I’ve moved three times with this same bunch of risotto I bought in Michigan. Three times. That’s ridiculous. What could make one so intimidated to make such a beautiful and creamy food? I guess it was the unknown of something not only infamously Italian, but something as touchy as rice. Not to mention that I am not one to stand around in the kitchen, utensil in hand, having to stir my food often. I kind of like to do a million things at once while in the kitchen, whether cleaning the fridge, making yogurt, or finding fitting music from our computer. So if something requires frequent stirring, it will more than likely perish in the heat.

But last night… last night was different. Last night was an evening best spent doing things slowly and a bit monotonously. It was oh so worth it. This was a delicious dish, the risotto turned out creamy, and the locally-grown squash was brilliantly orange. When the rice and squash are mixed, you end up with a truly lustrous dish.

Butternut squash is a great way to pack in nutrient dense goodness, arming the body against winter sickness. Specifically, it is a good source of Vitamin E, Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Calcium and Magnesium, and a very good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Potassium and Manganese. Eat it up. It’s satisfying and complete in and of itself, especially when topped with a salty just grated parmesan.

Butternut Squash Risotto

1 medium butternut squash
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and Pepper
8 cups chicken broth
7 tablespoons cold butter
1 medium yellow onion, minced
2 cups superfino carnaroli rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Split the squash in half, drizzle olive oil on the flesh along with a sprinkle of salt and fresh ground pepper. Bake until soft, about 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Once cooled, scoop flesh from peel and puree in a food processor. If the squash is heavy with moisture, cook in a saucepan for a few minutes until relatively dry.

In a medium stock pot, bring chicken broth to a boil and reduce heat to low. In a separate large saucepan, melt 3 tablespoons of butter. Add the minced onion. Cover and cook over low heat until the onions are tender but not colored for about 5 minutes. Bring the pan to medium heat and deglaze the pot with the white wine. Add rice and stir continuously for 3-5 minutes until ou see the outer edge of the rice turn translucent. With a ladle, add enough broth to just cover rice. Slowly stir the rice with a wooden spoon every few minutes until the liquid has been absorbed. Don’t allow the rice to become completely dry.

Stirring the rice as often as possible will activate the natural starch, helping to make a creamier risotto. Repeat this process of adding broth, allowing it to absorb, until the broth is gone and the risotto is creamy and less firm to the bite. When the risotto is cooked, stir in the butternut squash puree until it is incorporated. Then add the remaining 4 tablespoons of cold butter, stirring until it is melted. Season the risotto with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the risotto in bowls, garnished with grated parmesan.

Serves 6.

We had an Apple Bake Off at work a week or so ago. I was extremely pleased when the announcement arrived in my inbox, taunting all employees to compete. I had 45 pounds of organic Colorado apples sitting in the old stone house at the ranch, and I wanted nothing more than to have some form of motivation outside of myself to make an unusual and delicious apple concoction.

Well, instead of sharing something delicious (like this apple, onion and bacon galette), I made two things that I normally don’t like anyway, and boy oh boy, they were so not delicious. Maybe one of the two had a chance, but not my apple pie a la mode drink, mixed in the parking lot, floating with clumps of nutmeg. Yuk. The coleslaw was probably really good, but I’m not so fond of such things. And tell me this, my friends: why would anyone bring coleslaw to an apple bake off? Number one, this is a completely raw side dish, never baked for a moment. And number two, no one will eat your raw mixture, reeking with caraway, when it’s sitting next to warm apple pie and calorie doused apple cheesecake. Lost cause.

I hate to say it, but on this very same day I made a third dish. I was too embarrassed to bring three things, so I saved the truly delicious one, the galette, for family and only my immediate co-workers. Yes, this will be made again! The galette dough puffs up after only brief kneading and resting. The sweet and salty mix in flavor brings such satisfaction, erasing all need for seconds.

Yes, I felt really guilty not taking this offering to the competition, but it also felt so good to be able to have this for dinner with Josh and Gramma that very night, apple pie and cheesecake still sitting in my belly. Needless to say, with all the preparations in the early hours of the day, few pictures were taken. Just believe that as that bacon crisped up in those lovely morsel pieces, and the onions caramelized, there was nothing better than the finale of apples being added to the richly colored and flavored food in that skillet.

