Squash Stuffed Chicken Breasts

There were 8 acorn squash in a bowl on the table for the past month...it was like they were having a stare down with me every time I saw them, almost like they were trying to say, "Come on, just try and tackle us...you never can...cause you don't feel like it, ha ha....ha ha". They were right. So I told my roommate Shauna that she had to :) Besides, I was busy making tomato soup. So Shauna found this recipe and made it and it was great. As you can see, she took the easy route and chopped the chicken into the dish, but if you want to get all fancy, you can stuff it as the recipe instructs. Enjoy!


Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup finely diced acorn squash
1 green bell pepper, diced (or red bell pepper, or a combo of both)
1 small onion, finely diced
1 stalk celery, chopped (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
2 cups all-purpose flour for coating
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish (or simplify the dish and disregard the whole putting this dish into the oven). In a medium skillet, melt butter or margarine. Add the squash, green bell pepper, onion and celery. Saute until slightly tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat, add cheese and mix together. (Before moving onto the next step, if you are taking the simple route, you would have chopped the chicken and cooked it along with the veggies).

Slice chicken breasts on the side about 3/4 of the way through. Stuff mixture evenly into each slit chicken breast until full. Dredge each breast in flour to coat completely, and brown coated chicken in skillet.

Place browned chicken breasts in the prepared baking dish, cover and bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear.

Homemade Tomato Soup

Fall always is a telling reminder of the bounties of the earth and how much the Lord provides for us. Often, the bounties of the harvest feel like a burden to me. When there is squash, zucchini and tomatoes consuming my kitchen, it makes me feel overwhelmed....it means I have to put thought and effort into my meals in order to use them all up. But instead of getting overwhelmed, this fall I am trying to focus on what a blessing it is to be provided by the Lord in so many ways and it truly is a blessing to have access to so much. I have friends in different parts of the world who truly depend on the Lord at times for their next meal, because there are times in their lives when they aren't quite sure where their next meal will come from, or if it will be there at all. There have been times in my life where I have wondered that as well for myself, but it's at those times when you see the hand of the Lord in your life the most, providing for your needs.

So instead of complaining to myself about the "burden" of figuring out what to do with so many tomatoes, I decided to be excited for an adventure in teaching myself how to make my own tomato soup...it's a great way to use up the tomatoes and it definitely taught me that if I thought canned tomato soup was good, then I was living a lie my whole life...cause MAN this stuff, homemade, is DELICIOUS!!!!

Ingredients
4 to 5 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
1 onion, sliced
4 whole cloves, peeled
2 cups chicken broth
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar, or to taste
Directions
In a large pot, over medium heat, combine the tomatoes, onion, garlic and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, and gently boil for about 20 minutes to blend all of the flavors. Remove from heat. Place the mixture into a blender and puree. Strain the pulp if you want a smooth and creamy soup, leave it if you like it how it is (I like to leave mine how it is, just like I like to leave the pulp in the orange juice).
In the now empty pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the flour to make a roux, cooking until the roux is a medium brown. Gradually whisk in a bit of the tomato mixture, so that no lumps form, then stir in the rest. Season with sugar and salt, and adjust to taste. Eat with buttered toast, grilled cheese, or just eat it by the spoonful...double it to make room for plenty of seconds!!!

Spaghetti Squash Casserole

Lately, I feel like squash is taking over the world! It's all over the place....in my kitchen. What the heck do you do with acorn squash beside the traditional butter and brown sugar thing? That isn't even good anyway! I'm still pondering over how to make something good and worthwile with acorn squash. Spaghetti squash is a pain as well, but a little easier to find some half decent recipes for. I chose to tackle that before the acorn squash. The recipe started out a little sketchy, and then...through the help of my friend Dan Jones, it was perfected into a casserole...that I wouldn't mind having again...in fact I really like it! AND it has BACON in it! What more could you ask for! I hope you enjoy it!

1 whole Spaghetti Squash
1 can Coconut Milk (regular Or Light)
1 Tablespoon Chopped Garlic
1 tsp Red Chili Paste
8 strips Cooked Bacon (or As Much To Taste) Cut Into Small Pieces
½ cup Shredded Fontina Cheese

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes

½ cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese

1/4 cup butter

1 cup bread crumbs

Heat oven to 375. With fork, poke holes all over in squash. Place in oven for 45 min or until cooked. Cut in half and let cool till able to touch. Scrape out seeds. Remove skin. Pull strands of "noodles" apart. Set aside (all of this may be done the night before).

Meanwhile, mix together coconut milk, garlic, fontina cheese, chili paste, cherry tomatoes and bacon. Add squash. Place into a casserole pan.

Melt butter and mix into bread crumbs. Add cheddar cheese. Sprinkle over squash mixture. Cover with foil. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 10 min or until bread crumbs are golden.

John's Pizza

Who is John? He's my friends dad, born and raised in Iraq. He lives in Utah now and I love how he cooks. I don't think he realizes how much I treasure eating his food. Sometimes he calles me a pest and wonders why I take pictures of everything he does in the kitchen. Sometimes he gets annoyed when I beg and plead for him to make me this pizza...but he still makes it anyway, nice guy like that. It makes me so happy. Here's the recipe:

John's Pizza

1 Small Onion, cut
1/2 tsp Cajun Seasoning
1/2 tsp Organic no-salt seasoning
1/2 tsp Mint
1 Red Bell Pepper, chopped
1/2 Package Mushrooms, chopped
1/2 Cup Olives, chopped (green or black, or both)
1 Dijorno Pepperoni Pizza

Heat oven to 420 degrees. Heat a large pan with olive oil on the stove top. Add cut onions. Add cajun seasoning, no-salt seasoning and mint. Add red bell pepper. Cook 3 minutes, stirring all the while. Add mushrooms. Turn off heat. Add olives.

Add the sauteed ingredients to the top of the pizza. Place in oven and bake for 25 minutes.

Slice, eat, faint...wake up...eat more, faint...wake up, eat more...repeat as necessary.

Peppermint Ice-Cream

I know it's not summer anymore and you don't have the sweltering heat to drive you to eat ice-cream and it's not christmas yet, so you probably aren't craving any peppermint sweets, but you know what...who says you can't have peppermint ice-cream in the fall. I say you can, so I'm posting the recipe here!
1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 Cups Whipping Cream

1/4 Cup Peppermint Candy, Crushed

Pink Food Coloring

Mix all ingredients together. Freeze, stir after 1 hour, freeze again until desired consistency. Enjoy!