Spaghetti Squash with Bechamel

Writing and cooking from: Pittsburgh, PA

 

 

My first bechamel sauce

I’ve been tackling my niche pumpkin/spaghetti squash slowly. All the scooped out innards filled my 3-quart mixing bowl so if you have any recipes for spaghetti squash, by all means, share them in the comments!! I froze a bunch of it but still have quite a bit left.

Spaghetti squash, as I mentioned in my previous post, is one of my favorite vegetables. I enjoy using it as a pasta replacement. My brother makes a good spaghetti squash dish with tomato sauce that sounds appealing on a cool day like today.

Also appealing is squash with béchamel sauce. Béchamel is one of the five mother sauces of French cuisine. The others are sauce veloute, tomato sauce, brown sauce, and (another personal favorite) hollandaise sauce. Each of these sauces can be served from the basic recipe but may also be used as a base for other sauces. Béchamel, for instance, is a base for many cheese sauces.

Mastering these five sauces is essential to the repertoire of a seasoned cook or chef. I’m pleased at how well the béchamel for this recipe turned out, I was quite worried about burning the roux, but the art of paying attention served well and my roux, the essential thickening agent for béchamel, turned out rather well.

As for the other sauces, I make a good tomato sauce, but I’ve never attempted a traditional veloute or brown sauce. My mom has taught me how to make good hollandaise but I have yet to be able to replicate one without her supervision (I have the same issue with pie crusts…) Perhaps a remedial lesson when I’m home for the holidays is in order…

But back to the matter at hand, béchamel and spaghetti squash. This was delicious! At first, I used just a little bit of the béchamel and had a light side dish. But then I had a whim to add a bit more béchamel…it’s such a wonderful sauce, rich and creamy, how could I resist? It turned out to be a delightful decision that left me with a bowl full of spaghetti squash strands and sauce that were as creamy and comforting as a bowl of macaroni and cheese. Does a meal get much better than that?

I don’t think so. Here’s what to do:

Spaghetti Squash with Béchamel

Cook spaghetti squash ahead of time in preferred manner (bake, boil, microwave, slow cook…options abound and directions are available in most basic cookbooks as well as online). It varies depending on the size of the squash, also.

Béchamel Sauce

2 T butter

2 T flour

dash salt

dash pepper

fresh grated nutmeg

1 cup milk (room temperature or slightly warmed)

Set out all ingredients before turning on the stove. It’s essential to have everything at hand. Mix the flour and spices in a small bowl and set it by the stove. Measure the milk. And then begin…

Melt butter over low to medium heat. When butter has just melted, (before it burns!) add the flour and spice mixture. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes until the roux is a nice golden color. Add milk a little at a time, stirring constantly, making sure the roux incorporates completely into the milk. Bring slowly to a boil and cook until sauce thickens. When sauce has reached desired thickness remove from heat. Makes about 1 cup of sauce.

Serve immediately over warm spaghetti squash.

Where my ingredients are from:

I’m adding this new section to each post so that you know where my ingredients are coming from, what I can find locally and what I haven’t found locally just yet. None of these places give me any freebies or kickbacks. Everything on this blog is what I cook and eat for myself.

So, the ingredients:

Spaghetti squash – Actually a niche pumpkin from Pucker Brush Farm, Shelocta, PA (50 miles from PGH)

Butter – Horizon brand, not local but Organic and American made

Flour – generic, neither local nor organic

Salt – generic, neither local nor organic

Pepper – generic, neither local nor organic

Nutmeg – Not sure…Mom gave me a few cloves from the stash in her spice cabinet

Milk – Turner’s Dairy, Penn Hills, PA (10 miles from PGH)

 

Cooking my niche pumpkin

In a long ago and far away post, I mentioned that I won a niche pumpkin at the Penn's Corner Farm Alliance CSA picnic. The gregarious giant was donated by Pam at Pucker Brush Farm in Shelocta, PA, less than fifty miles from my apartment!

So what is a niche pumpkin?

It's yellow and orange and covered in knobbly worts. When I got it almost 2 months ago, it was much greener - half of it was a dark green speckled with yellow worts. It was quite pretty and very mysterious so I let it decorate the table for a couple of months, but I assumed the absense of the green meant it was time to cook this sucker. 

