Kabocha and Venison

Fall is here! The leaves are changing and life is rocketing at high speed toward thanksgoving and Christmas. Somehow I find myself busier in the fall than I am all summer long. The kids are in school and doing extra-curricular stuff almost every weekday and that results in mom's taxi service working overtime. Who has time for fancy time consuming dinners? Not this chick. Enter the crock pot superhero!! Today, I've filled it with a delicious, highly nutritious Asian squash and a couple of pounds of ground up venison. 

Ingredients:

1/4 C Soy Sauce

1/4 C Mirin

2 T kaffir lime leaves

1 T brown sugar

1 t ground ginger

1/4 t cayenne

2 lb ground venison or stew meat, browned

7 lb peeled, cubed, kabocha squash

1 small onion, sliced extra thin

Directions: 

Mix all of the liquids and spices into the bottom of the crock pot and taste to make sure the spice level is where you want it. 

Place ground venison in crock pot and cover with Kabocha then onion. 

Cook on high 4 hours or low 8 hours and serve over rice

Over cooking will result in your squash becoming extra tender or mushy. I personally prefer mine mushy but you may enjoy food with actual texture. 

So what exactly is Kabocha, you ask? The best answer I have for the flavor is something like a cross between an acron squash and a pumpkin with a texture like butternut squash.  All of them have that same orangey flesh I so adore. 

Kabocha has a beautiful dark green skin around orange flesh with seeds like a pumpkin. This particular kabocha was enormous so I chose to peel the skin but on a smaller squash the skin is smooth, thinner, and edible if you don't mind a little extra fiber with your nutrients. 

This is how my crock pot looks right before I stick a lid on it and walk away. If you don't have an enormous family like I do, or if you'd rather not have a lot left over to freeze, dialing back the amount of squash is totally an option. My family just loves this stuff though so we may not even have any left to freeze. 

Happy Cooking!! 
 

 

Lazy Lasagna

Easy, cheesy, done is how I like my lasagna. Ok, that's perhaps a bit of an exaggeration simply because I just like lasagna, any way I can get it. The other day I decided lasagna didn't need to be so very challenging as to require long, delicate noodles arranged perfectly. It just needed to be noodle-y, and saucy, and cheesy. So I came up with lazy lasagna! 

See the cheesy goodness? 

Ingredients:

1 Package of wide egg noodles cooked 

1 egg

1 16 oz carton of cottage cheese

16 oz shredded mozzarella

1/4 cup dried parsley 

1 lb browned ground beef or Italian sausage

6-8 cups spaghetti sauce

12 oz shredded Colby Jack cheese

Directions:

While cooking noodles according to package directions, combine first two cheeses with the egg and the parsley. 

Combine meat with spaghetti sauce, drain noodles, and spray two or three foil pans with oil. 

Preheat oven to 350*F if you plan on baking one now. 

Spread a little spaghetti sauce on the bottom of each pan, cover with a single layer of noodles, crumble cheese mixture over noodles, and cover with sauce. 

Repeat layers until your pans are full then top with shredded Colby jack cheese. 

Stick one in the oven uncovered for 30-45 minutes or until bubbly around the edges and cover the other(s) with aluminum foil, label, and freeze. 

I used extra wide egg noodles but you can really use just about any sort of noodle successfully

There's the leftover spaghetti sauce from my last batch. 

The perfect cheese mixture has plenty of parsley in it in my opinion. 

Three round cake pans is what I happened to have lying around
 

All layered up!  
 

The shredded cheese on the top makes it perfectly stringy and wonderful! 

Remember to label the freezer lasaganas!

There they are! All perfect and chilling next to the teeeeny baby ice cream. 

Cheesy, cheesy goodness!!! 

I really do hope you enjoy this wonderful way to make lasagna! 

Beefy Spaghetti Sauce

There was a time when, if I wanted spaghetti I would go to the store, find the pasta aisle, and grab a jar of sauce and some noodles and hurry home to eat. I've learned a lot since that time and how to make some BOMB sauce is one of them. 

I share with you now the home made spaghetti sauce!! 

 

Disclaimer, this IS the sauce I made but I needed to blend it for texture purposes. My stick blender did a great job yet again! 

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef or sausage, browned and drained

1 onion, chopped

2 T garlic, minced

2 stalks of celery, diced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 head of broccoli, chopped (optional)

2 28oz cans of diced tomatoes

1 4oz can of tomato paste

2 T Italian seasoning

2 T dried parsley

Directions:

Put everything in the crock pot with one cup of water and stir until tomato paste is broken up, cover and cook on low for 10 hours or high for 4 hours. 

Stirring occasionally is optional but it will circulate the delicious smell of spaghetti ALL over your house. 

Serve over cooked spaghetti noodles, or any other dish calling for Spaghetti sauce and enjoy!!