Proper grammar notwithstanding, I know you’re thinking, ” Hey, Paul is dead right; there AREN’T enough songs about squash!” But before you waste a portion of your day trying to scratch out some lyrics for “The  Crookneck Squash Blues”, you might want to take a listen to this song by Australian singer/songwriter Darren Hanlon. Sadly, it’s about the other type of squash, the one that involves a racquet. Maybe if I send Darren some new lyrics he’ll do a version honoring the vegetable. One can only hope.

As for the cooking with squash, I’ve written about acorn and pattypan squash, and pumpkins before but with the wide variety of squash available year round and a plethora of great recipes for them, you can easily see the versatility of the squash family of vegetables.

It was our turn to host dinner club last night and the theme was “Fall Harvest”, so I decided to call on the acorn squash once again as our main dish and prepared Sausage and Apple Stuffed Acorn Squash.  I liked this recipe because I thought the sweetness of the squash would pair very well with the spicy sausage. It was easy to prepare and was enjoyed by all. I tripled the recipe for dinner club, but here’s what you’ll need to prepare 4 servings:

Start your oven at least 15 minutes before you intend to use it and set it to 15 degrees below your intended temperature. This ensures that the interior of the oven will reach a uniform temperature. After you put your ingredients in the oven, turn it up to the proper temperature. Since you lose heat when you open the door, you can be sure that the oven will get up to temp quickly by jump starting the heating cycle yourself.

Combine the melted butter, garlic salt, and ground sage and brush it over the cut sides and cavity of the squash. Add salt and pepper to taste and bake in a large roasting pan, cut side up, at 400 degrees F for 1 hour or until squash is tender yet still holds its shape.

While the squash is baking, fry the pork until light brown then remove it to a strainer to drain. Keep 2 tablespoons of drippings in the pan and add the onions, celery, and mushrooms. Sauté about 4 minutes or until tender. Stir in the apples and sauté 2 more minutes.

Combine the pork, onions, celery, mushrooms, and apples with the breadcrumbs in a large bowl. Taste and season with the fresh sage, salt and pepper, then stir in the egg and 2 T fresh parsley.

Fill the squash halves with stuffing until slightly mounded. Return the squash to the over and bake, covered, for 20 more minutes, until the egg is set.  Top with shredded Romano cheese and garnish with the remainder of the parsley.

You may, like I did, have extra stuffing left over from this recipe. It goes really well in an egg scramble for breakfast and also would make a great filling for a savory breakfast pastry. I think it would also be delicious in turkey, chicken, or peppers.

Give it a try and let me know what you think! I’ll look for your music videos on YouTube.

Iron Chef Dinner Club* III kicked off, as usual, with a meeting at the Chagrin Falls Eagles club to reveal the secret ingredient. Once again, Ron Kooser stepped up to be our Chairman and chose the secret ingredient. He along with his wife, Linda, and friends Kent and Olivia, would act as the judges. We also had a surprise guest judge: Danny Binder, son of participants Jack and Mary Kay Binder, who was home visiting from Washington & Lee University.

With citrus being revealed as the secret ingredient, each team drew  a course, and a number which corresponded to the order in which a fruit would be chosen from the available selections. Selections from which to choose were grapefruit, Minneola tangelo, lime, lemon, key lime, Mandarin orange, and blood orange. The Minneola was unusual, so that’s what I chose when it was my turn to pick.

It Takes Two to Tangelo

According to the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences extension at the University of Florida, the Minneola tangelo is “a Duncan grapefruit x Dancy tangerine hybrid released in 1931 by the United States Department of Agriculture Horticultural Research Station in Orlando. This tangelo (like other tangelo cultivars) is therefore 1/2 tangerine and 1/2 grapefruit. The fruit is quite handsome and a genuine pleasure to eat.” After tasting one I have to agree.