Before starting out, I had been told only two things about the niche pumpkin:

1. It is a squash/pumpkin hybrid.

2. The more worts it has, the sweeter it is. 

I observed a few more:

1. It's heavy.

2. It has a hard rind.

3. It's weird looking, but I think it's kind of cute anyway.

I made several assumptions:

1. It will be delicious.

2. It will be the consistency of a pumpkin, butternut, or acorn squash.

3. It will be sweet since it has lots of worts.

4. It will take at least 2 hours to cook.

With only that to go on, I turned my oven to 350 degrees, sliced about a dozen vent holes in the gourd, put it in a casserole dish and stuck it in the oven. After about an hour, it was much more tender than I expected. Assumption #4 turned out wrong, it took just under an hour and a half until I deemed it ready to come out of the oven. 

I left it on the counter to cool for a couple of hours. It took longer to cool than it did to cook! And I didn't even let it cool completely. I was very inpatient and spent most of that time fidgeting around my apartment, doing a bit of cleaning, and repeatedly coming back to poke the pumpkin to test it's temperature.

I even cut the top off to speed the cooling process:

I was excited to cut it open. I was imagining loaves of pumpkin bread for the freezer, mashed squash with butter and pepper, maybe even some muffins or a coffee cake or a dessert of some sort. Perhaps a pie!

But when I finally got to hack it open I was a bit surprised:

It looked and tasted like a spaghetti squash!! Fibrous, stringy, like spaghetti, sweet, but not sugary just not savory...

At first, I was disappointed. So much for that pumpkin biscotti recipe I've been working on. But then I remembered that the spaghetti squash is one of my all-time favorite vegetables!  I immediately made a bowl with butter, salt, pepper, and a little grated cheese, just like Mom used to serve it. 

I've got to reevaluate my menu planning...but I have a feeling there's going to be some deliciousness coming from this niche pumpkin.

After the CSA - What's left?

 

Above you see my kitchen table filled with all the containers of what I have left from my CSA. I picked up my last box just under 2 weeks ago, but between things that I froze and things that have naturally long shelf-lives, I've got quite a bit left.

Here's the full list of what's on the table:

½ c blueberries

1.5 c rhubarb

6 bell peppers

6 Hungarian wax peppers

2 jalapenos

1 Carmen sweet pepper

2 c snap beans

2 eggs

½ gallon apple cider

just under ½ gallon apple cider vinegar

1.5 pounds sweet potatoes

1 pound white potatoes

1 butternut squash

2 delicata squash

1 niche pumpkin

3 onions (2 red, 1 white)

8 oz Boltonfeta cheese

1 bunch fresh parsley

2.5 cloves of garlic

Many of these items will need to be used soon, preferably before the end of the year. Since I’m heading home to my parents house for the last couple weeks of 2010, I’ll probably be bringing a few of these items with me. I’m thinking the squashes and the garlic will need to come along. The potatoes and the cider will be gone as will the cheese and eggs. But most of the frozen items will be good until at least February, if not longer.

All in all, the CSA was one of the best investments I’ve ever made. I’ve made tons of dishes that I never would have otherwise. I even figured out how to eat beets in a way I can enjoy them (which is nice because they are pretty and healthy).

Mostly, though, I’ve just enjoyed discovering what grows in Western Pennsylvania and the best ways to eat it. My interest in local, seasonal food is higher than it’s ever been – it’s gone from passing interest to obsession – and I intend to keep eating locally as best I can during these winters months before the CSA begins again. The farmers around here just grow stuff that’s too delicious not to gobble it up all year long.

I hope you’ll keep coming back to see what I cook next.

Countdown to Thanksgiving: Simple Cauliflower

For the last day of the countdown, something simple: lightly cooked cauliflower.

Cooking up the cauliflower

Sauteed cauliflower with red pepper flakes and  Parmigiano-Reggiano is another family favorite. It's easy enough for a weeknight (which is usually when my mother would make it as a side with pork cutlets), but delicious enough for your Thanksgiving table. You can put it together on the stovetop while your turkey is resting.

This is one of my all-time favorite side dishes so I was very excited when some cauliflower ended up in my CSA box. I'd been hoping for it for awhile since I knew it was in season, but cauliflower is a temperamental crop and therefore less abundant than other members of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and kale.

