
A half cup of balsamic vinegar
A half cup of red wine
Juice of two limes

Blend all of it up, and freeze in any form you like.  We chose Popsicles and a big Tupperware container.

Stay cool Butterballs, and as always, love and best fishes!

Saucy Salmon Burgers (and other good things to do with frozen fish)!

Hola, my sweet Butterballs!
Long time no food :(  Just so you know you weren't neglected intentionally, here's a brief summary of mine and Matt's last two months:

-Bought a house! (Yay!)
-Moved into the new house! (Yay!)
-Had a spring concert! (Yay!)
-New pipes exploded because they were too full of tree roots. (Boo...)
-Matt got his big kid job! (Yay!)
-Matt graduated with his Masters degree in Media Arts! (Yay!)
-Former neighbor at the rental went postal and weed whacked all of Matt's rosebushes, in addition to verbally threatening us and our landlady resulting in police reports... (Boo...)

 

All of this took place within two weeks.  In addition, we made the executive (and ultimately incredibly stupid...) decision to switch Butters to the fancy protein food that was supposed to make him a kitty cat super model.  The subsequent result was really just alot of cat poo and bleach.  Also, Butters gained three pounds.  So naturally we put him back on the fat cat food, and all of us are much happier.

You can certainly imagine that not a lot of cooking happened during this period of time.  I made roughly 7 lbs of guacamole for Matt's graduation party, but that's really about it.  I went to a conference last week for five days, and Matt officially used our new stove for the first time.  It's been rough I tell ya.  We went grocery shopping for the first time in three months the other day.  You know it's bad when you have to buy things that are usually just in the cabinet (read: salt and flour).  $500 later (shudder), our kitchen has food in it, and we even have vegetables!  Another semi-entertaining obstacle was learning how to use our first gas stove...  I may or may not have lit a pasta scoop on fire.

I am super fortunate to be able to just hang out in the summertime.  Obviously I could go back to the Huck or something of the like during the summer, but to be quite frank, this is the only chance I get to get anything accomplished during the year (i.e. keeping up with you fine people, laundry, drinking wine, you know, real basic life necessities...).  I've cooked more in the last two weeks than I have in the last two months, which makes everyone happier.  The result of this is lots and lots of new recipes!   

You may notice that I am using frozen salmon fillets.  You may feel welcome as always to use fresh salmon.  As a quick weeknight dinner, I usually like to have a bag of frozen salmon in the freezer (for pasta, burgers, salads, etc.).  They contain no additional ingredients, and they are quite a bit cheaper (especially if you need to keep it in the freezer to cook at your leisure).  Also, this recipe makes about six burgers, so if you're on a budget, it's important to consider volume, and these burgers only cost about $2.00 per serving (including sauce, garnish and buns), which is pretty impressive considering they're made out of something other than beef.

To make my saucy salmon burgers you will need:

For the Burgers:

about 1 1/2 lbs of salmon (I use frozen)

3/4 cup bread crumbs (if your mixture doesn't seem to be sticking together, you can certainly add more!)

1/2 red onion, finely minced

1/4 cup red pepper, finely minced

2 tbsp olive oil mayonaise

2 eggs

1 tsp dill

1 tbsp parsley

1 tsp or more if you like sriracha 

salt and pepper to taste

Thaw salmon (de-bone and remove skin if it hasn't been already), and pull apart until the meat appears minced.  Add in the rest of your ingredients and mix with hands until well combined.  Form into six equal patties (but don't mush them flat, they should be about an inch thick prior to cooking).  Heat about 3 tbsp of olive oil in a pan on medium to medium high (a grill pan works well too!), cook on each side until browned, flipping once.  If you want them more well-done (read: drier), you can finish them in the oven at 350 degrees for about five minutes. Otherwise, just heat your oven to warm to keep them ready to eat as you finish cooking all of the patties.  

