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Simply Recipes

A family cooking and food blog. Healthy, whole-food recipes and cooking tips for the home cook. Photographs and easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions.

Polenta Casserole with Fontina and Tomato SauceNovember 18

We came across this baked polenta recipe in an old Bon Appetit issue, and used up the last of our garden basil to make it. The recipe comes from an article on a unique Tuscan farm, Spannocchia, a working farm "eco" retreat, noted for its artisanal salumi. The casserole was delicious, and the farm looks even more intriguing. I love the idea of being able to hang out in a Tuscan kitchen taking cooking classes for vacation, don't you?

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Butternut Squash with Browned Butter and ThymeNovember 17

If you have only one oven in your kitchen, any Thanksgiving side dishes you prepare generally need to be made on the stovetop, as the turkey is taking central stage in the oven. Here is a simple butternut squash side that you can easily do on the stove. The trick to this dish is browning the butter before adding the squash, so that the squash absorbs some of the complex and wonderful browned butter flavors, before it too is browned.

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How to Peel and Cut a Butternut SquashNovember 16

The most essential thing I learned from taking a knife skills class with Chef Shuna Lydon, other than the obvious tip of keeping your knives sharp, was the importance of stabilizing whatever it is you are attempting to cut. This is nowhere else as critical as when cutting a butternut squash, a notoriously difficult task because of the thickness and density of that squash. The most important thing to consider when following these steps, or anyone else's steps for cutting winter squash is to keep whatever pieces you are working on as stable as possible. The first cut from the bottom of the squash is to help keep the squash steady on the board as you gently work your knife down from the top to bottom.

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ChilaquilesNovember 11

Chilaquiles. Chee-lah-KEE-less! I mentioned I wanted to make chilaquiles to a Mexican friend the other day and you should have see the smile and look of rapture that come over his face. This is true Mexican comfort food, what your mom made you for breakfast when she had some stale tortillas that needed to get used up. Chilaquiles are basically corn tortilla pieces that are fried, cooked in salsa, and sprinkled with cheese. They are often served for breakfast with eggs and a side of beans or nopalitos. My mother grew up with her mother making them with green chile tomato salsa and grated longhorn cheese, a Tex Mex version. I recently brought some homemade salsa verde over to my friend Arturo's house and he made two traditional Mexican versions for me, one with the salsa verde, and one with a red chile sauce made with dried ancho chiles (pictured above). Recipes for both follow.

Do you like enchiladas? Chilaquiles are basically the same ingredients, but

Nopalitos with Tomatoes and OnionsNovember 11

Nopalitos are the edible young paddles of the prickly pear cactus, grown throughout their native Mexico, the southwestern United States, and the Mediterranean (brought back by the conquistadores). The paddles are widely available in Mexican markets in the US, either whole (with spines) or prepared (cleaned, spines removed, chopped). They are tasty cooked, and are used in many traditional Mexican dishes. Here is a quick, easy, and delisioso nopalitos recipe prepared for me by my Mexican friend and caterer Arturo Vargas.

Do you have a favorite nopalitos recipe? Please let us know about it in the comments.

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