I love cooking squash.  It’s pretty easy to make and goes in a variety of dishes.  Spaghetti squash has a bonus, though.  It looks like pasta after it is cooked!  This means you can make pasta-like dishes with it.

For this recipe, you’ll need a spaghetti squash, some sliced mushrooms, onions, garlic, jarred (or homemade) spaghetti sauce, chickpeas, and ricotta cheese.

First, we’ll slice the squash in half and remove the seeds and "goo" (that’s a scientific cooking term) in the middle.  Don’t toss those seeds, though.  You can bake them later for a tasty snack.

Place the squash halves face down on a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 30 – 40 minutes (depending on how heavy your squash is).

While the squash bakes, sauté some onions and garlic.  Then, add some mushrooms and cook them down.

When the squash is done, use a fork to pull the flesh off of the shell.  The spaghetti squash will string out just like… well, spaghetti.  Put this in a big pan.

Mix the squash with the mushrooms, chickpeas, sauce and ricotta cheese.

Then, you simply serve and enjoy.

I’ve made this dish quite a few times.  It’s relatively quick, easy and very healthy.  It also makes quite a bit.  One spaghetti squash can last make enough to last us for two or three dinners.

Last year, I wrote a pair of blog posts about some fudge I made.  During the year, I meant to do a Cooking With TechyDad segment about the fudge, but never got around to it.  With the holidays in full swing, I decided to pull out the old fudge recipe again and this time I took photos.  Let’s begin shall we.

First, of all, you’re going to need to devote your full attention to the fudge for 10 minutes or so.  So lay out your ingredients ahead of time and make sure there won’t be any distractions.  For the ingredients, you’ll need chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla extract.  You can also add a mix-in.  I like using Andes baking chips, but you can also use mini-M&Ms (the big ones are nice too but leave the fudge tough to slice), peanut butter chips, nuts, etc.  If you don’t want to use a mix-in, no problem.  Plain fudge tastes good also.

Now that your ingredients are out, get an 8 inch by 8 inch baking pan and line it with aluminum foil.  Lightly grease this with cooking spray.

Now, measure out 2 cups of chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups of your mix-in (if using).

Put the chocolate chips in a small saucepan and pour in the condensed milk.

Now stir it over low heat for about 10 minutes or until smooth.

It won’t look like it’s doing much, at first.  Then it reaches what I like to call the “chunky chocolate milk” stage.  (That’s a technical term.)

As you can see below, we’re almost ready, but it is still a bit lumpy.

Ok, *now* we’re done.

At this point, you need to act fast.  Removing the fudge from the heat long will cause it to harden up in your saucepan and nobody wants that.  First, toss in any mix-ins you might be using and give the fudge a few stirs to distribute it all around.

Now, pour the fudge into your 8 inch by 8 inch pan.  Smooth it out as best you can, but don’t worry about it looking perfect.  Jagged edges are part of homemade fudge’s charm.

Stick the fudge in the fridge for 1 1/2 hours (overnight is fine too).  This happens to be one of my favorite parts.  No, not putting the fudge in the fridge.  Scraping the pot and eating the bits of fudge left behind. YUM!

Once your fudge has set, take it out of the fridge, remove it from the pan and carefully peel off the foil.  (Some might stick to it, but it should all come off relatively easily.)

Now you have a big block O’ fudge.

This is nice and all, but I don’t think it looks nice to be nibbling on a hunk of fudge that size.  So let’s slice it.  Since it was in an 8×8 pan, it’s only fitting to cut it into 8×8 slices.  This way, each piece of fudge is 1 inch by 1 inch (approximately).

Make the first slice about halfway in.

Next, cut each of these pieces in half and each of the resulting pieces in half.  Now, you have 8 strips of fudge.

Turn the fudge 90 degrees and repeat the cuts.

There you go!  64 pieces of wonderful fudge.

Here’s a close up of the mint, plain and M&M fudge I made.

This recipe makes a *lot* of fudge.

You could easily make a few batches, wrap them up nicely (e.g. using those Chinese food containers that you can buy from craft stores) and give them as gifts.

Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll eat a piece of fudge.  *om nom nom nom nom nom nom nom*

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s a Greek restaurant near my parents’ house that had the best chickpeas.  They were marinated in olive oil with onions and spices.  I’ve long wanted to get the recipe or duplicate it, but one ingredient always eluded me.  The last time we were there, though, the chickpeas tasted off.  We suddenly realized the missing ingredient: lemon.

During a Pampered Chef party at CutestKidEver’s house, we found a Greek rub that seemed to contain just the spices we needed.  Score!

So here’s my recreation attempt.  First, the ingredients:

That would be chickpeas (2 cans), a small onion, the Greek rub and some olive oil.  Now, we we chop up the onion.