Cauliflower has its roots in Asia Minor, but has been popular in Italy and Turkey for centuries. (What is it with me and vegetables that are popular in Italy?) Anyhow, I could see this cauliflower being an Italian recipe…I need to ask Mom where she got it. But here it is for you:

Simple Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower, chopped into bite sized pieces
3 T olive oil
red pepper flakes to taste
Parmigiano-Reggiano (or other hard cheese) to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add cauliflower and red pepper flakes. Cook until cauliflower is tender. (If the cauliflower starts to brown up before it becomes tender, cover the skillet to help the tenderizing process along.) Serve topped with grated cheese.

Well, folks, that’s the last recipe of the series because Thanksgiving is TOMORROW! Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed the Countdown to Thanksgiving and will return for more recipes after the holiday. If you make any of these recipes for Thanksgiving or just a weeknight dinner, please leave comments with your results. Let me know what you like! This is a great time of year for sharing experiences in the kitchen as well as favorite recipes. Feel free to treat this as a forum to do so.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Countdown to Thanksgiving: Spicy Cabbage Soup

Cabbage Soup is an easy dish with origins as a peasant food and a modern history of being used for the Cabbage Soup Diet. Recipes vary from a mostly cabbage, low-calorie version for the diet, to ones that include pasta, eggs, meat, or even cream depending on the heritage of the cook.

This isn’t a recipe my family usually makes for Thanksgiving, although there was usually cabbage on the table. Dad would make red cabbage sautéed with bacon every year. If I’d gotten a red cabbage in my CSA box, I probably would have made some myself because it’s delicious! However, I ended up with a green cabbage so had to come up with something else.

Prepped veggies in the Crock-Pot

It’s starting to get cold, so I will begin to eat a lot of soup. I love it in the winter and after making an initial batch, it’s an easy whole meal or part of a meal with a sandwich on the side. This particular soup doesn’t create much of a meal on its own. I top mine with lots of cheese and crackers. I’ve also cooked an egg into the soup when reheating it.

I have to warn you also, that this soup is very spicy. It would be too spicy for me to eat without some crackers in it. Next time, I think I’ll make it with just one chile. It is delicious and I’ve been happily eating it, but it’s easier to add heat at the table than take it away. If you cook this soup as written, you shouldn’t need to add any Tabasco at the table.

Spicy Cabbage Soup

1 cabbage, shredded or sliced

1 bunch carrots, peeled and chopped

3 bell peppers, seeds removed, chopped into slices

1 medium sweet onion, peeled and diced

2 T parsley, chopped fine

½ T frozen thyme leaves (fresh or dried are fine, too, I had some frozen from early in the CSA seaon)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 chiles, stems removed

6 cups water

3 cups chicken broth.

Combine all ingredients in Crock-Pot. Cook on high for 5-7 hours. Remove the chiles before serving. Garnish with cheese, oyster crackers, herbs, and/or microgreens if desired.

Countdown to Thanksgiving: Bruschetta

Bruschetta (pronounced brus-ketta), from the Italian bruscare meaning to toast over coals. In Italy, the season for new olive oil is getting underway now and a simple bruschetta is a favorite way to celebrate the new flavors. The traditional bruschetta is just a slice of toasted bread rubbed with raw garlic and drizzled with olived oil. Simple and delicious (and local if you happen to be going to Italy this winter).

You can dress up bruschetta any way you like. The options are nearly endless. My Mom makes Mario Batali's White Bean Bruschetta, which is a personal favorite of mine. My brother, Ryan, also makes another favorite, a simple garlic, tomato, and basil bruschetta, which I duplicated below, though not nearly as well as he makes it.

Tomato and Basil Bruschetta

Remove seeds from tomatoes. Salt insides and let drain while preparing toasts. Toast slices of thick Italian bread under the broiler until crispy (or use a toaster if you must, not quite the same and takes longer, but your oven might be a little overused on Thanksgiving. I understand.) Rub each slice with raw garlic. Chop tomatoes and basil. Spoon mixture onto toasts. Serve.

Even though tomatoes grown outdoors aren't in season right now, a lot of people are growing greenhouse or hydroponic tomatoes locally because they are so popular. Chances are, you'll be able to find some at the farmer's market.


Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta

The method is the same as above: toast, rub with garlic, add topping. If you roasted and jarred red peppers over the summer use those, if not, you can probably find some jarred, roasted ones at the farmer's market.

Other bruschetta topping options:
Apple or pear slices and cheese
Roasted garlic
Carrot Top Pesto
Squash
Mozzarella and herbs

Countdown to Thanksgiving: Butternut Squash Risotto

Risotto. An Italian rice dish that is so much more than just rice. It’s rich, creamy, and one of my favorite foods. It’s simple to make, but all-consuming. You have to be ready to commit yourself to half an hour or more at the stove alone stirring in broth. And it’s best served immediately.

I picture this being the perfect side dish for someone who desperately wants an hour away from the family to prepare. Tell them you have to concentrate so you don’t burn the rice and that you’re sure everyone will love the dish when you’re done. Then pour a glass of wine and commune with the ingredients while everyone else stirs up the family drama without you. Sounds nice doesn’t it?

I combined a bunch of my favorite ingredients for this wonderful fall dish: rice, squash, garlic, and red wine. It’s comfort food, plain and simple, which is the best kind of dish for Thanksgiving.

Butternut Squash Risotto

I adapted this recipe from  ones by Mario Batali and Giada de Laurentiis, two fantastic Italian chefs.

3 T olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 butternut squash, par-cooked, peeled, diced

2 ¼ c. Arborio rice

½ c. semi sweet red wine

4-6 cups vegetable broth

3 T butter

¼ c. grana padano, grated (plus more for garnish)

Heat vegetable broth in a small pot on a back burner of the stove and allow to simmer while making the risotto.

Heat olive oil in a tall skillet or wide mouthed pot. Sauté garlic and squash for about 5 minutes. Add Arborio rice and toast for about 2 minutes. Add wine and stir in until absorbed. Add vegetable broth about ½ cup at a time, stirring continuously until each addition has dissolved. Continue to do this until rice is al dente, about 15-20 minutes. Taste it starting around 12 minutes and cook until rice reaches desired consistency. Stir in grana padano and butter. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and some grated grana padano.

4 days to go…

Countdown to Thanksgiving: Unabandoning the beet

Beets. I've been fighting with them for the entire growing season. I fell in love with beet greens in one of my first CSA boxes, those have been flying out of my fridge and into a skillet with garlic and an egg within a day or two of arrival in my apartment. But the roots at the bottom? Those dark red orbs? I just couldn't find a way to like them...and I tried a lot of things...


Borscht
Roasted for use on salads
Sauteed with onions
Mixed into dip
Raw on salads


All of them rejects until I decided to bake with my beets. There were lots of recipes for chocolate beet cakes, but mixed reviews as to whether or not one could taste beets in the cake. So I nixed that before I even got out of the gate. I needed a trial run on some other baked good before I was willing to risk ruining perfectly good chocolate.


So I made bread. In the spirit of zucchini, pumpkin, potato and other vegetable breads, I mixed up some bread with beets. It made a beautiful pink dough.

It baked up brown...


But I liked loved the bread anyway!! It doesn't taste like beets. Well, okay...I could've pureed the beets better because a few chunks snuck in and those tasted like beets, but if you spend a couple more minutes blending it should be problem solved.


So without further ado, a new veggie bread for your Thanksgiving table:


Beet Bread

1 c. cooked, peeled beets

½ c. butter, partially melted

2 T maple syrup

½ T lemon juice

1 tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. salt

1 ½ c. all-purpose flour

Puree beets with butter (to partially melt, I just put a stick of butter in the microwave for about a minute, it’s not exact, just helps to have a little of both, I found) – this is best done in a food processor or blender. 

Mix in maple syrup and lemon juice. Fold in remaining ingredients to form a soft dough.

Place dough in greased loaf pan. Bake in preheated oven at 375 degrees Farenheit for 25-35 minutes (until knife inserted in the center comes out clean).

Thick, dense beet bread. Enjoy!

Countdown to Thanksgiving: Broccoli Casserole

Broccoli Casserole is a favorite dish for me and my mom. We don't make it for Thanksgiving, but it'd be worth doing some year. The recipe is from Mom's grandmother Ella. I only made one change and used fresh instead of frozen broccoli. You can use either, but, at least in this area, broccoli is in season right now so I say get the fresh stuff!  

