It's Fall! Squash, Beans, Chard and Bacon with Cinnamon

Happy post-Hallowe'en! Does anybody spell it that way any more? "Een" at the end of "Hallow" without the apostrophe means nothing. Yes, I know that Hallowe'en is (in turn) a contraction of "All Hallows’ Evening"

Man, I sound like an old grump. Hang on - I have to yell at some kids to get off the lawn. Or, rather, my sister's lawn. I am spending the week surrounding Hallowe'en visiting family in and around Tacoma/Puyallup, WA.

Even though it was a school night, the All Hallows Evening weather was fine and there was a constant stream of kids for a good 2 1/2 hours. My nephew parked himself, and his video game equipment next to the front door. I've had to fight him for the last couple of years to hand out candy. He's just likely saving himself the embarrassment of having his aunt answer the door wearing a t-shirt of zombies riding Segways ("We've Upgradead!).

This dish was so good, I made it two nights in a row on request. It tastes great warmed up for breakfast, with an egg on top. There's quite a bit of cinnamon, but it balances with the bacon and beans in a way that it's just savory and aromatic and not at all sweet, even with the roasted and caramelized butternut squash.

This isn't an original recipe but I cannot remember where I saw it. If I can locate the source, I'll come back and update the post.

Everybody, okay everybody who likes squash (good - more for the squash lovers!), loved this dish.
You can easily substitute smoked paprika for the bacon, or just leave it out. The dish won't suffer.

The first night I just used butternut squash, The second night, I combined the extra butternut squash
from the previous night with a large sweet potato.

Sun - the natural frost defroster, in the backyard.

RECIPE: SQUASH, BEANS, CHARD and BACON with CINNAMON

Get Yer Grains & Legumes: Chickpeas, Barley, Tomato, Avocado + Bacon Bowl

This post isn't so much about a recipe as an example of how I eat on (very nearly) a daily basis, inspired by a couple of folks and some basic decisions I made a few years ago about how I wanted to eat for the rest of my life - more on this in another post.

Hulled black barley

Just about once per week I cook up a batch of chickpeas (1 cup dry). Drained, they store beautifully, if kept refrigerated, for up to a week. I'll generally do another grain or legume and this week it was black, hulled barley. Black hulled barley tastes the same as regular hulled barley. I don't cook it to the point where it fully opens up, but just prior to that. It's nutty and (I think) delicious - I prefer it over pearled barley in many applications - although beef barley soup is one example where pearled barley tastes great. Pearled barley is polished to remove the outer bran layer. It cooks more quickly and isn't as chewy as hulled (I like the chewy). Hulled barley also keeps well if completely drained and refrigerated for 4-5 days. There are many hot and cold dishes I prepare where I throw in a handful of one or the other - or both.

Everything but the almonds I added as garnish are shown here. While I usually store chickpeas fully drained, yesterday
I cooked some with bay leaf, garlic and a little olive oil and stored them in their cooking water since
I knew I'd be using them within a few days.

Recipe: Chickpeas, Barley, Tomato, Bacon and Avocado Bowl

Tunip and Beet Soup - Pink Food! With Bacon!

...taken with my cell phone - the battery contact problem well known to Canon for years before I bought my Powershot got me.

I am so far behind with posts it's not funny.  Very soon, we'll be celebrating Cinco de Mayo with a Posole post - see? In the mean time, since we've been having a (very) cool, cloudy and rainy spring (for us - I don't want to hear any bitchin' from the NW or wherever your weather's crappy, okay?) a root vegetable soup seemed like a good idea.

I made this soup because I had a bunch of leftover beet scraps from my failed baked beet chip experiment. Failed because while I have awesome knife skills (it's true), I am not (yet) a human mandoline able to cut identical, perfect even slices and the chips were either leathery (too thick), too crispy (too thin - read: burned on the edges) or uneven (leathery on one side, burned on the other). I also had the scraps from three turnips I cubed and roasted - in total about 3/4 cup of leftover diced beets and 1 1/2 to 2 cups of diced turnip. What to do? Make soup.

Oh - I think the golden turnips are referred to as rutabagas. The purple and white turnips are, turnips.

I like beets, but a huge bowl of exclusively beet soup can be a little overwhelming as much as I admire the earthy taste. The turnips do a nice job of mellowing that out a little. Oh and I garnished it with bacon and two of the too-leathery but perfectly good tasting beet chips.  This is very simple but it was very satisfying.

Recipe: Turnip and Beet Soup Garnished with Bacon