Drain the chickpeas and pour them into a container.

Now add the chopped onions.

And the Greek rub and the olive oil.

Now mix and marinate for a day or so.

In the end, this was good, but there’s still more to go before I’ve perfected it.  First of all, refrigerating it only leads to the oil congealing.  Also, the onion taste was way too strong.  I might try a milder onion next time or perhaps sautéing it slightly to soften it up and remove some of the strong flavor.  I might also make smaller batches so that we don’t have a huge container of a slightly off version.  All in all, though, this was a decent first try.

(By the way, this was my first post composed using Windows Live Writer. I’m just getting used to it, but so far I love it!)

By my parents’ house, there is a Greek restaurant. I used to order from them all the time. They would even recognize me, not by my voice, but by my phoned in order of “Spanikopita, side of rice pilaf and side of chickpeas to go” as I drove home from work. I’ve tried (and failed) to find spanikopita as good by me. Of course, any trip to my parents comes with two conditions, the first of which is that we eat at the Greek restaurant. (The second is stopping by Trader Joe’s.)

Despite my love of their spanikopita (aka spinach pie), there’s another dish that I’d love the recipe for more. Their chickpeas. When you sit down for dinner, they’ll place a bowl of these in front of you with some pita bread. My taste buds are watering just thinking of them. The chickpeas are marinated with chopped up onions in oil. My best guess is that it is olive oil with some mystery mixture of spices. (And now my nose just kicked in as I remembered their scent.) I would eat these chickpeas every day if I had the chance.

Every time I go, I tell myself that I should ask for the recipe so I can try to duplicate this dish. Every time, I either chicken out or ask so meekly that it is all too easy for them to decline.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever asked a restaurant for the recipe to a dish that you loved? Were you ever successful if obtaining it?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #44

While we were at Disney Social Media Moms, we were included in a dinner along with 400 volunteers. At the time, we thought that the food that we ate was part of a Robert Irvine/Dinner Impossible challenge. Sadly, it turned out not to be the case. The volunteers got Irvine’s food and we “just” got Disney food. I say “just” because the food was exceptional (as is par for the course at Disney). In fact, having seen what Robert Irvine created, I’m happier with what we were served. Still, it would have been cool to have been part of a Dinner Impossible challenge.

One dessert in particular stood out. It was a warm brownie torte that tasted like it was uncooked warm brownie batter (and I mean that in the best possible way). Here’s a photo, although Disney Food Blog has a better one.

We had gotten a couple plates of these and when the boys (who by this point in the night were exhausted) refused it, I ate the second plate. For some reason, my chocolate-brownie-lust overpowered my brain and I only realized too late that I had eaten B’s plate! I vowed to recreate the dish as soon as I saw how it was made on Dinner Impossible. Of course, once the episode aired, it became apparent that this dish wasn’t part of the show. I’m on my own now in recreating it, though I have a few ideas.

My Aloha Friday question for this week is: Have you ever recreated a dish you’ve eaten out somewhere? If so, how successful were you? If you haven’t, is there a particular dish that you’d love to be able to recreate?

Oh, and if anyone has any pointers for recreating this, I’d be happy to hear them.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #41

One of the simple things I love doing is roasting vegetetables. Roasting them brings out all sorts of wonderful flavors and is so easy to do. The basic rundown is: Slice veggies, toss in a little extra virgin olive oil, toss in salt and pepper, place on a cookie sheet in the oven until soft and delicious. I made some of these to go with dinner yesterday and figured I’d take some photos to share the details of my procedures.

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Today’s Cooking With TechyDad is a two for one deal. You might recall a few months back when we went apple picking and came home with a ton of apples. Well, they didn’t go to waste. (For the most part. A few wound up getting tossed when they went bad.) I made, among other things, homemade applesauce and crispy apple skins.

Let’s start with the apple sauce. First, gather your ingredients. Apples, sugar and cinnamon.

Next, peel and chop your apples. Don’t discard those skins, though. We’re going to use them later. Put the chopped apples in a slow cooker.

Add in a cup of sugar, a teaspoon or two of cinnamon, and a cup of water.

Next, cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

When you’re done, enjoy warm or cold, by itself or over ice cream. Oh and the juices released make a wonderful drink all on their own!

Now on to those apple skins. Cover a baking tray with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray. Place the skins on the tray and spray them with cooking spray.

Top all of this with some cinnamon sugar. (If you don’t have any, just mix your own. It’s what I do. The container’s just from a one time cinnamon sugar purchase I made years back.)

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes until the skins get crispy. You’ll want to flip them over every few minutes to keep them from burning.

When you’re done, let them cool and then enjoy!

