Roasted butternut squash and sage biscuits

I had already expended my lunch hour at home when I headed out my front door in the afternoon. Leaving through the front gate I turned left; the wrong direction if I wanted to head back to work. It was a crisp Autumn day that coolly prompted me to don a toque for the first time this season. My detour was purely a scenic one - on my way to work that morning I had glimpsed brightly coloured leaves in the distance and I wanted to get a closer look. The day before I had noticed the new snow on the mountains and I wanted to take it all in before spending the rest of my day in front of a computer. 

Just three blocks north of my home is Oak St. If you have ever been at the bottom of Oak St. then you know the area I am talking about. It is, no question, the steepest street block in the city. I  distinctly remember the time when my sister, coaching me, in the early days when I was learning to drive a standard, to turn up and on to Oak St. I almost had a heart attack as I desperately motored the vehicle up that impossibly steep hill in the least elegant and most panicked manner possible. 

The literal upside of this steep hill is that just a few blocks up and you encounter a pretty stellar view of the city. Downtown is in the background, English bay sits in the middle littered with sail boats and the sea wall is visible passing through both edges of False Creek. 

This was not the primary view I was after on that afternoon however. I was in search of maple trees. As I neared Oak St., I happened upon two looming, tall and brilliant red-leafed maples. 

As I pulled my camera-phone out for a snapshot an older man walked towards me from across the street. We made eye contact and he smiled as he approached, deducing my directed aim to capture an eternal glimpse of the beautiful scarlet beings. "My favorite time of year", he said as he passed me. "So pretty!" I responded and he nodded in agreement as I plopped my phone back into my pocket and carried on to my Oak St. destination.

 

Being someone who fled my home town, in the Canadian Prairies, to avoid ever having to be cold again, I have never considered Autumn to be my favorite season. But there is no denying that it has its highlights. Ruby red and blood orange maples, snow spattering on the stormy grey and blue mountains and rich, roasted squash-filled dishes are just a handful of the reasons I could never strongly dislike the fall.

For a thanksgiving dinner hosted by a friend, I made these biscuits with squash. Roasted squash and sage are about as an Autumnal of a combination as you can make, and not many flavour combinations are quite so comforting.

As you may know, I lost my new camera to a robber a couple of weeks ago. On a whim this weekend, I decided to upgrade my old school phone to an iPhone. I have spent the entire day playing around with Instagram and thought I could do some posts with my camera phone photos until I am able to replace my good camera.

Roasted butternut squash and sage biscuits

Ingredients

• ~25 thin slices of peeled butternut squash
• 1 tsp maple syrup
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Fine grated sea salt
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup butter, chopped
• 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh sage
• 1/2 cup finely grated cheddar
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 2 tbsp honey

 
Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Toss squash slices with olive oil, sea salt, garlic and maple syrup.
3. Lay out slices on a baking sheet on a sheet of parchment paper.
4. Roast 20 minutes, flipping the slices once after about 10 minutes.
5. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt in a large bowl.
6. Mix the chopped butter into the flour; cut the butter into the flour with a pastry knife or use your fingers to break the butter into smaller bits and to incorporate it into the flour.
7. Mix in the sage and cheddar into the dry mixture.
8. In a separate bowl, whisk together the yogurt, milk and honey.
9. Next, add the wet mixture into the flour mixture. Stir until just incorporated.
10. Turn the mixed dough out onto a heavily floured counter and flatten it into about a half inch thick round.
11. Lay about 6-8 slices of squash onto half of the dough, then cut the dough in half with a large sharp knife. 
12. Pick up half of the dough and put it on top of the other half of dough that has the squash on top; in essence sandwiching the squash between two layers of dough.
13. Flatten the dough out again, pressing gently with your fingertips.
14. Repeat steps 11-13 two more times, layering the squash, cutting and flattening. This does not have to be neat and tidy, it is okay if the squash peaks out of the sides of the dough.
15. Once you have the 3 layers of squash in the dough, flatten out one final time and cookie-cutter out 2 or 3 inch diameter rounds from the dough.
16. Place the biscuits onto a baking sheet.
17. With the leftover scraps, I just formed 2 more, less pretty, biscuits by shaping the dough with my hands.
18. Bake the biscuits about 12 minutes (turn the baking sheet 180 degrees after about 6 minutes for even cooking).
19. Remove biscuits from oven and let cool.