While your patties are in the oven on warm, you can make this tasty tzatziki sauce to put on top.  Truthfully, on any given week night I might cheat and use Costco's organic tzatziki sauce, but if I have the time, this is the recipe I like to use.

You will need:

1 1/2 cup sour cream or unsweetened Greek yogurt

3 tbsp grated cucumber

2 tsp chopped garlic (finely)

1 tbsp chopped dill (fresh is best!)

2 tsp lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, don't over stir.  If you want a thicker spread as opposed to a sauce, use 3/4 cream cheese and 3/4 sour cream or yogurt instead of 1 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt.

To assemble:

Matt and I like thinly sliced tomato and cucumber for garnish and toasted hoagie rolls (cut into two, smaller burger sized buns).  I like to toast the buns in the same pans I used for the burgers with a little extra olive oil.  For an extra "zip", you can rub the toasted part of the bun with a clove of garlic.  Spread your tzatziki on both sides of your bun, add burger and chosen garnishes.  Most of the time we serve these with chips and salsa, or guacamole (which is also a tasty substitute for the tzatziki sauce!).

Cheers, my dear sweet Butterballs, to a productive and tasty summer!  As, always, love and best fishes!  May your bellies, be full, your faces be pleasantly sunburned, your glasses be full, and your homes be blessed.  Happy cooking!

Happy "Mew" Year Lo Mein!

Howdy Y'all, Butterballs!
Happy New Year!  I hope you and yours had a fulfilling, and filling, experience over your holiday season!  Matt, myself and the cat spent our time, sleeping, entertaining, and of course, eating.  We were lucky enough to spend a week in Dillon with both of our respective families over the break, followed by two days of Megan Peck time, and a dubstep dance party on New Years Eve.  We were both back to work on Wednesday, and soon discovered that our time off was socially exciting, though not exactly the most restful nine days of our lives.

Now, I am not one for New Year Resolutions.  As close as I got this year was resolving to get all my laundry done by the time school started on Wednesday.  I did, in fact, get that done, so I am a big fat success, be jealous.  Butter's resolution was to be more comfortable with his body image, and since he really couldn't care less anyway, our family is two for two.

During our time of entertaining, we fully took advantage of our house's proximity to McDonald's, Arby's, and Taco Bell, so we were... resolute, perhaps, to cook this week.  As soon as we made this decision, my car crapped out, and we had to spend two evenings trying to get it towed to the car guy.  On Wednesday, we thought that if we couldn't eat at home, we'd at least try to eat healthy, so we decided to try a local fresh sandwich shop.  This ended up being about the worst culinary decision we've ever made.  Between mine being soaked with (unrequested) vinegar, and Matt's club sandwich being slathered in hot Chinese mustard, we had to go eat a cheeseburger to get the taste out of our mouths.  Friday, we took advantage of roughly $75 in free Outback steakhouse money we got for Christmas, and Thursday, I made this healthy lo mein.

Now, in addition to our usual secret cheap grocery spots (read: Walmart), we've also been frequenting Costco, also known as Senior Citizen Heaven and "I just have one thing to get because bulk shopping makes almost no sense for two people" Hell.  "What could you possibly need at Costco for a family of two that won't be so stale you could use it as paving tile by the time you use it up?", you might ask.  My answer would be: roughly ten thousand pounds of whole wheat spaghetti.  Now, we didn't end up with this much pasta intentionally.  Due to some health factors that were brought to my attention last fall, we've been cutting back on our refined carbs, and our dairy products, so naturally we were super excited when we saw that all this fancy pasta (if I have to give up dairy, there is absolutely no way in the world I am giving up pasta) for like, $1 a pound.  So naturally Matt bought ten pounds, then one month later, with the best of intentions, bought ten more.  Pretty much the only thing we have yet to do with spaghetti is make those little smokey octopus things on Pinterest...