In the cold, winter weather, a nice, warm soup can really hit the spot. Especially if said soup is full of cheesy goodness! First, let’s gather our ingredients.

For the record, that’s 2 sticks of butter, 1 cup of flour, 6 cups of milk, 3 cups of chicken broth (or, as I used, No-Chicken Broth), 3 to 4 cups of shredded chedder cheese, two packages of frozen broccoli and salt and pepper (to taste).

Now toss the butter into a nice, big pot on medium heat and let it melt.

Once the butter is melted, mix in the flour and cook this for awhile.

Once this has browned, mix in the Chicken/No-Chicken broth and milk. (Yes, I know the photo shows 4 cups of milk. I added 2 additional cups but didn’t take a photo of that.)

Make sure you keep stirring. I’ve found that stopping stirring lets the flour/butter mixture (aka the rue) settle to the bottom of the pot. The resulting soup will be much more watery and you’ll have more bottom-of-pot gunk to clean up. Neither of these outcomes is very desireable.

You can also add in your pepper now.

It will seem like you’re stirring forever, but eventually the soup-to-be will start to bubble. Once it does, add in your shredded chedder cheese.

Resist the urge to nibble on some….. Ok, maybe just one bite. YUM!

Keep stirring until the cheese melts. This won’t take long. Once it has melted, toss in the frozen broccoli florets.

Keep stirring the soup until the florets cook. This shouldn’t take too long at all. Now simply ladle into bowls and serve. With crackers, if desired.

By the way, there’s a variation that we’ve done, which we actually like better than Broccoli Cheddar Soup. Use cauliflower florets instead of broccoli florets. Then, when the florets have cooked in the soup, use an immersion blender to puree some (not all) of the florets. The cauliflower’s taste blends (no pun intended) into the overall soup better and the pureed cauliflower is easier to sneak by fussy palates of kids. Either way, this soup is full of cheesy goodness.

Credit where credit is due: This recipe was sent to me by kileigh7.

JSL loves macaroni and cheese. If we let him, he’d eat “Mac Cheeze” for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Of course, if we let him live off of boxed macaroni and cheese, he wouldn’t be getting vital nutrients. He’s going to keep wanting macaroni and cheese, so we’ve got to somehow find a way to make it healthier. Mixing in chunks of broccoli doesn’t work. He finds those and freaks out. So what do we do? Luckily, Missy Lapine, also known as The Sneaky Chef, has an answer.

This is a very simple recipe. It only has four ingredients: Eggs, Orange Puree, Shredded Cheddar Cheese, and Macaroni.

First cook the macaroni. After all, you don’t want Crunchy Macaroni and Cheese. While that’s going on, crack 4 eggs and mix them into 1 cup of puree.

Now, mix in 1 cup of the macaroni and 1 1/2 cups of the cheese. (NOTE: Just before this point, we decided to make a double batch. Thus the sudden increase in the egg/puree level and the massive amount of muffins later on.)

Take this mixture and portion it out into muffin cups. Top with some more cheddar cheese if you like. (We did ours without and they came out just fine.)

Bake for 20-22 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

When they come out, eat.

NHL liked these. JSL was tired at the time and so cranky in general. I think the muffin shape threw him. He’s used to macaroni and cheese being slopped out onto a plate. Having it in a hand held shape was just too confusing. B and I loved these and ate…. well, we probably ate more than we should have. This recipe will *definitely* be made again and again.

As a bonus, the macaroni and cheese muffins can be frozen for long term storage. Honestly, though, I don’t think they’ll really last too long. They’re too delicious. In addition, I can personally attest to the fact that they taste good cold. *cough*late night snack*cough* The full recipe to this is available on Missy’s website.

Continuing on with Sneaky Weeky, we’ll be making Mexican Muffins today. First, we’ll get our ingredients together.

That’s eggs, egg white (well, eggbeaters since I didn’t have egg whites), cheddar cheese, salsa, tortillas, and the white puree. First we’ll crack open the eggs and mix in the egg whites egg beaters and puree.

Next, we’ll mix in a cup of cheese and a cup of salsa.

Now that the filling is done, let’s get the tortillas ready. First spray them with cooking spray on both sides.

Next, push them into a muffin tin. (Be careful not to rip them!)

Pour in some of the egg mixture and top with cheese.

Now bake it at 350 for 20 – 22 minutes. Take it out and enjoy!

When NHL and JSL bit into these, they didn’t realize that there was any cauliflower or zucchini (the white puree) involved. For all they knew, this was just eggs and cheese in a tortilla shell. However, success quickly evaporated when NHL spotted some peppers from the salsa. He quickly rejected the whole thing and JSL, copying his brother, rejected it as well. I made it again another day, this time leaving off the salsa, and had a little better luck. B and I liked both the salsa and salsa-less versions.