Anyway, since I had the day off, it was my turn to make dinner (or rather, I thought it would be nice if I made dinner.) So I looked around the kitchen and found a butternut squash that needed to be used, some chicken-with-pineapple meatballs that I was unsure of what to do with, and a Spirooli that hadn't been used in a while. Clearly these ingredients all needed to be combined in some sort of manner. At some point around Thanksgiving, I had come across a spiralized butternut squash recipe that had looked good, so I searched for that. I found it on the Inspiralize website, a great website for looking at spiralized veggie meals. We actually had all the ingredients (with minor substitutions) so that's what J got for dinner!
Here's a look at my interpretation of Orange-Cranberry Glazed Butternut Squash Noodles with Honey Roasted Pecans.
First, I needed to spiralize my butternut squash.
Out came the Spirooli:
Next, I watched a handy YouTube video created by Ali Maffucci, creator of Inspiralize:
Then, I needed to follow the steps for myself:
Next came the sauce. We did not have orange juice, but I did have cranberry blood orange juice, so that worked for both the cranberry juice and orange juice part. I didn't have an orange to zest but I did have a clementine, so I zested that. The only cranberries I had were dried, but I think they worked okay. It all goes into the pot.
I let that simmer for a bit, then it was time to cook the meatballs!
I took the sauce off to cool, then I put the noodles in the oven at 400 degrees, complete with peanut oil all over them (I was almost out, it needed to be used up!) and let them bake for 5 minutes. Then I got out my casserole dish to assemble it. Noodles in first, followed by the glaze, followed by the oven-roasted almonds I had (no pecans in the house) and finally the meatballs on top. Voila.
I tossed it all together before putting it on the plate. On the side we had French bread with garlic/EVOO to dip it in, and I had a nice glass of Riesling.
The verdict? I thought it was a bit sweet and would have preferred to have the real cranberries to tart things up, but overall it was easy. I was a bit surprised it came out so good. Normally when I make substitutions it goes a bit haywire. J seemed to like it a lot. I had enough for leftovers, so I hope it tastes good even after it's had enough time to soak up all the glaze.
Anyway, that was tonight's cooking adventure! Turn in next time, where I might do something crazy, like use my new immersion blender.
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