Apple, Onion, and Bacon Galette

First, the dough:
1/2 cup warm water
2 teaspoons (1 packet) active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour, or as needed

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water in a medium size bowl.

Add the beaten egg, oil and salt. Stir in the flour slowly, a 1/2 cup at a time. When the dough is stiff and difficult to stir, turn out onto a floured surface (use some of the flour that is still left from the original amount). Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 4 minutes. Add flour if the dough is sticky.

Set the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a towel, and rise in a warm place until the dough as almost doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

The Savory Filling:
1/4 pound local and naturally raised pork bacon, roughly chopped
4 cups thinly sliced onions
4 cups not too sweet apples (I used a mix of Gala and Jonagolds), peeled, cored and sliced
pinch of salt
A couple sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped
1/4 cup of blue cheese or gruyere, optional

After you’ve chopped the bacon, fry it in a large skillet. After the bacon is just crispy, remove the skillet from the heat, and use a slotted spoon to scoop the bacon pieces onto a plate covered with a paper towel.

Drain bacon grease just until there is 3 tablespoons remaining. Saute the onions along with a pinch or so of salt in the 3 tablespoons of bacon grease until the onions are loosened up and a bit transparent.

Toss in the chopped rosemary with the onions. Add the apples and another tablespoon or so of the bacon fat. Stir until the apples are tender. Add the bacon back into the mixture. Sprinkle salt and sugar into the filling to taste. Set aside this mixture to cool while you roll out the galette dough.

Next!
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is thin and about 14-inches in diameter. There will probably be more dough than you need. Cut away whatever is more than the 14 inches and save for another use. Fold the dough into quarters, then transfer to the back of a cookie sheet or sheet pan. Unfold the dough, allowing it to fall over the edges of the pan.

Once the filling is cool, scoop it into the center of this dough. Leave a border of 2 to 4 inches around the edge. Fold the edges over the filling, loosely pleating and overlapping the dough. The center of the galette will remain open and not covered.

Brush the dough with a beaten egg mixed with some milk or cream, or melted butter. Sprinkle the entire thing with an equal mixture of salt and sugar. Bake at 400 degrees until the crust is browned, about 40 minutes. About 10 minutes before the galette is done, top the filling with gruyere or blue cheese if you feel like it! Let that melt and meld its flavors into the galette. Could be just fabulous, I’m sure!

This steak takes little more than 25 minutes in preparation and cooking combined, yet the flavors rival any past steak we’ve eaten. The steak itself is seared to lock in flavors and juices, then the other cast of characters sneak into play: chopped up garlic, de-sprigged rosemary, and smooth red wine all added into your pan for deglazing. Our steak came from Wags Livestock out of Laramie, Wyoming. Someday it’ll come from Meadow Ranch, Rawlins, WY. But for now, they’re doing a pretty bang up job of raising grassfed cows and we’re buying from them.

This recipe has become a number one promoter of our to-be herb garden (hurry, hurry, faster, faster, plant those herbs!). How can I possibly have to run to the store to find “packaged in plastic” sprigs of organic rosemary? Silly. Down right ridiculous. I would like to transplant our Michigan gardens directly into these rocky mountain grounds we find ourselves on. I can’t wait for the days that we are able to return to plucking and picking thyme, tarragon, sage, and rosemary from our backyard on fanciful cooking whims. Wait. We don’t have a backyard. And wait. Do antelope, elk and deer like herbs? How about rattlesnakes? Oh boy.

We ate this steak with a quickly sauteed cabbage, butter, dill combo, cooked together with salt and water. We could mop up the braising juices and garlic with the cabbage. It was perfect.

Thanks to Nourished Kitchen for being such an inspiring place to find whole and healthy recipes like this one!

