Unexpected goodness!

     OK, so since I moved away from my roommates (miss you guys!) I’ve been trying to adjust my food buying and preparation to the needs of someone living alone. For the first month in my solo apartment, I found myself discarding way too much food. Without two big hungry men to clean out the fridge every couple of days I’d find extra portions languishing in the crisper, days after their deliciousness had expired. As bad as I feel about throwing away leftovers (picture me laying a tiny little wreath on the top of a small Tupperware® container as I mentally deliver a moving and sincere eulogy for last week’s leftover quiche) I feel even worse about throwing out uncooked food. I mean, those collards had so much potential, and look how they ended up, wilting away in the prime of their life until they were nothing but shriveled stalks… And it was ALL MY FAULT! *sob*

…..I need a second, I’m feeling a little verklempt here…..

     Where was I? Oh, yeah. So after a trip to the market on Sunday, I realized I had a few things in the kitchen that needed to be used up, pronto. Some chard, a couple ears of corn, half a butternut squash, a few sprigs of thyme, one sad spotty little banana, and a pile of way too many perfectly ripe pears I had been unable to resist at the farmers market.

     The squash was easy peasy, just throw that bad boy in the oven for a while and eat. The chard and corn I figured I’d just sauté together with a lil’ onion and garlic. Simple, tasty veggie dinner, right? Little did I know that these ingredients were about come together to make one of the bestest super-simple vegetable dishes I’ve made in months…

I don’t actually know what to call this, but here’s the recipe:

• ½ butternut squash
• Pat o’ buttah (what’s that, like a tablespoon?)
• Brown sugar
• A few sprigs of fresh thyme
• ¼ tsp ground cumin
• One small red onion, sliced
• One clove garlic, minced
• 2 ears worth of corn kernels, fresh offa the cob
• Bunch of chard, whatever color you like (the red looked really pretty with the other colors in the finished dish) rinsed but not dried and chopped into manageable pieces.      

     Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the squash in a glass baking dish, cut side up, Dot with buttah, sprinkle with a little brown sugar, and sprinkle with thyme leaves and cumin. Roast that bad boy for around half an hour, give or take, till you can fork it.

     When the squash is just about done, heat some olive oil in a big skillet or dutch oven. Add garlic and onions and give ‘em a stir, cook just enough to flavor the oil. Add the corn and sauté for a couple of minutes, then add the chard and sauté until the water has evaporated from the pan. Scoop the squash out of its skin (make sure any of the buttery goodness dripping off of it falls into the sautéed veggies!) and chop it up into chunks, then stir into the sauté. Add a little more butter on top, if you like, and a dash of salt.

     Honestly, it’s sublime. I suppose a smart person would make some kind of grain to go with this, or it would go nicely with a nice hunk of rare beef. I just ate it by itself, seeing as I was home alone and had no one to impress.

    Now what to do with the pears and banana? I’m a bit baking challenged- all that measuring, and doing things in order, and patience… I’m way too much of a spaz for that. Seriously, I have to force myself to concentrate and FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS every time I try to bake anything more complicated than a pie or a quick bread… And given that I didn’t have any pre-made pie crusts around (something else I'm not very good at. I can never roll it out right one the first or second try, and by then it’s too warm, but I don’t have the patience to get it cool enough to work with… You get the picture) I figured I’d have to go with a quick bread.

     The gorgeous thing about quick breads is that you can pretty much throw in whatever fruit you like, so long as you keep the proportions the same. This was originally going to be just pear bread, until I spotted the spots on the banana and thought “why not?”

Here’s how it goes:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 1tsp salt 
• Cinnamon- I think I tossed in about ½ a tablespoon 
• Dash of nutmeg 
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped as fine or as coarse as you like ‘em 
• ¾ cup vegetable oil (if you’re feeling decadent you can use softened buttah) 
• 3 eggs 
• 2 cups sugar 
• 2 cups fruit (I mashed the banana, then added the peeled and finely chopped pears to equal 2 cups) 
• Splash o’ vanilla  

     Combine the flour, soda, powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add nuts and toss around till they’re coated with the stuff. Combine the rest of the ingredients, then stir into the flour mixture- just enough so everything’s incorporated. Dump it into a couple of greased loaf pans and bake at 350 for about an hour.

 Good stuff!