Whipped Winter Squash

Simple Comfort Food

Recipe adapted from Recipes from the Root Cellar

I hope you have had as quiet and contemplative a month as I have. After lots of socializing and baking during the holiday season, I’ve been quite lazy. True that I started a weight-lifting program and have been reading a lot. But in the kitchen, less has been more. Hence this super-simple recipe for an elegant winter side dish that requires few ingredients and little effort. If you’re really lazy, like I am, you can spread the prep over two days by cooking the squash one night and whipping it up the next. Vary the ingredients as you like, and don’t even measure if you’re really lazy (fewer dishes to wash). A splash of this, a dollop of that will do the trick.

Turkey, Apple, and Basil Sausage Burgers

Basil, Apple, Sweet Onion and Spices Compliment Meat

Recipe adapted from Smart Cooking the Costco Way

Happy 2015! During the final weeks of 2014 we enjoyed unseasonably warm weather in California. Our garden basil continued to produce strongly flavored if somewhat peaked-looking leaves. Right before the first cold snap, I harvested the remaining leaves and wanted to use them in a seasonal recipe for an oddly warm December. I found this recipe for mini-burgers in a book left over from our library’s book sale, which I purchased for just a buck. Right now you can purchase this cookbook, which has a surprising number of intriguing recipes, for $.01 (ten times less than I paid) at Amazon. I didn’t need another cookbook, but finding this wonderfully unusual combination of basil and sweet apple in a deliciously spiced burger was well worth my impulse buy.