Showing posts with label side dish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label side dish. Show all posts

Friday, November 5, 2010

Foodie Friday: Acorn Squash


This Friday, another fall favorite for dinner - acorn squash. The acorn squash is a green, sometimes with orange patches, squash that's shaped like an acorn. It's usually about the size of a softball. There might be another way to cook this squash, but this is the way I was taught and now share with you!

Turn your oven on to 350 degrees and get that pre-heating. Grab a good knife and cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Prepare a casserole dish, spray some Pam cooking spray in the bottom of it and then pour in about 1/4 inch of water. Then place the halves inside down in the water and place the casserole into the oven. Let the squash cook for about 40 minutes - the squash will start to shrivel up.

When the squash is done, pull it out of the oven and allow it to cool for a couple minutes. I then take a clean dish towel and cradle the cooked squash in my hand as I scoop out the insides into a bowl. Then I sprinkle a bit of cinnamon and about 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar over the squash and mix it all up. Finally, dish it up in pretty bowls and serve! My husband likes this enough that he'll eat 1/2 a squash in a setting, but I'd imagine you could feed several children with 1/2 a squash as well.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Foodie Friday: Spicy Roasted Kale

Here's another quick side dish that's super healthy: Spicy Roasted Kale. You'll need some kale, some cayenne pepper, olive oil and some salt and pepper. That's all!

Heat your oven to 375 degrees and pull out a casserole dish. Pile in 4 cups of kale - I used the quick and easy bagged kind for this recipe, but you can cut up kale leaves if you'd like to do that work. Pour about 2 Tablespoons of olive oil over the kale and mix it up so that the oil covers most of the kale. (The olive oil is good for your hands!)

If you like spicy things, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of cayenne over the whole mixture - use a little less if you're not a spicy person. Then sprinkle salt and pepper over the kale as well. Mix this together again to spread out the spices.

Pop it into the oven and leave it for five minutes. The picture to the right is how it looks after having cooked 5 minutes - about half the size of what you started with. Take some tongs and mix it up a little to stir up the spices. Pop it back in the oven again for another 5 minutes and you're done!