Thursday, October 14, 2010

Acorn squash suggestions?

Two questions.

1) Does anybody else get a funny message when they try to use the search function in the top left of the screen? O webmaster, is there a setting that can be toggled so that we could search by keyword?

2) Does anybody have any suggestions for acorn squash? I usually smear it with butter, sprinkle some brown sugar and cinnamon on it, and bake it, which seems to be the most basic recipe, but I was wondering if anybody had anything unusual they did with it.

Cauliflower Cheese

We saw this on nami-nami and had some extra cauliflower this week so we tried it and really liked it.

1 large head of cauliflower
salted water, for boiling

butter, for greasing

Topping:
200 ml whipping cream or double cream
2 Tbsp grainy mustard (I like Maille's Moutarde à l'Ancienne)
150 g grated cheese (Cheddar, Havarti, Eesti juust - it's your call)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
some fresh herbs (I like dill here)

Cut the cauliflower into florets. Put the florets into lightly salted boiling water and boil for about 10 minutes, until cauliflower is cooked. Drain thoroughly, then place into a lightly buttered medium-sized shallow oven dish.
Mix cream, mustard and most of the cheese in a bowl, season with salt, pepper and herbs. Spoon the cheese mixture over the cauliflower florets and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese.
Bake in a preheated 200 C / 400 F oven for about 10-15 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the topping is lovely golden.
Serve.

We did it pretty much as written with a super mild havarti and a little smoked gouda, with dill and Inglehoffer mustard. It was really easy to make and pretty darn tasty. I could hardly taste the havarti, though. I think next time I'll stick with the more flavorful cheeses, because the gouda was great in it and I bet a nice cheddar with some Italian herbs would be great.