I love fall. I mean seriously, love fall. It’s one of the biggest things I miss about the Midwest. Living in California, the closest I come to experiencing a real Autumn is putting on a pair of cognac riding boots and ordering a pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks. Around here, you have to make your own fall, so riding boots on and PSL in hand, I did exactly that. I made fall.

I have been craving a butternut squash something (anything!) so went ahead and purchased a big ol squash on my weekly run to Trader Joe’s. After a few days of the vegetable just sitting there, staring at me in the kitchen, I knew I had to put its sweet, buttery insides to use. But what to make?

I really wanted ravioli. I used to work at Biaggi’s Italian Restaurant back in the day and was completely craving their recipe. But let’s be honest. Ravioli? I mean, homemade ravioli? Yeah right. What am I, Barefoot Contessa? I needed a simpler recipe. So I did what I do best and always do—I improvised.

Butternut Squash Shells

½ box large pasta shells – cooked
1 large butternut squash
¼ cup cream (milk will work too)
Dash of nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste.

Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut your squash in half (the long way) and remove all seeds and, technically speaking, the stringy gunk stuff. Brush the flesh side of the squash halves with coconut oil (or olive oil) and place face down on a greased baking tray for 1 hour or until squash is tender.

When your squash is ready, remove it from oven and transfer the inside of the squash to a mixing bowl—careful, the squash will be hot! Discard the squash skin. In the mixing box, add in the nutmeg, salt and pepper and cream. Mash the ingredients together until you have a mashed potato like consistency. Spoon the mashed squash into your cooked pasta shells.

Brown Butter Sage Sauce

One note I must add before you plan to make this amazing sauce, you may have trouble finding fresh (or even dried) sage leaves. I live in San Diego, and even I had trouble. Just use dried sage if you can’t find fresh leaves—I did. Also, my recipe calls for walnuts but if you look at my picture, I obviously used pecans. Use walnuts if you have them—I just didn’t feel like making another trip to the store!

8 Tbsp butter
10 fresh sage leaves (cough… 1 Tbsp dried sage)
½ cup of walnuts

With your stove top on love, melt your butter in a saucepan. Once melted, add in your sage and walnuts, stirring occasionally, until your butter starts to give off a nice brown color. Pour over your butternut squash shells and serve. Your autumn craving guests, Midwesterners and Californians alike, will be sure to ask for seconds. Bon appetite!

Two appetizers I am not a stranger to making are stuffed mushroom and crab cakes. Both crowd pleasers. Both pretty darn simple to make. When I saw both lump crab meat and portabella caps on sale the other day, an idea was born. These two once appetizers were about to be reborn into one fantastic meal—a crab cake stuffed portabella!

Crab Cake Portabella

1 cup bread crumbs (I used panko but whatever you have will do just fine)
6 Tbsps melted butter
1 tsp parsley (fresh or dry)
8-10 oz lump crab meat
¼ cup mayonnaise
Splash of lemon juice
1 cup shredded cheese (your preference!)
4-5 large portabella mushroom caps

Pre-heat oven to 375. Brush your mushroom caps with olive oil (both sides) and place on a greased/foil lined baking tray and set aside. In a mixing bowl, melt the 6 Tsp butter and stir in 1 cup of breadcrumbs until the crumbs have absorbed all moisture. Add in the remaining ingredients (minus the mushroom caps of course) and stir together until evenly mixed. Using your hands, shape mixture into large patties. Add a patty atop of each of the portabella caps and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

While your caps are baking, start to prepare your remoulade sauce.

Remoulade Sauce

¼ cup of mayonnaise
2 Tbsp dijon mustard
2 tsp creole seasoning (I use Tony’s!)
2 tsp horseradish
1 tsp hot sauce
A few splashes of Worchester sauce
A few splashes of lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together and voila! You’re done.

Pull mushroom caps from oven and drizzle with your Remoulade sauce. Serve (with a glass of wine!) and enjoy!

This past weekend, Kevin and I thought it would be nice to invite some of his work friends over for a “little” BBQ. Now, I don’t know about you, but in my house a “little” barbeque is the equivalent to a “little” Thanksgiving—it ain’t happening. Up at 7am and 36 trips to the grocery store later, I am ready to clean the casa and try out some new recipes.

