Butternut Squash #2: With Homemade Sausage In A Lasagna Thing.

As promised, the skipped #2.

10.27.2011: Butternut Squash Week #2: 

 A sort of lasagna, with alternating layers of thinly sliced butternut squash, homemade spicy pork sausage, crushed red chilis, red sauce, garlic, onions, & boursin, burrata (cream filled mozzarella), & parmesan. Served over pasta.

I just made this up. I like making up lasagna type things, or so I call them, they are usually only lasagnas in the sense that they involve layers (remember bacon as noodles?)

But truly, who doesn't prefer meat noodles to past noodles? 

Basically, it is fun to throw a bunch of different meats & veggies into a cast iron dutch oven & bake them & cover the whole mess with cheese. I made a lovely lasagna last fall with butternut squash & homemade green tomato sauce we had canned from the abundance of green tomatoes we produced in our garden in 2010. My favorite vegetarian main course is a pesto & mashed potato lasagna.

On this particular night, we had butternut squash, of course, & we had the same homemade pork sausage that went into this meal.

No recipe. Just layers layers layers. Use what you have-this a great way to get rid of random grocery items in the fridge in a delicious fashion. 

One of the first things I ever learned to cook & still one of my top three comfort foods (eggplant parm, curry, tuna casserole) was my mom's eggplant parmesan & maybe that's why I like layers of vegetables & meat & cheese & sauce so much.

Thus concludes the The Great Butternut Squash Food Challenge Of 2011. 

I think. I know we never had recipe #7, but once we had power & you could buy groceries again, we moved on. Blame it on the power outage. We do still have squash, so maybe I'll do one more, but no promises, since that week is long over. 

Six out of seven ain't bad, though, right?

Bacon Honeymoon (or bacon makes a good thing even better).

You know. It's always all about bacon around here. Even on my honeymoon, apparently.
We received, at least for us, a very fitting wedding present, which was the use of a beautiful house in a breathtaking setting in which we could spend a week with just us & our sweet hound dog. We have never lived together without at least two & sometimes four roommates. Alone time is very valuable to us. We love to cook, we love hiking & mountains, & therefore being out in the woods with a fabulous kitchen at our disposal & a fireplace & a mountain in the backyard was pretty much perfect (thanks deb & cate!).

September 2011: The Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich + Gift Lasagna. 

Some people would take their wedding cash & go out to eat, but we didn't. We were really excited about being alone in our own (temporary) house for once. Our own house is our biggest dream right now. so, yeah, cooking by ourselves! ! ! That said, we hate to waste food, so we didn't go crazy grocery shopping. Basically, we started with wedding leftovers (onions, potatoes, butternut squash, crackers, cheese, eggs, & butter) & we locally purchased really good bacon, a steak, broccoli, & bagels.
Two themes immediate emerged: the need for a serious breakfast if you begin every day hiking up a mountain with your dog, & lasagna, which a very sweet wedding guest (thanks jim!) brought us for "the cabin." (it really wasn't a cabin, it was a gorgeous six bedroom redone farmhouse that even Martha would be jealous of.)
So we, discovered bacon, parmesan, & onions on a bagels is a seriously kickass breakfast sandwich.
I consider a good breakfast sandwich a life staple. Eggs & meat & cheese on a bagel please me. 
& although we didn't actually want to bring the lasagna with us (all we wanted to do was cook) there was definitely a night (after a long adventure in New Hampshire auto mechanics & pouring rain) that we were very content to curl up by the fire & reheat that thing. Obviously, we were unable to resist making it a lot better with additional cheese, broccoli, ample garlic, & of course bacon. I really can't totally not cook.
So, yeah, our honeymoon, bacon, mountains, dogs. That happened.
Oh, did you hear we in Western Massachusetts had a serious snowstorm before Halloween & the power went out everywhere for days & days? Next: EnD cooks breakfast sandwiches on a propane burner in the snowy driveway. True story.

Bacon Lasagna, Circa December 2009.

If y'all have been keeping up with my archives over here, you'll recall that the breathtaking Bacon Lasagna was invented one hot July night at Hugo's as a last minute inspirational dish for Izaac's bacon party (yes Izaac is only mentioned on this blog in connection to bacon). Then I made it for Melissa sometime in September & it again ruled. So for Melissa's welcome back to Noho from Europe dinner, I made it for the third time. It's always different. This time it had avocado, for some reason, & free fancy cheese from work.

Anatomy of A Bacon Lasagna (drawing inspired by this classic DnD post):

These were the layers: Vermont applewood smoked bacon, summer squash, roma tomatoes, gloucester onion & chive cheddar, raw sheep's milk pecorino, avocado, & shallots & garlic previously sautéed in melted butter & white wine. Then all baked together in delicious greasy melting layers of unspeakable delight. OMG!

While baking: a very classy cheese platter made of entirely free cheese & crackers from work. Go, work. Served on our reasonably new very stylish cheese platter from the Westfield Salvation Army.
& the main course served over noodles = a fabulous dinner party with Melissa, Nate & Owen, 12.12.2009, during which we also enjoyed the astonishing raver crafter supplies found in my attic that night, glow in the dark beads & sequined ribbons, anyone? Plus, as free glue glun!
& then we all obviously went dancing at the Basement, the end. (of that night).

bacon as noodles (or why hugo's solves all my problems)

BACON LASAGNA! a drawing of the bacon lasagna I made for izaac's fabulous bacon party. This is a classic DnD moment because the recipe was invented by me late the previous night at hugo's (our office) after literally a month of me worrying obsessively over what to cook for this party (many moments of astonishing brilliance occur at hugo's, at least for me. If I have a problem, clearly hugo's is the place to work it out). "Bacon as noodles" is pretty much a life-changing revelation. THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES.In all its glory: Vermont applewood smoked bacon, patty pan squash, green zebra heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella cheese, & a garlic/shallots/white wine butter mixture, layered in the fashion of a traditional lasagna, salted & peppered, then baked for an hour. Pretty incredible.
I know. We're nuts.