Wine Braised Steak with Rosemary and Garlic

1 16-ounce 100% grass-fed beef steak
unrefined sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons butter or clarified butter
4 to 6 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 branch fresh rosemary, plus more to garnish
1 cup red wine, any will do

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Generously season the steak with unrefined sea salt and freshly ground black pepper as it suits you.
3. Heat two tablespoons butter or clarified butter in a cast-iron skillet over a very hot flame.
4. Sear the steak in the hot fat about one minute on each side.
5. Remove the skillet from the heat, add garlic and fresh rosemary needles.
6. Deglaze the skillet with red wine.
7. Place the skillet in an oven preheated to 300 degrees Fahrenheit for about ten minutes, longer if you prefer well-done steaks and less if you prefer a rare steak.
8. serve with pan juices, garnished with additional rosemary.

YIELD: about 4 servings.

TIME: about 10 minutes (preparation), 10 to 20 minutes (cook time)

A few years back, when a friend of ours was living with us, I got pretty hardcore into these smoothies. And all three of us agreed, they were delicious. But after about the second week of me obsessively blending these drinks, Josh and Michelle were done. They’d had enough. So I controlled the obsession, but every autumn since, the craving returns.

This is a recipe from the famed Moosewood Restaurant cookbooks, and this particular book is New Classics. Just because we don’t have many trees in this part of the country doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy autumn in so many other authentic ways. Like organic Colorado pears. In smoothies.

Autumn Smoothie

1 ripe fresh pear, peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup unsweetened apple juice or apple cider
1/2 cup milk (I suggest almond, they suggest soy. I have no milk and am substituting fresh and local heavy cream. But in a way lesser quantity…)
1 teaspoon pure maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 drops pure almond extract
pinch of ground cinnamon

Puree the ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth.

You can not be disappointed!

There’s nothing like spontaneously being greeted by a farmers’ market on a beautiful Sunday morning when you least expect it. We were in Denver for the Avett Brothers concert at Red Rocks and to visit some belted galloway cows. The following day, before heading back up to Wyoming, we decided we desperately needed a strong cup of coffee. We drove around the city, passing four Whole Foods in the process, until we found a coffee shop worth stopping in. I couldn’t believe my emotional reaction to seeing Whole Foods! Who knew how much I loved that box of a store… I was just so grateful that we didn’t stop first at our Whole Foods oasis because lo and behold, as we found that lovely store of caffeine, we saw the streets blocked off for a farmers’ market. And not just any farmers’ market, but one with goat cheese, sausages, peaches, kombucha, heirloom tomatoes, cilantro, pears, and locally produced pancetta and salami. Score. Our Labor Day picnic/barbeque looked as though it just might become realistic. Well, not the picnic part. It was only fifty degrees that evening. But definitely the delicious food part. More on those recipes later.

But let’s get to the point. That pancetta. That salty, tender, lovely block of pancetta turned our last night’s dinner into a luxury. The man selling charcutterie recommended making a carbonara with the gourmet treat. He sold us within his first sentence of description. After a little searching around on-line, I settled on a recipe by Tyler Florence and adapted it just a bit for what we had on hand. It was delectable, peppery, flavorful, and eaten under a sky full of stars on a new moon night with the truck bed as our table.

Linguine Alla Carbonara
adapted from Tyler Florence’s Food 911 recipe (click on previous for link)
Ingredients

1 pound dry linguine, spaghetti, or fettucine
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces pancetta or slab bacon, cubed
4-6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 large eggs
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for serving
Freshly ground black pepper
1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, or 2 tablespoons dried (optional)
1/2 cup reserved pasta water

Prepare the sauce while the pasta is cooking to ensure that the spaghetti will be hot and ready when the sauce is finished; it is very important that the pasta is hot when adding the egg mixture, so that the heat of the pasta cooks the raw eggs in the sauce. The sauce is quite simple, so start that pasta water first. The timing will be easier the second time you make this (and you will make it again.)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until tender yet firm (although at our elevation it actually was closer to 12-15 minutes.) We didn’t have fresh parsley on hand so added some dried parsley to the pasta water near the end of cooking, and then added a touch of dried parsley on finished dish. Drain the pasta well, reserving 1/2 cup of the starchy cooking water to use in the sauce if you wish- I wish that I had reserved the cooking water when reheating leftovers the next day.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a deep skillet over medium flame. Add the pancetta and saute for about 3 minutes, until the bacon is crisp and the fat is rendered. Toss the garlic into the fat and saute for less than 1 minute to soften.