To make Butters' Mew Year Resolution Lo Mein you will need:
3/4 lb whole wheat spaghetti
2 large chicken breasts, thinly sliced on the bias
1/4 cup (or more to taste) low sodium soy sauce
enough olive oil to cook your veg, chicken, and finish your dish
1 and 1/2 large carrots, thinly sliced with a vegetable peeler
1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced into strips
1 head of broccoli with the heads cut into bite sized pieces
4 bias cut green onions for garnish
salt and pepper to taste for chicken

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan or wok on medium heat, add in carrots, yellow onion and broccoli, cook until the onions are translucent and the other veggies are tender.  Remove vegetables to a bowl, add a little more oil, and add in chicken.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Cook until slightly browned. While your chicken is cooking, boil your pasta until al dente.  Add vegetables and (drained) pasta into pan with chicken.  Drizzle with soy sauce and olive oil, and toss.  Garnish with green onions.  Serve with eggrolls or potstickers.

Enjoy, my sweet Butterballs!  This New Year I am grateful for friends, family, and of course, all of your pretty faces!  Best Fishes for a prosperous and well fed New Year!

Tis the Season for Peachy "Quin" Jambalaya!!!!!

Howdy Butterballs!
Long time no eat!  Turns out that teaching keeps you a little bit busy, but don't feel singled out!  Not only have I not cooked for you in months, I haven't cooked for the husband or myself either.  When you spend all your time at work or passed out in exhaustion on the couch, you cook things like spaghetti sauce, tacos, spaghetti sauce, or McDonald's.  The beauty of all of these things is that they all pair beautifully with cheap red wine.  This laziness also has a tendency to bleed over into weekend days.  I find that if I can't put it in the Crockpot with wine, garlic and an onion and expect reasonably tasty results, I will make Papa John's (which would not be so bad, except I would rather pay the $3 delivery fee than walk the block and a half from my house to their storefront to pick it up). 

With the holiday season upon us, music teachers find themselves faced with an additional seasonal task of preparing and executing the annual holiday program.  As this is the very first program I will be preparing entirely on my own, I find myself flying into a logistical obstacle course.  I am so lucky to have the amazing students that I do.  They are enthusiastic, adorable and eager to show off their seasoned woodblock skills, and I am already exhausted and we are still 10 days out.  The lack of cooking going on in my house has also resulted in a complete lack of left-overs for lunching purposes.  Luckily my room has a closet that I keep filled to the brim with goldfish crackers, fruit and bags of popcorn, or I would probably be SOL, and no, not a needle pulling thread (Ha!  10 points for a superfluous Sound of Music joke... anyone?).  I recently came to the conclusion that this will probably not improve anytime soon, so I made the addition of dried fruit, little baby hummus cups from Costco and these super fancy quinoa chips!  Hopefully this will prevent me from developing rickets. 

In the spirit of this busy holiday season, I bring you good tidings of all things spicy.  As we go deeper into the wrapping paper, plastic tree and cookie abyss, I find that one more hearty stew or pot roast will likely push me over the edge.  I love a good bourguignon as much as the next American, but I also find more and more everyday that cooking with wine is nice, but makes me wish there was more wine left for me when I am finished (greedy, greedy beef shank...).  This fact coupled with the feeling of deep and utter dread I felt upon coming home faced with the prospect of yet another dinner made out of some nondescript animal's "burger" sparked within me a rebellious revolution.  So naturally, I turned to burger's sassy porcine cousin, sausage!  I also was fortunate enough to have in my possession, one bag of frozen jumbo shrimp.  Pasta was out, so I settled on our Costco tub of quinoa.  Even I was surprised with how good this turned out, considering that I had no vegetables to speak of and was feeling selfish about my cooking "liquid".