This casserole does use the oven but you can make it a day or two ahead and just reheat it after you pull out your turkey. Just be careful...if you make it too soon, it may not last until Thanksgiving because it looks so delicious fresh out of the oven!

Broccoli Casserole

Ingredient line-up

1 head of broccoli, chopped and cooked
1 cup mayonnaise
1 can cream of mushroom soup (11 oz.)
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup grated cheddar
1 cup Ritz crackers, crushed (approx. 20 crackers)
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Steam broccoli until fork tender (about 5 minutes). Mix mayonnaise, mushroom soup, and eggs with broccoli. Pour into 2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Mix crushed crackers and butter. Sprinkle over all. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Fresh, hot broccoli casserole

I'm curious if this recipe was originally from Ritz because of the crackers. I found a recipe up from Kraft foods that is pretty different except for the broccoli and Ritz combo, it features Velveeta as well and doesn't sound nearly as satisfying. The recipe I shared seems pretty popular, though with many variations. Even Paula Deen has a nearly identical version. If anyone knows more of the history of this mysterious green casserole - please comment!

6 days to Thanksgiving...

Fettucine with Broccoli and Walnuts

Broccoli, walnuts, and garlic

I think this is my first broccoli post. I'm not sure how that happened. I really like broccoli. It's delicious (when properly cooked) and full of nutrients. It's an anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory agent. And...it's an Italian vegetable, first cultivated in Italy.


Fettucine with Broccoli and Walnuts

2 cups fresh broccoli, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
handful walnuts
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Cooked fettucine

You can easily make the sauce while the pasta is cooking. This is a very easy dish for two:
 Prepare the broccoli and garlic. Put in skillet with walnuts and olive oil. Saute 7-10 minutes, until broccoli is al dente. It should still be bright green and tender (not mushy) with a bite of bite left to it. Toss with pasta. Serve with grated cheese if desired.

I have to admit though, that while delicious...it's not the healthiest way to eat your broccoli. The saute processes eliminates some of the nutrients from the broccoli, however, according to WHFoods, if you saute it for less than 3 minutes more nutrients will remain in each pretty floret, so this may be a worthwhile adaptation of the recipe depending on your broccoli preferences. Steaming and eating it raw are the healthiest options. Still, I think this is worth enjoying as above...nutrients or not...it's just yummy.

MGP goes out to eat: Casbah Mediterranean Kitchen and Wine Bar

With my CSA coming to an end in a couple of weeks, I want to try a few new things around here while keeping the focus on local, in season, and delicious but not being driven by the contents of my CSA boxes. I'll be checking out the farmer's market, restaurants, and still creating lots of new recipes. But I digress...

Last weekend, my parents came to visit. We checked out lots of Pittsburgh favorites like Church Brew Works, Make Your Mark, and Primanti Brothers, but our adventurous choice for something new to all of us was Casbah. It's just a few blocks from my apartment in Shadyside. Casbah is part of the big Burrito Restaurant Group, which includes several restaurants in Pittsburgh, each one features local food.

The menu at Casbah changes daily to reflect locally available ingredients. When I opened my menu in the low lit dining room, I was delighted at how quickly I knew which vegetables were in season by having seen them in my CSA box: beets, brussels sprouts, greens, squash, pears, potatoes... Even more delightful was the note at the bottom about the farmer's they buy from, including the Penn's Corner Farm Alliance (that's right...the group that runs my beloved CSA). I knew it was going to be good before we even ordered.

Mom and Dad both embraced the local greens in their appetizers. One had prosciutto with arugula (and also some fresh figs) and the other chose the arugula salad with potatoes, mushrooms, and goat cheese (all, I suspect, local). I aimed for a small plate of pasta with the gnudi (a ricotta and flour pasta similar to gnocchi) served on top of squash with fried brussels sprouts.

We departed slightly from the local after the appetizers with plates of cioppino, Alaskan halibut, and duck, though the extensive list of farmers on the big Burrito website leads me to believe that all the vegetables and dairy on the plates were local and the fish is probably all American...but don't quote me on that...I'm just impressed.