The Minneola tangelo typically has a stem-end neck which protrudes to make the fruit pear or bell-shaped. A Duncan grapefruit/Dancy tangerine hybrid is marketed as the Honeybell and is highly sought after as a mail or online-order gift fruit. Look for Minneolas in your local market instead from December through February. They’re nicely orange in color and about 3 to 3 1/2 inches in diameter. I picked up some at Heinen’s. They were 3 for $2.00.

Creative Juices

For my appetizer I wanted to make something somewhat unique that would travel easily and not require any extensive prep immediately before serving. After researching many different recipes I decided to take ideas and ingredients from several and came up with modifications to include the Minneola. I ended up with Pineapple Minneola Meatballs.

I was cooking for 17 people, so I scaled the recipe to make about 72 meatballs. Divide quantities in half for a single batch:

Combine all meatball ingredients and mix well. It’s meatballs, so get in there with your hands and mix it up well. Shape into 1-inch meatballs (I used a disher to make sure mine were uniform in size) and pan fry in a little Canola oil, turning frequently until browned, about 10 to 15 minutes. I did mine in my Calphalon 12-inch Everyday Pan in batches of about 20. Leave enough room so the meatballs fry properly. Too many in the pan and they will cook from the steam and will not brown properly. Remove to a mixing bowl when finished and drain the excess fat from the pan.  For the sauce, add the onions and cook for about a minute until they release some flavor and just begin to soften. Stir in the remaining sauce ingredients and cover and cook over medium low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring gently to deglaze the pan. Remove the cover and simmer until thickened to the desired consistency. To serve, place  a little sauce on a plate, top with 3-4 meatballs, top that with a little more sauce, garnish with a Minneola supreme and some chopped green onions.

Pineapple Sauce and the Supremes

Cutting any sectioned fruit into supremes is easy with a thin, sharp knife. Simply cut off the ends, then slice down each side to remove the skin and pith. Then slice along each section membrane to remove the sections of the fruit. Minneolas contain some seeds, so be sure to remove them, too. I was surprised at how juicy and sweet the Minneolas were. I cut mine over a small bowl to catch the juice and ended up with almost 1/2cup per Minneola. All that succulent juice reduced down nicely to form a delicious fruit sauce.

In hindsight I would have plated a little differently and perhaps added a little more to the dish; maybe some candied Minneola zest as a garnish or some tarragon or cilantro as a accent. But overall, the meatballs were very tasty and I was pretty happy with my dish, especially since I’d never made it before.

Here’s the complete list of all the dishes prepared using the secret ingredient:

• Lime Shrimp Ceviche
• Pineapple Minneola Meatballs
• Salad with Pecans and Mandarin Orange Dressing
• Salad with Walnuts and  Cranberry Grapefruit Dressing
• Spiced Mahi Mahi with Cous Cous and Blood Orange Salsa
• Key Lime Cake with White Chocolate Frosting
• Lemon Angel Food Cake with Lemon Custard Filling

All were terrific, as was the Chairman’s beverage of the evening, Citrus Surprise. I don’t know what was in it. All I know is that if you weren’t careful, it snuck up on you in a hurry with a surprising kick!

I’m always impressed with the culinary skill and creativity displayed by our dinner club members. Even though we all enjoy a little competition, everyone appreciates tasting something new and exchanging ideas. In researching recipes for ideas, I not only learned about a new ingredient, I found at least three citrus dishes that I want to try as a result of this challenge: a fiesta citrus soup, Asian crab cakes with citrus wasabi mayonnaise, and citrus bruschetta. For me, that’s part of the fun of trying something new in the kitchen.

For our next Iron Chef Dinner Club, we discussed having everyone prepare the same course, probably appetizers, since that will make it easier for the judges to compare each dish throughout the meal. An evening of tapas-like food sounds good to me!

It was a fun evening, and this much I know for sure: I definitely got my vitamin C allocation for the day!

*About once a year, our dinner club prepares an Iron Chef-like meal with a secret ingredient. Each dinner club team draws a course and must prepare it using the secret ingredient. Taste, creativity, and presentation are all judged.  Our Chairman provides an adult beverage based on the secret ingredient for all to share. Of course, everyone wins, because, after all, we all get to eat a great meal!

