Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Day Two

This one’s a two-parter of past posts, as these both felt especially seasonal…enjoy.

Weekend Recap (originally posted October 29, 2007)

Our first bout of fall weather inspired us to cram in as many seasonal activities into our weekend as possible. Admittedly, most of our adventures involved food. We feasted on homemade apple cake gifted to us by one of Audrey’s classmates, spent Saturday afternoon at the elementary school Halloween carnival playing games and munching on caramel apples and made a big Sunday dinner for my folks, lovely cousin Erin and her mom, as they were all in town at the same time.

I’ve wanted to try and recreate this butternut squash and goat cheese puree that Bryan and I had at our anniversary dinner in Austin, but the weather hasn’t been cooperating up until now. It was so, so easy and crazy yummy. We served it with an oven roast and asparagus, but I think it would be especially good with pork chops.

Here’s how you do it.

• Preheat oven to 375
• Pierce 2 medium butternut squash 4-5 times and place in a casserole dish
• Bake squash for about an hour – you’ll know it’s done when you’re able to easily slide a thin knife all the way through the squash
• When fully cooked, slice open the squash and remove the seeds and strings
• Scoop out the remaining squash into a bowl and add room temperature goat cheese, kosher salt and pepper to taste and mash well with a spoon

Making a List (originally posted November 1, 2007)

I’m pretty adamant about fully experiencing one holiday before jumping into the next one. It’s tempting, with Christmas lights hitting the aisles next to Halloween candy, but I refuse whip out the decorations until the first week of December, allowing us to fully experience Thanksgiving rather than some hybrid Harvest-mas.

I do make an exception for creating my gift list. A ritual after Halloween is to go through old holiday issues of my favorite magazines to get ideas. I just came across this hot chocolate in the December 06 Domino. Last year we became obsessed with making really good hot chocolate (no more powdery mix in a tepid mug of water). This one is a bit pricey, but it looks totally decadent, and the tin is so lovely and minimal, like a little work of art.

It definitely makes the list…a tin for us and a few for gifts…