Emeril's Choice

Once Upon A Time

Emeril Lagasse sent me a signed cookbook 

for my "award winning" (runner up) RECIPE contest submission.  

We never used the cookbook, so I tossed it last year.  

Then I learned what a Big Deal Chef Lagasse is.

O the perils of refusing T.V. ownership.

We never really made the dish. I just made it up out of my graying head.

 Let's try it this Thanksgiving, just to humor an old, graying, hapless fool?

HOLIDAY SQUASH 

- - preheat oven, 370º

- -  Halve four acorn squash, or cut bottoms of whole squash flat to sit upright. Microwave (exposed sides facing down) ten minutes at half power, probably standing above or in a little water, to keep 'em fresh. Let cool ten minutes.

- -3 cups prepared wild rice and brown rice, mixed (just cook them together)

- - mix into rice:

- 1 1/2 c. apple butter

1 3/4 c. grated havarti cheese

2/3 c.  pine nuts

scant pepper (n' salt, if you haft'a)

- if upright (not halved), cut off tops of acorn squash to create "caps." Remove seeds and scoop out a trough for filling

- butter or/and olive oil the insides 

- FILL SQUASH with rice mixture

- BAKE under foil or parchment 45 minutes, tops on

- remove tops and foil after 20 mins.

Repace tops & serve on your finest Emerilish platter, 
and garnish with oak leaves and tiny acorns, or other such gems of the season.

(Once we actually make this, no doubt we'll have to enter corrections...)

- - - - - - - -

Dec. 8, 2011 note:

Embellish with relish!

First, don't cook rice all the way. Second,

ADD to the apple butter a generous portion of 
Marion Sanders' walnut-marmalade cranberry sauce 
to sweeten it up a good bit.  And sauteed mushroom/onion. 
OH, go ahead and throw in some wonderful giblets or cooked sausage, too, 
while you're at it!

Prior to these additions, it was rather bland.