Cabeuser's Blog

1 Medium Butternut Squash, cut in half, seeds and strings removed.  Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper.  Place in 350 degree oven for 1 hour 15minutes.

Sauce

1 1/4 pound cleaned, peeled headless shrimp (21/25)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 Chipotle chopped (canned in Adobo sauce) and 2 tablespoons adobo sauce

2 to 3 cloves roasted garlic

1 cup heavy whipping cream

Salt and Pepper to taste

Saute shrimp in olive oil until slightly pink,  In small bowl, smash roasted garlic, and chopped   chipotle with a tablespoon of the heavy cream.  Add this mixture to the shrimp.  Add the 2 tablespoons of adobo sauce and the remainder of the heavy cream.  Stir until completely heated and mixed.  Salt and Pepper to taste.

Pour into well of cooked butternut squash.  You can top with parmesan cheese or butter roasted butter nut squash seeds.

At this time of year, the subject of brining the holiday turkey always comes up. As, I am a fan of injecting the turkey, I really did not brine until two years ago.  The brined turkey was very moist and tasty.

There are several products out there but you can make your own brine very easily. I, personally, like a wet brine instead of the dry brine. Last year’s brine for Christmas had a bit of sweetness in it and it was wonderful. I also injected the turkey after the brining.
We will be frying our turkey this year. When you do this, it is imperative that you have a good thermometer and that you dry the turkey before you put it in the grease.

Sometimes you just need to have something that you can whip out quickly.  This will impress your friends but minimize your efforts!

1 large refrigerator roll of sugar cookie dough

1 1/2   8 ounces packages of cream cheese, softened

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Assorted fruits, cleaned, sliced, etc

Using a pizza pan, thinly slice cookie dough and arrange on pizza pan so that it is completely covered.  Slices must be thin to ensure cooking and to have enough to cover the entire pan.  Be sure to slice the dough when it is very cold since it is hard to handle when it is warm.

Bake the cookie pizza at 350 for approximately 12 to 15 minutes.  You must watch the crust on the outside.  The inside will not look cooked but if you over cook, it will burn the crust.  Depending on your oven, it may need to be rotated during the baking.

While this is baking, cream sugar into the softened cream cheese until very smooth and soft. Add the vanilla extract and if needed add one or two drops of water to make it a bit smoother.  Prepare your fruit.  I use sliced strawberries, sliced kiwis, sliced pineapples, blueberries, blackberrieds, cherries, and any other fruit in season. 

Spread this  cream cheese mixture on cooled cookie pizza.  Arrange fruit in patterns around the pizza.  You can glaze if you would like and refrigerate until ready to serve.  I usually do not glaze my fruit pizza.  They are always big hits and very easy to take to events.

Chocolate lovers can change this up and drizzle melted chocolate over the fruit!

Assigned the task of coming up with dishes to feed the Northerners in the family, I put together a few things that could be done ahead of time so everyone would have time to visit.   Unfortunately, most of my friends and relatives do not have as many refrigerators as do I, so we also had to consider food storage!  The meal consisted of tenderloin, veggies, peppered bacon wrapped asparagus, tomato basil salad with aged balsamic vinegar from William Sonoma, and a lovely fruit pizza.

Mix the following in a large container:

3 cups marinated artichokes with a bit of the marinating oil

1 cup sliced black olives

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

2 tablespoons of sun dried tomato bits

3 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt and pepper to taste

Gently mix the above ingredients keeping the cheese in crumbly chunks. You can vary this up with other herbs.  I sometimes use rosemary or basil.  You can also add chopped garlic if  your guests are good friends!