Whole wheat, delicata squash and ginger muffins

Well, today is definitely not my favourite day. Instead of elusively leading you on to the reason today sucked, I will just come right out and say it: I was robbed. This afternoon, someone broke into my home and stole my brand new camera (among other things).

I came home for lunch this afternoon and baked these very muffins while I ate some soup and read through some protocols for my afternoon work. It was a late lunch, and around 2 pm Mike stumbled in the door, tossed in his bike and left again, I did not even see him, only heard him say he had no time for a muffin before heading back out.

I trudged back to work about 10 minutes later. At 5:30 pm I quickly rushed back home to change out of my work clothes and hop on the sky train to meet some friends in Gastown - at The Sardine Can. Only, I did not make it to the train. Instead, when I walked inside my front door, down the hallway, into the living-room and then back into the bedroom, I noticed that the house was really messy. Well, even more messy than usual. Bags were strewn carelessly about, our dryer rack in the bedroom was knocked to the floor, dresser drawers were pulled open and my jewellery box was knocked to the floor - cheap trinkets splayed everywhere.

I had not noticed when I first arrived home that Mike was in the bathroom. My first instinct was annoyance, why did Mike have to recklessly knock everything over when he was in a rush, looking for something that he could not find. When I realized he was home, I called out to him about the mess. He came out of the bathroom, looked around confused, ran to the living room and checked the patio door as we both realized that we most possibly had been robbed. My first reaction was denial, I did not want to admit that someone had been inside our home. It seemed surreal because our laptops were sitting out in the open, untouched. Our bikes, passports, liquor and chequebooks, all easily visible had been left alone. Only a jar and several rolls of change, an iPod and our 2 cameras were gone; overall we considered ourselves lucky.

Sometimes crappy things happen. I am most annoyed because I had to miss my highly anticipated dinner at The Sardine Can, on account of waiting for the police to attend to more pressing crimes. Losing the feeling of safety and security in my own home is probably the only thing I will have trouble dealing with. Although I am sad to have lost my new camera, I can replace it (hopefully my credit card company will help). I just have to hold on to the knowledge that lightening rarely strikes in the same place twice. I think alarming my doors and windows might also help.

The good news is that after taking pictures of my muffins this afternoon, I took out the memory card from my camera and popped it into my laptop so I could quickly check out the pictures. Thus, I have one last recipe I can share while I figure out how to replace my camera. If it takes awhile, maybe I will share a list of recipes that I am determined to try soon;  those that are book-marked under a 'make soon' folder on my Google chrome bookmarks bar.

Until then, lock your doors tight, shut your windows and blinds and do not leave money or other valuables laying about within a visible range from your doors and windows. And, as the lovely constable suggested who came by to document our home invasion, get yourself a dog.

On to the muffins...I have made these muffins twice now and the best thing about them (besides the fact that they taste great) is that they are just loaded with nutrients. There are very few empty calories in these little snacks and all of the ingredients are things you can find at any grocery store: whole wheat flour, a ton of squash, ginger, yogurt and honey. I added the apple more for the visual effect, but if you were so inclined you could stir some chopped apple or maybe some blueberries or even raisins into the batter. 

 

Whole wheat, delicata squash and ginger muffins (adapted from Makeshift Momma)

• Delicata squashes do not need peeling in this recipe, the skin bakes up very soft. If you use butternut or acorn squash I would recommend peeling off most of the skin before grating.
• I used young ginger here but any fresh ginger will do; just try to grate the outside of the ginger (after peeling off the skin) and leave out the tough, fibrous inner core - maybe save it for your next cup of tea. 
• I added a few tablespoons of milk to this recipe for moisture and because I buy 175g containers of yogurt. If you have a larger container of yogurt, feel free to add another 2 - 4 tbsp of that instead of milk.

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp fine ground sea salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp all spice
• freshly ground nutmeg

• 3/4 cup (175g container) plain yogurt
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 tbsp freshly grated young ginger
• 2 cups shredded delicata squash

• Thin apple slices to garnish

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375F with a rack in the center of your oven, preferably with a pizza or baking stone on the rack.
2. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl (I use a fork, or you can sift them together).
3. In another bowl, combine the rest of the wet ingredients.
4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients
5. Grease the wells of a 12-round muffin tin.
6. Divide the batter among the 12 tins and top each one with a couple of apple slices.
7. Place the muffins in the oven to bake for ~20 minutes or until golden brown. You can rotate the pan after about 10 minutes to help even baking.
8. Remove muffins from the oven. Use a utensil to help slide the muffins out of the pan and onto a wire rack for cooling.