To make my faux jambalaya you will need:
1 lb fresh or frozen shrimp, jumbo works best (if you choose frozen, allow extra reducing time for the extra water the ice will add to your sauce)
1 lb pork sausage
1 small onion
1 12 oz can diced tomatoes (I prefer no salt added)
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup dry red wine (yep, I thought the sausage looked thirsty too...)
2 12 oz cans of chicken stock
1 cup (dry) plain quinoa (DO NOT use the kind that is pre-seasoned, this is a mistake I have made and hope never to repeat...)
2 cups fresh spinach
Chili flakes to taste (about 1 teaspoon will give you a medium-spicy result)
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon dried parsley
cracked black pepper and salt to taste

For the quinoa:
Heat 2 tablespoons-ish of olive oil in the bottom of a medium sauce pan.  Finely chop your smalll onion.  On medium-high heat brown onion, and add quinoa to toast it.  Once your quinoa is golden brown, add one can of chicken stock. Cover and let liquid absorb.  Repeat process with more stock until quinoa is tender.  Season lightly with salt, pepper, and cumin (to taste, not the 1/2 tsp. listed above).  Add in a handful of spinach at a time, allow the previous handful to wilt before adding another.  Cover and keep on warm until your shrimp and sausage mixture is done.

For the jambalaya:
In a separate pan, brown sausage, adding chili flake and powder to taste.  Add in tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin, celery, coriander, and roughly a half a can of stock, and red wine.  Add in shrimp (if raw, allow them to cook in sauce until pink and sauce is reduced, if frozen allow to cook in sauce until it is nicely reduced, and dare I say it, roughly the thickness of spaghetti sauce).  Once reduced, salt and pepper to taste, and fold into quinoa.

Here's to variety most certainly being the spice of life!  This time of year, allow yourself to reflect on what really matters most.  Whether it's your fat cat, your loving family, a warm home, enthusiastic students, great co-workers, good friends or fine wine, find what makes you happiest and celebrate it!  True thankfulness for what we have is the best gift we can give ourselves.

As always, happy cooking, happier eating, love and best fishes, Butterballs!  May Santa find your bellies full, glasses empty, and pants delightfully too tight!  Mwah!
 

Fall Explosion Squash Casserole!!!!

Hey y'all Butterballs!  Long time no heartburn!
It's that time again!!!  The time of year where yours truly buys 1 bag of Double Stuff'd orange, Halloween Oreos and eats the whole thing in under a week.  Don't try and stop me, I already did it, and I have absolutely no regrets.  My Paula Deen Mystery Pecan Pie candle has also been lit approximately 24 hours a day for the last 2 weeks (the "mystery" is where to find the pie, hardy har har...).  My closet is stocked with corduroy, Matt has begun to wear pants again, and Butters is holed up under the entry way table waiting for the furnace to kick on (joke's on him, I moved the table 3 months ago and the heater is still where it used to be...).  That's right dumplings, it's Fall!  In honor of the first day of fall, I thought I would write a long over-due blog entry about this really Fall-tastic casserole I invented last week.  I was also invited along on a "First Day of Fall" fishing trip by one of my first graders, who I suspect had the slightly impure motive of setting me up with his Dad.  I politely declined.

Another thing that comes along with Fall is school.  I've been teaching music in Stevensville, Montana for the last three weeks.  It is beyond rewarding, but also beyond exhausting.  My cooking has somewhat ebbed in the last month, what with my bedtime being 4:30 p.m.  In fact, aside from my bag of Oreos and the occasional teachers' lounge slice of pie, I have been living off of spinach and a giant milk carton full of Goldfish crackers.  I really didn't see anything wrong with this until a co-worker came to my office to invite me to lunch, and I had already eaten my Dixie cup of crackers by 10:30 in the morning.  I wanted to say I had already eaten, but I knew in my heart it just wasn't true.  I also did not want another Dixie cup of crackers, so I took a raincheck.  The next day I made sure to bring an apple so it would outwardly appear that I had made a purposeful attempt to pack something.  If you bring a carton of crackers to lunch, that looks half assed.  If you put your crackers in a baggy, bring an apple and a cup of coffee, now that's a freakin' smorgasbord.  Can you make a workers comp claim for elementary school related malnutrition?  Then I went home and fell asleep in front of Billy the Exterminator.  When did I have time to invent casserole you may ask?  Oh, around 9:30 at night.  I woke up from a nap with a powerful hankering for spaghetti squash (which could be somewhat related to my separation anxiety since Pecker left for Seattle and took her bountiful supply of spaghetti squash with her...), and before I could go back to sleep I had to roast something out of heartache.