I had it all plotted out. Stuffed jalapenos. Seven-Layer dip. Brown sugar baked beans. Pasta salad with cherry tomatoes. Tossed greens. My cornbread—extra unhealthy. And the Pièce de résistance, a slow cooked bourbon pork loin (the biggest you’d ever seen, direct from Iowa) complements of my father. It was perfect.

With pride, I announcement my anticipated and generous meal plan to Kevin, expecting a gracious nod of approval. He stood there, staring at me. Instead of an assumed “Wow!” or “Great babe!” I received the sad, puppy dog, “You’re not making anything for dessert?” whimper.

With contempt, I looked that spoiled-rotten, no-good, adorable, impossible-to-say-no-to, sweetest-boy-you’d-ever-seen right in the face, shook my finger at him and said!…

“What do you want, honey?” (What can I say—I’m a sap)

So here we are. Banana Cream Trifle. It’s beautiful and one of the easiest dessert recipes you can make. The hardest part about it is finding the actual dish to make it in…and even that has a work around (cough, candle holder from Michaels for $9.99!)

Banana Cream Trifle

Layers:
Graham Cracker (1 box mixed with about 1 cup of butter—mix together)
Bananas (you’ll need about three total, sliced as pictured)
Banana or Vanilla Instant Pudding (make as directed and fill in around banana layer)
Yellow Cake (From scratch or from box. Bake per instructions, let cool, and cut up into bite sized chunks)
Whipped Cream (I am a Cool Whip kinda girl)

Each layer of the trifle should be roughly one inch tall. When you have a good amount (1 inch) switch to the next layer and repeat until your trifle dish is full. For the topping of the trifle, I used the remaining banana slices, macadamia nuts and a caramel drizzle. Feel free to get creative! You’ll love your end result and the simplicity of this recipe. Good Luck!

I’m always on the hunt for “show-off” type dishes and appetizers and when I found this recipe on Pinterest, I knew I had just that. Bacon cups? How friggin adorable and delicious can you get?!

You can put anything in these bad boys, but I personally went the breakfast casserole route. Simply find your favorite casserole recipe, mix it in a bowl and divide into your little bacon baskets. You don’t even have to pre-cook the bacon!

Ingredients:

For Bowls
1 package bacon (Not the turkey sissy stuff)

For Casserole

1 Cup hash brown potatoes (I use O’Brien style)
1 Cup sautéed vegetables (mushrooms, peppers, etc)
8 Eggs, beaten
½ Cup shredded cheese

To Cook:

Line muffin pan with bacon to form cup shapes. Before you add any other ingredients, cook bacon at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Pull out of oven and drain excess drippings.Mix all casserole ingredients in a bowl and divide/spoon mixture evenly between cups partially cooked bacon cups. Sprinkle tops with shredded cheese. Cover with foil. Put back into the oven and continue to bake for roughly 30 minutes, pulling foil off pan 15 minutes early allowing cheese to brown.

*One word of note: Post devouring, I found another recipe that actually turns the muffin pan upside down and shapes the bowls that way. Very clever. Baking the bacon this way will help with the drainage of unwanted fat!

There is nothing quite like the July Fourth holiday. A much-needed day off from work to spend catching 80 degree rays, tilt a few too many back and Oh and Aw over the ethereal fireworks your town went way over budget on.

Whether I’m sipping cold ones on a boat or rocking my star-spangled bikini on the sand, the hostess in me always feels the need to go above and beyond potato chips and cut-up watermelon.  I wanted something fun yet simple, so went a Pinterest hunting to score some ideas.

There are many American flag cakes out there, but I personally think slicing the strawberries sideways (as pictured) is utterly adorable and the way to go—and much more creative. The pan pictured is an 18×26 and accommodates either two cake mix boxes or a doubled up scratch-cake recipe. Use white cake mix/white cake recipe and white frosting (egg whites only!) to keep with the red white and blue theme. I used approximately one box of strawberries and one box of blueberries—If done right, you will have eaten a quarter of the box before your cake is finished.

The pretzel recipe is nothing more than your standard almond bark pretzels. Melt white almond bark, dip pretzels, sprinkle, viola! Throw them in a zip-lock and you’ve got yourself one heck of a bag of goodies for the boat. These, accompanied by a Coors Lite and some deer sausage, will make for one heck of a delish mid-day drunken meal. Expect to be a hero on this day of remembrance.

Happy Fourth of July everyone!