Add the hot, drained spaghetti to the pan and toss for 2 minutes to coat the strands in the bacon fat. Beat the eggs and Parmesan together in a mixing bowl, stirring well to prevent lumps. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the egg/cheese mixture into the pasta, whisking quickly until the eggs thicken, but do not scramble (this is done off the heat to ensure this does not happen.) Thin out the sauce with a bit of the reserved pasta water, until it reaches desired consistency. Season the carbonara with several turns of freshly ground black pepper and taste for salt. Mound the spaghetti carbonara into warm serving bowls and garnish with chopped parsley. Pass more cheese around the table.

The first piece of mail that we received here at the ranch wasn’t a bill or some sort of junk, it was a thoughtful “housewarming” book from one of my mom’s greatest friends. Jeannie sent me a cookbook of recipes from an accidental country girl called, The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Gramma spent some time looking through the book the other day while Josh and I were bouncing around the prairie and she certainly was amused. She says that she’s never seen a cookbook chock full of pictures with kids, cows, and horses.

The cookbook has a lot of recipes that use all fresh ingredients, but it’s not lacking in recipes that use cans of food. I thought for sure that these wouldn’t come in handy to me seeing as I usually have maybe one can of tomatoes on hand, and if we’re lucky perhaps a can of lentil soup. But I’ve learned my lesson; our nearest farmers’ market is an hour and a half away, and the sole grocer in town has little for affordable (or good) fresh food. We end up in Laramie with bags of goods whenever we can get out there, stocking both cabinets and freezers on our return to the ranch. So this cookbook written by a woman who lives on a remote ranch all of a sudden takes on new meaning for my way of cooking.

Rummaging through Gramma’s cupboard yesterday I found a can of olives, and in the fridge some mayo. There was a recipe in the book that actually used these ingredients together. We’ll talk about that later. I’m still trying to accept the fact that I made food to eat from that combo of foods. More importantly, it’s the end of peach season here (it’s supposed to frost tomorrow) and there are cobblers and pies to make. Here’s a great one with a few adjustments I made from Ree Drummond’s book.

Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce
adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Maple Cream Sauce
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
5 tablespoons maple syrup (the real stuff, please)
3 tablespoons honey

Peach Crisp
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg (I like to use fresh and grate myself)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 pound (1 stick) cold butter
5 or 6 cups peeled and sliced fresh peaches (6-7 peaches)
Grated zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

First make the cream sauce- it needs to chill before serving. Pour cream into heavy saucepan, then add maple syrup and honey. Cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until sauce is thickened and reduced by a third, about 20 minutes. Chill for at least an hour before serving over warm peach crisp.

Then, preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Did you know you can make your own brown sugar?

Cut the cold butter into pieces. Add the butter to the bowl and use a fork or pastry blender to cut it into the flour mixture. It will resemble a moist, coarse meal.

Place the peaches in a bowl- to peel, quickly blanch in boiling water (about 30-60 seconds), dunk in icy water, and then slip the peels right off with a sharp knife. Add the lemon zest to the peaches, mix in lemon juice and maple syrup, then gently stir to combine. Remember to save some peaches for the cobbler- don’t eat them all. Pour peaches into 9-inch square or 8×12-inch baking dish.

Top with the crumb mixture, evening out the surface with a fork. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake 30 minutes more, or until the topping is crisp and golden brown. If the topping appears underdone, continue baking in 10 minute increments until it’s done. Spoon the warm crisp onto a plate, then drizzle with chilled maple cream sauce. Yes, it really is THAT good!

We used our leftover maple cream sauce on peaches with yogurt the next morning. And then we ate more cobbler. And then we forced ourselves to hunt for something to chase to end our stupor, but in the end laid in the grass under the sun with a lazy hound dog.