Now, along with the powerful urge to sleep 16 hours a day comes the inability to effectively grocery shop.  If I do go to the store I buy a bottle of wine and a magazine about Snooki's baby.  I bought a box of plums once but that was almost a month ago and I didn't eat a single one.  I would put three in a baggy to take to work, promptly leave it on the counter when I ran out of the house for carpool, and then Matt would take them to work.  Good news:  my husband assumed me much more thoughtful than I actually am for several weeks when he found the plums and thought I had packed them for him to take to the office.  Bad news:  My life has been decidedly plum free.  After this experience I have decided fresh produce is more trouble than it's worth.  My life has somewhat become an hommage to Chopped.  On this particular casserole inventing evening, I had:

16 lbs of elk meat (not an exaggeration)
3 homegrown spaghetti squash
1 giant bag of cheese about to go bad (I've recently cut back on dairy for health reasons, but that is another long and over-informative tale)
1 bag of overpriced raw quinoa
1 can of breadcrumbs
5 lbs (not an exaggeration) of spinach
1 bag of onions
brown sugar
1/2 bag Halloween Oreos
3 bottles of cheap chardonnay
1 6 pack Summer Honey
1 stale bag of cheetos
olive oil
1 jar marshmallow fluff
1/2 of a week old pizza

I  threw the pizza away and set to work.  To make my fall explosion casserole you will need the following:

2 lbs of ground meat, well seasoned (I chose spicy elk breakfast sausage)
1 small spaghetti squash
1 cup of cheese, a shredded jack blend works well
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp of garlic, finely chopped
1.5 lbs (uncooked) spinach
1 cup uncooked quinoa (will yield 3 cups cooked)
3 tbsp bread crumbs (mine were Italian blend)

To prepare squash:
Preheat oven to 400-425 degrees.  I do about 425, but as you may have learned, I am not super patient.  Chop ends off of squash and slice it in half length wise.  Place in baking dish skin side down, add about 1/2 inch of water to the dish, wrap with foil.  Roast for about 30-45 minutes.

I let my squash roast for about 20 minutes before I started the rest of the casserole.

For the Quinoa:
You can prepare this per package directions, but my way is better (no one ever accused me of sugarcoating...).  In a medium sauce pan, heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil.  Add onion and garlic and saute until translucent.  Add a little more oil and quinoa.  Over medium-high heat, toast until quinoa is a mottled brown.  Add in 3 cups of water (or stock if you have it), let the liquid cook out, add more and repeat process until quinoa is tender.  Season with garlic salt, Italian seasoning, cumin and pepper.

While quinoa is boiling, begin browning meat.  Once cooked through, reserve in a large bowl.  Using whatever grease is left from the meat, turn heat to medium and add in spinach.  Add in by handfuls until it's fully wilted.  Add to bowl with meat, and quinoa.  When squash is fork tender.  VERY CAREFULLY (READ: HOT), spoon squash strands into bowl with other ingredients.  Add in a handful of cheese, mix thoroughly.  Move mixture to size adequate baking dish, sprinkle with cheese and breadcrumb, put under broiler until cheese is melted and crumbs are browned.  VOILA!  Fall in a gooey, meaty, delicious package.

This also makes excellent leftovers.  In addition, it is not the least healthy thing I have ever blogged for you, jam packed full of protein!  Yessir!

In parting Butterballs, roll yourself up in a sweater, make a nice sugar based coffee drink, and hook up your pants expanders, Fall is here, and I wouldn't want to be spending it with any cooler cats!