Sweet and Cinnamony Acorn Squash

Cuddly sweaters. Crisp air. Cinnamon. Baked things. Fall is several weeks away, but we can still invoke its spirit by filling the kitchen with the scent of sweet, buttery, cinnamony (sp?) baked acorn squash!

Baha!

This recipe is simple, fun, and tastes really REALLY good. When served to Raus for the first time, he patted my head and said, "Well done baby." Although the gesture was patronizing, I knew it meant he genuinely liked this dish, and I was happy.

You will need:

1 acorn squash

2 spoonfuls of butter

2 spoonfuls of brown sugar

2 spoonfuls of honey

5 shakes of cinnamon

1/4 of vanilla

Dash of salt

Dash of pepper

Handful of almonds

Time: ~1 hour

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit (~200 degrees celsius). Cut your lovely little acorn squash in half and scoop out all the seeds with a spoon.

In a small bowl, mix together the butter, brown sugar, honey, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, and pepper. The measurements are approximate and adjustable. Careful when you taste test the butter mixture - I wanted to eat the whole thing.

Our cute little salt shaker :)

Take a brush and slather the mixture all up in the bowls of your squash halves and all around the top. It'll seem like a lot, but you'll want to use all of it. Wrap a cookie sheet in foil, place the halves on top, and pop them in the oven for about 1 hour.

They should come out looking like so! I put mine in bowls to lessen the mess + maximize the enjoyment of eating them.

Chop up your almonds, sprinkle them on top of your acorn squash, and they're ready to be eaten!

This is great as a side with your dinner or as a dessert/treat. Enjoy!

Cooking Idea's: Spring Rolls

During term Emsu’s time is pretty much consumed with studying so it falls on me to do the cooking.

As a result I often find myself traipsing round the Supermarket trying to think of different meals to cook on a budget.

This week in an effort to use up remaining ingredient’s, rather than letting them go to waste, I decided to make some spring rolls with some beef I found reduced.

Recipes are great but every so often I want to experiment, see if I’ve learnt anything from countless hours of cooking shows and recipes.

I made three different types of Spring rolls. First was beef with ginger, garlic and oyster sauce.

Second was beef with chickpeas in Terakihi.

And third beef with beef with spinach, carrots and cilantro (coriander to us Brits).

Mixed in with complimentary spices the final results were good, though the third kind, the beef with spinach carrots and cilantro were the best.

I haven’t listed the recipes as that’s not really the idea behind the post, just an solution to making something a bit different, use up leftovers, and play chef.

Our Apartment; The Kitchen

So it's nearly been a year since we moved into our apartment in Ann Arbor after making the switch from Korea. After living in crappy little flats in Seoul we really wanted a place that felt like home. With limited funds we couldn't do anything too drastic, but with a lick of paint and some purchases (Ikea and Salvation Army) we have started to make it feel like ours. 

We painted the walls a light grey, while we repainted the cupboards to freshen them up. 

I like to cook (and I'm quite skilled at making a terrific mess while doing so) so it was important to have lots of surfaces in the kitchen. We got two kitchen stands from Ikea and put them together. 

The rest of the kitchen is pretty simple, a little few touches of memories from Korea, some on display storage and a cute garlic holder we found in TJ Maxx for a couple of dollars. 

There is still more to be done (pictures on the walls etc) but its a good start with the budget we were working with, and i'm pretty taken with the green lino floors and surfaces now.