The dessert menu kept amazingly to the local as well with options like sweet potato tart and almond cake with pears. We all opted for things with chocolate...but I think I'm going to have to try making a sweet potato dessert soon...I've got a couple in the pantry and if the chocolate hadn't been served with espresso ice cream there would've been a larger argument for that sweet potato tart...just saying.

All in all? I give this place 4 stars on the locally delicious meter.

Pear White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pears, cinnamon, walnuts, oatmeal, and white chocolate - tastes like fall!  I adapted this recipe from my favorite parts of recipes for apple cinnamon cookies, oatmeal cookies, and chocolate chip cookies, and they're a new favorite on the first shot!

There are no pictures of these cookies because I got excited while I was making them and then forgot. And then they got eaten before I photographed the finished product. Oops. When I make them again, I'll put up pictures. Because I'm definitely making them again.

I created these for the Penn's Corner CSA Potluck a few weeks ago to celebrate the harvest and the fabulous bounty we've been receiving for weeks and weeks now and will continue to receive for about another month.

These are chewy, chunky, everything but the kitchen sink type cookies. Serve them with some mulled apple cider or a light and sweet cup of coffee for dessert, a midafternoon snack, or an accompaniment to a good book on a cool, rainy afternoon. (If you'd like a book suggestion, I recently enjoyed Liar's Club by Mary Karr who also spoke in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago. Excellent writer.)

But back to the sweets....here's how you make them. :)

1 ½ c. peeled, sliced small or grated fresh pears

½ c. butter, softened

1/3 c. honey

1/3 c. white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 ½ c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

1 c. rolled oats

½ c. walnuts, crushed into small pieces

½ c. white chocolate chips

Cream butter, sugar, and honey. Stir in egg, vanilla, and pears. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt gradually. Stir in oats, walnuts, and white chocolate chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F for 10-11 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Celebrating the 10/10/10 Global Work Party

 Today, for 10/10/10, I’m offering something a little different. Today is the Global Work Party in a collective effort to face climate change. The event is sponsored by 350.org with millions of participants worldwide. In honor of this day, I’m going to highlight ten examples of what’s in season here in the Pittsburgh, PA area along with a round-up list of recipes from around the world featuring the same foods. Maybe some of these are also in season where you’re from. If not, find out what is, cook with it, and share your results with us!

1. Apples - My favorite food this time of year and a fantastic place to start with dessert and on home turf…after all, what could be more classically American (or maybe cliché by now) than Apple Pie? If you’re a visual learner, take a few cues from Alton Brown in his video on making a Super Apple Pie complete with Applejack in the crust. Not that ambitious? Don't worry, I don't have time either. Here's a simpler recipe from the NY Apple Association.

2. Beets - Okay. I'll admit it. I don't love beets. But some people do and they're a nutritious superfood, so I'm going to keep trying them. Perhaps with a culinary jaunt to Eastern Europe. Pickled, pureed into soup, roasted, or raw beets are popular throughout this region. I hope to someday discover a beet soup that I like if only for the fabulous pink color that you'll get from recipes like this one for Barszcz Zabielany.
3. Garlic - While I'm content to make batch upon batch of garlic bread, some of you might want to try something new. How about a versatile, Middle Eastern Garlic Yogurt Sauce? I'm thinking of putting it on toast to approximate garlic bread...but I hear it goes better with pita chips, as a sandwich spread, in kebabs, or as a dipping sauce for veggies and chicken.
4. Green Beans - These Asian Green Beans will supposedly convert the vegetable-reluctant.
5. Onions - African sweet potato pancakes get double points for using onions and another in-season ingredient (the sweet potato).
6. Pears - While I'll be featuring my own pear cookie recipe later this week, it's not about that today. So how about trying a taste of France with Pear and Blue Cheese Tarts?
7. Potatoes - Get a last taste of summer with Argentinian Potato Salad.
8. Pumpkin - South African Pumpkin Fritters can be a dessert or savory side dish depending on your final adjustments.
9. Tomatoes - It doesn't get simpler (or more delicious) than an Italian Tomato and Mozzarella Salad.
10. Butternut squash - I'd never thought of pairing butternut squash with vanilla ice cream until I read this recipe...and now I'm desperate to find out if the compote would go well on some. Read the recipe for Doce de Abobora and share what you might serve this dish with.