Summer time is grilling time, and even though you may use your grill year round, you just can’t beat the sizzle and aroma coming from a hot grill while enjoying an icy cold adult beverage! I’m a George Hirsch/Bobby Flay kind of griller–I’m not afraid to try anything on the grill–so when our dinner club gang decided to do an “Everything Grilled” edition, I knew it would be fun and delicious.

We began with an appetizer of grilled prosciutto-wrapped figs, stuffed with smoked mozzarella. A terrific start indeed!

The main course was barbecued ribs with a selection of sauces. The ribs were started two days ahead with a 24-hour marinade in pineapple juice followed by another 24-hours bathed in Willingham’s Original Mild Spice Rub before being finished on the grill. The ribs were absolutely delicious; tender, sweet and spicy all at once, especially with a variety of sweet, spicy, and smoky sauces to choose from.

Dessert was grilled pound cake with pineapple jalapeno and mint chutney and tequila whipped cream. It was the perfect finish to a great meal!

Renée and I drew salad as our assigned course and settled on a recipe by Stefanie Paganini for Grilled Peach, Almond and Arugula Salad:

Toss all ingredients together in large bowl with Balsamic Vinaigrette. The proportions above will serve 8.

We really liked the combination of flavors in this recipe. The spicy bitterness of the arugula, the sweetness of the grilled peaches, and toasted almonds and ginger topped with balsamic vinaigrette just sounded really terrific.

This recipe calls for freestone peaches which  is a peach which has a ‘free’ stone, meaning that the flesh of the fruit can easily be removed from the stone, with little to none remaining attached to the stone. Other varieties are clingstone and semi-freestone, which perform as the names imply. US-grown peaches are available from May to mid-October. Any you may find from October to May are generally imported from Chile.

Selection and storage are important if you want truly delicious peaches. Tree ripened peaches have reached their maturity before being picked, which means they will be juicy and sweet without a meaty texture to the flesh. Don’t buy peaches stored in the cold section, those that are rock hard, green, mushy or have shriveled skins. Look for well-rounded fruit with deep yellow coloring under a blush of red. Ripe peaches will be fragrantly sweet and will be firm, but will yield to gentle pressure. These will ripen in two to three days at room temperature.

At home, store your peaches on the counter at room temperature until they ripen completely. Ripening can be helped along by placing the peaches in a paper bag. To move it along even faster, add a banana or an apple to the bag. Ripe peaches can then be stored in the refrigerator for no more than a day or two before eating or they will lose their juice and flavor. Wash them in cool water and dry with a paper towel to remove any remaining fuzz.

To pit freestone peaches, cut along the seam all the way around and through the fruit to the pit. Twist each half in opposite directions and they will come off cleanly. Clingstone peaches are best pitted by cutting them into sections and removing the sections one at a time. Peeling is easy; simply blanch the peaches for 30 to 60 seconds and peel with a paring knife.

Grilling fruit caramelizes the natural sugars, softens the flesh and releases juices. The flavors of the fruit become concentrated and the smokiness of grilling adds an element that enhances the taste of fresh fruit.

The best way to grill fruits or vegetables is to begin by brushing the grill clean and spraying the grates with cooking spray or brush them with salad oil before lighting the grill. This enhances the flavors and keeps foods from sticking to the surface. Pre-heat your grill to medium heat.  Place the fruit, cut-side down on the grill and cook, uncovered, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Turn over and continue grilling until the fruit is tender but not mushy, about 5 minutes longer.

Making your own Balsamic Vinaigrette is simple and enables you to add an additional level of freshness to your salad.

The key is to slowly add oil to create an emulsion. Done properly, the emulsion will not separate and you won’t have to shake up your dressing to remix the ingredients. You can do this with a whisk, but the power and speed of the food processor not only creates a strong emulsion, it also aerates the dressing to make it slightly thicker.

The finished salad!

