Dear Lanie J-

Hi Lanie J.

Someone once showed me how to make baked squash with wild rice and dried cranberries but I was mildly inebriated at the time and can't remember the recipe. Do you have any good baked squash recipes?

-Lynn



Dear Lynn-


Thanks for the email.  You have the major ingredients down: squash, wild rice, dried cranberries, inebriation, so you're doing better than you thought.


Stay easy,
Lanie J

OK, let's do this:

Stuffed Squash with Wild Rice Pilaf
makes 4
hands on time 20 min, total time 1hr


1/3 c olive oil
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t cayenne
1 T dried thyme
2 t dried sage
2 delicata squashes, sliced lengthwise and seeded


 -------------------
1/3 c wild rice
--------------------
1/2 onion, diced
head of Swiss Chard, stems removed
handful sliced almonds
handful dried cranberries
salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 425ºF.  Bring 2/3 c of water to a boil.

Combine oil and spices and rub a little on the flesh of each of the squash halves.  Place the squash on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake until fork tender (bout 30 min).  When they're cool enough to handle, cut in half crosswise.

Once the water is boiling, add rice, cover and reduce to a simmer.  Cook until rice is done (about 20 min).

Meanwhile, heat a large saucepan and add the remaining spiced oil.  cook the onion for about 3 minutes, then add the chard and cook until it's wilted.

Combine cooked rice, chard, almonds and cranberries.  Add salt and adjust seasoning if necessary.  Spoon the rice mixture into the  squash quarters.

Dear Lanie J-

Your recipes ARE stupid easy, but I can't help but think that there HAS to be a way to make them even easier.  Any tips on cutting out some of the tedious stuff?

Yours,
Speed Demon

--------------------------

Dear SD-

I'm assuming that you already bought yourself the little food processor we talked about a while back.

So here's what you do to save a step and some dish washing the next time you cook:

Set aside a little window if time and a large glass of wine.  Get a few heads of garlic and take the skins off.  The fastest way to get the papery skin off a garlic clove is to smash it by setting your knife flat on it and banging it with your hand.

Once you've accumulated a zillion or so cloves, run them through your food processor.  Scoop out little, clove-sized spoonfuls into an ice cube tray, cover with plastic and pop it in the freezer.  Now you'll have minced garlic ready to go whenever you need it!  This same technique works well with peeled and minced ginger, left over tomato paste, canned chipotles, etc.  The important thing is to use a consistent form of measurement - one cube = 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 T ginger, 1/2 T tomato paste or whatever.......you get the idea.

If you still haven't gotten your food processor, you can do this same thing mincing by hand, but it will take 4 times as long, so you'll probably need four glasses of wine.

Hope this helps!

Stay easy,

Lanie J

Email your cooking questions to CookStupidEasy@gmail.com