Steak ‘n Squash

Aside from both starting with the letter "S" steak and squash don’t have many similarities. Or do they? For starters, both were recently cooked by me, and both are delicious. Sounds like similarities to moi. I received an acorn squash in my first week’s farm share box so like my adventure with the beet I went to the trusty internet to find what to do with it.

I located a delicious sounding recipe for acorn squash baked with brown sugar (yum!) butter (yum!) and honey (yum!). That’s three yums in a row, we’re talking big-leagues now.

To go along with my squash (and zucchini which I would also roast in the oven) I wanted a low-fuss meal that was tasty, filling, and wholesome, too. So I headed to Whole Foods and found myself a nice sirloin steak. Because really, when you pair steak with veggies you can’t go wrong.

The result of this meal was a wonderful mix of seasoned steak with an appropriate, and not overwhelming nor scant, amount of veggies. I really enjoyed the sweetness of the squash, especially in contrast to the tender and juicy steak. The sugar and honey and butter melted down to create a quite yummy syrup that accompanied the squash very nicely. However, my only complaint is that I probably could have left the zucchini in the oven for a little longer but it was still tasty and edible so I guess that’s all that counts. And it was made up for by the fact that the steak, as always, was fabulous.

Overall score: 7 out of 10.

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Baked Acorn Squash compliments of Reluctant Gourmet

Ingredients --

1 Acorn Squash, halved

2 pats of butter

2 teaspoons of honey or maple syrup

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

Salt & pepper 

Directions --

Pre-heat oven to 375 - 400 degrees F.

Scoop the seeds out of each half acorn squash with a spoon.

Add 1 pat of butter, 1 teaspoon of honey or maple syrup, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, salt and pepper to the hollow scoop of each half.

Place upright on a greased cookie sheet and roast for about 1 hour or until tender when flesh is poked with a fork.

Ratatouille with Steak Au Poivre

Time to put the fancy new cookware to use! I’ve never made ratatouille before and I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten it either… honestly, before seeing this recipe I’m not sure I even really knew what it was, other than the bits and pieces I was able to glean after watching the first half of the Pixar movie. But I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it’s really just a whole bunch of chopped up fresh spices and veggies like eggplant, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms. 

This recipe was very easy, especially because I got to chop up all the fresh spices (parsley, thyme, etc.) in my little food processor so it made a very savory addition to the veggies. Then, of course, I cooked it in the oven in my fancy new Fontignac dish. Using fresh veggies and spices from Whole Foods was definitely key to this recipe and I’m pretty addicted to using all fresh ingredients now whenever I can (rather than anything canned, frozen, or dried spices) – I can’t wait for summer and farm market season!

I also chose a nice sirloin steak to accompany the ratatouille which I decided to cook “au poivre” style, coated in cracked peppercorns – I even found a recipe online for how to make the pan sauce (which was quite easy and especially delicious, thank you Julia Child!) 

I made my pan sauce with red wine rather than cognac and I added some Dijon mustard which gave it a nice kick. I think I want to keep experimenting with sauces now that I get the jist of how to make them (basically adding some gravy, alcohol, spices and such to the drippings from the steak pan).

Overall rating: 9 out of 10.