Over the last few years Renée and I have had the pleasure of joining with a group of friends every other month or so for dinner club. When we started, each couple would prepare a different course, with the hosts making the entrée. Then we moved on to specific cuisines: Italian, Asian, Mexican; then to decades: 50s, 60s, 70s. It has always been fun to make different dishes and we have enjoyed some really terrific meals thanks to the culinary talents of our fellow dinner clubbers.

With the excitement surrounding last year’s Next Iron Chef competition involving Northeast Ohio’s own Michael Symon, we thought it would be fun to have our own Iron Chef-like competition for dinner club. We talked through many iterations of how we would conduct this event and what the rules would be and finally decided on the following:

- Ron Kooser–who apart from being the father of our friend and fellow dinner clubber Sheree, is President and COO of Cini-Little International, a world-wide provider of facility planning and operational consulting for all types of commercial foodservice facilities–would act as our Chairman and choose the secret ingredient.

- The morning of the dinner, a meeting would be held at our local Eagles Aerie where drinks would be consumed and the secret ingredient would be revealed.

- Courses to be prepared would be drawn from a hat to determine what each couple would bring to the dinner.

- Chairman Ron and his wife, Linda, along with friend and fellow Cornell School of Hotel Administration graduate Kent and his wife, Olivia, would act as the judges.

- Each couple would present their preparation to the judges and explain their use of the secret ingredient.

- Everyone would eat great food and drink great drinks.

And so it was that at 10:00 on a Saturday morning the secret ingredient was revealed: Blueberries!

And…They’re Off!

Each team then set out to find unique recipes, shop for ingredients, and prepare their dish. I was on a training ride that morning and had to help coach three lacrosse games that afternoon, so Renée attended the morning meeting. Our course was Appetizer, so we met at noon to choose our recipe: Goat Cheese Mousse with Red Wine Caramel.

We wanted something that combined sweet and savory and this recipe seemed perfect. (We didn’t find out until later that it is from Karen Small at the Flying Fig in Cleveland!) The original recipe called for crostini topped with goat cheese mousse, red-wine caramel and strawberry compote. We thought it would work well with blueberries, too, so we went for it. (The recipe below prepares 4 servings; we had to make enough for 20.)

1. In a saucepan, bring the wine, port, black peppercorns, shallot, thyme sprigs and 1 cup of the sugar to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Using a moistened pastry brush, wash down any sugar crystals on the side of the pan. Cook over moderate heat, without stirring, until syrupy and reduced to 1 cup, about 35 minutes. Strain and discard the solids. Let the caramel cool slightly.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, toss the blueberries, orange zest, water and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and let stand until juicy, about 30 minutes.
3. Bring the blueberries to a boil and simmer over moderate heat until slightly thickened and jammy, about 15 minutes. Transfer the compote to a bowl and let cool.
4. In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the goat cheese, cream, ground pepper and chopped thyme until creamy. Spoon the mousse into a bowl and serve with the compote, caramel, crostini and walnuts so guests can assemble their own.

The caramel, compote and mousse can be refrigerated separately for up to 3 days and brought to room temperature before serving. Each component can be used in a variety of sweet and savory ways: The caramel, for instance, is great drizzled over just about any cheese or vanilla ice cream.

The evening was fun, and of course, delicious! Here are the dishes enjoyed by all that evening:

Appetizers:

Carmenere-Marinated Skirt Steak with Blueberry Chimi-Churri

Goat Cheese Mousse with Red Wine Caramel and Blueberry Compote

Salads:

Marinated Shrimp with Blueberry accent and Merlot Reduction Sauce

Blue Cheese, Greens, and Maple Blueberry Dressing

Entrées:

Blueberry Turkey Burgers with Lemon Mayonnaise and Blueberry Slaw

Grilled Cedar Plank Salmon with Fruit Chutney and Blueberry Sauce served with Parmesan Fingerling Potatoes

Dessert:

Blueberries over Pancotta with Homemade Chocolate-dipped Biscotti

Our Judges:

Kent, Linda, Ron, Olivia