Food Glorious Food

Oh how I love to eat!  Out here in the middle of nowhere, inspiration for a meal can come from a magazine, from the produce that needs to get eaten, and from how long it will take from inception to belly.  Thomas and I take turns cooking, but sometimes neither one of us is in the mood. 

Recently, I was inspired by a recipe from Food & Wine magazine.  It was for a quinoa-stuffed kabocha squash.  Coincidentally, I had all the ingredients, save for fresh herbs.  This squash is partially roasted and then basted with a butter-thyme-maple syrup sauce.  The quinoa is cooked with thyme and onions.  And the both are sauced up with a creamy thyme and maple syrup concoction.  It was tasty!  The mushrooms were omitted for Tom's sake, and I added a little crab to the sauce for Tom's sake.

That meal was quite a production.  Most weeknights I don't make time to roast squash and all that.  Getting home in the cold and dark shortly before 5 pm, my first instinct is to build a fire and get the house warmed up.  Occasionally I will work up a simple feast, like last night's shrimp with toasted coconut, pineapple, and cutie over rice with crispy wonton strips - no pic.  And other nights a fancy pizza requires less thinking.  

When we make it to town, a dinner out is a treat.  So when we don't make it to town, a frozen pizza is as close to "take out" as we get.  However, a pizza rarely comes out of the box and goes straight into the oven.  I am partial to dressing up my cheese pizza with pineapple, green chile, and garlic - yummy!  This one got a little out of hand - pineapple, garlic, chipotle "sausage", and avocado.  Pretty and tasty!