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Food for Thought Friday: people begged me for these two “recipes”
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Last weekend I cooked for my best friend’s very small, socially-distant outdoor baby shower. It’s the first event I’ve cooked for all year and I was SO happy to get to make a menu plan for the first time in many months! I made the two simple and beautiful dishes pictured above: a hearty roasted veggie side dish and a big winter salad. I amped up the presentations a little for the crowd, but otherwise these aren't far off from foods I’d make for myself in a normal week this time of year.
At the end of the shower, however, EVERYONE was raving and begging me for the recipes. My immediate reaction was, "These are not “recipes” at all, they are just my normal food!" Really, they are just two amazing sauces on top of seasonal ingredients plus colorful toppings, put together in a way that balances contrasting flavors and textures - ie, intuitive cooking at it's best!
But... it's almost Thanksgiving and I have to admit these would both be killer dishes on your holiday spread, so I'll play to the crowd and share them in a recipe-like format, but first...
In terms of how I came up with these dishes - it's a combination of the intuitive cooking strategies I've been writing about recently:
- #1 - SAUCES, which I rattled on about in my email titled “10X more delicious in 10 minutes per week.” If you combine that with
- #2 - the strategies in my “winter salad guide” from last week’s email, the result is these two crowd-pleasers. (Note that they are both vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, and nut-free, so also great for serving some of your pickier guests!)
Winter Squash with extra garlicky tahini sauce
This is one of my favorite veggie "formulas" : roasted veggies with a pack-a-punch sauce, plus two colorful toppings.
Recipe steps/keys:
- Simple Roasted Veggies: Roast any winter-ish veggies the way you normally would. I toss my veggies simply with oil (avocado or olive oil) and salt, then roast at 400-425 until tender inside, between 20-50 mins depending on the veggie and how you cut it. Tahini sauce pairs really nicely with the sweet, hearty-but-creamy texture of the squash, but other root veggies, green veggies, carrots, or cauliflower would all do well with this preparation. You could add some cumin and cinnamon to the veggies before roasting for even more flavor. This dish tastes great at room temp so feel free to roast the veggies ahead of time and just put it all together right before serving. For winter squash, I now like to leave the skins on and cut in big slices for a pretty presentation. Honeynut and koginut squashes are my favorite here if you can find them, but really any would work.
- Tahini Sauce - this is a go-to sauce for me, and a very flexible recipe. At the most basic I'd start with 1/2 cup of tahini and thin it out with a little water and salt. For increasing complexity, use a combo of lemon juice and water to thin it out. And for my favorite version of the sauce with a BIG KICK, add about 6-8 cloves of pressed garlic. (Yes, this is a place where I like to use a garlic press, although you could mince it if you don't mind bigger chunks.) Tahini is funny and it might “seize up” and get really thick and weird looking while you make this sauce. Don't fret, just add more liquid if it's too thick and keep tasting and adjusting - adding more water/lemon if you want it thinner, or a bit of olive oil/more tahini if you accidentally make it too thin. Lasts at least a week in the fridge and DAMN does it taste good on just about everything.
- Recipe: For about 1 cup of sauce, gently combine ~1/2 cup tahini, juice from 1-2 lemons, 2-4 Tablespoons water, a pinch of salt, plus as much (pressed or minced) fresh garlic as you like - I prefer 6-8 cloves. Add the liquids slowly and stir gently with a fork to combine. Taste and adjust as needed! Store in the fridge for at least a week. Drizzle over the squash just before serving.
- Toppings:
- Pomegranate seeds are one of my ultimate favorite winter foods in both sweet and savory dishes because they are crunchy, juicy, tangy and sweet all at the same time, not to mention beautiful. Plus I find cleaning a pomegranate in a water bath very therapeutic (1-min how-to video here!).
- A fresh herb always adds freshness and color to a final presentation. You could really use any green herb you like in this case, I just so happen to have picked cilantro on this day.
A Colorful Winter Salad (ideally a minimum of 3 contrasting colors + textures)
- greens: dino kale + radicchio chopped into ribbons
- toppings: (you don't need ALL of these for a tasty salad, but I was going big!)
- pomegranate seeds (juicy, tangy, sweet, red/purple)
- sliced persimmons (crunchy, juicy, sweet, orange)
- thinly sliced raw fennel (refreshing, crunchy, slight anise-flavor, white)
- avocado (creamy, delish, light green)
- toasted pumpkin seeds (fatty-crunchy, earthy, brownish/greenish) OR
- toasted winter squash seeds - If you're making these two recipes together, use the winter squash seeds because they are FREE! To get them crispy, here's what to do. When you remove the seeds from the squash, they'll be all wet. To get them crispy, you'll need to dry them out before toasting. Spread them on a baking sheet and allow to dry out overnight or for a few hours. Once dry, roast in a 350 oven for about 10-15 minutes until slightly brown. Check them often so they don't burn. You can toss with a bit of oil/salt first, or not!
- dressing: the apple/lemony winter salad dressing recipe in last week's email, plus I added a minced shallot to it
And there you go - two wonderful winter veggie dishes to make for a holiday or just a normal night. If you make them, I hope you love them as much as I do!
Happy cooking!
Love,
Jess
PS. I might take a break/vacation next week and not send a Friday email. So - if you don't hear from me, I'll be back December 4th for sure! I hope you have a safe and healthy and delicious Thanksgiving! And if you haven't, make sure to take a somber minute or two to read up on the sad, dark history behind this holiday :(.
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^salad post-tossing. Pro-tip that I learned in catering: Always save a little bit of the toppings to add to the top at the end so that everyone can see what's inside!
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If you like this email, it would mean so much to me if you'd forward it along to your favorite food-loving friends. Wannabe subscribers can sign up here. Thanks for reading!
In case you missed out, here are a few past issues to check out:
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Hi, I'm Jess! I help health-conscious, busy people transform their cooking from "chore" to "whippin it up!" through intuitive cooking, which I teach through online classes, free content, coaching and more. This is my newsletter, Food for Thought Fridays, where I share highly actionable tips and inspiration to help you cook more intuitively (which makes cooking feel easier and SO much more fun!). Once a month, I share a recipe that's really worth making, and I only share those with my email subscribers.
I currently work + live on land that is the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone. And I can't wait to eat at Cafe Ohlone when they reopen someday! Check out this article about them.
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