These are a few (more) of my favorite things...

So I started off "my favorite things" with the most generic fall food/flavor of them all, pumpkin.

So now it's time for round 2: Squash!

I love squash. Just about every kind. But the one that reminds me most of fall (and childhood) is acorn squash.

Growing up, we used to have halved acorn squash filled with butter, brown sugar, maple syrup and sausage ALL the time in the fall. Healthy right? Well, regardless of its health benefits, this is definitely one of my favorite things. It is such a perfect fall food AND it is super easy to make. Legitimately, the hardest part is cutting the squash in half. From there, you add about a Tbs. of butter, a little bit of brown sugar and about a teaspoon or two of maple syrup. Add the (pre-cooked) sausage, bake for about 40 minutes and voila! you have a delicious fall meal.

So I have always loved acorn squash, but have not really been aware of its versatility until this year. Acorn squash actually has a lot of nutritional value - with very low calories from fat, very high fiber and plenty of vitamins and nutrients - and unless you fill it with butter, sugar and syrup (YUM!) it makes for a very healthy and filling meal. So I decided to search for a scrumptious, healthy acorn squash recipe.

Enter the quinoa stuffed acorn squash.

I stumbled across this recipe on my friends facebook page and was instantly in love. Quinoa AND acorn squash?? Sign me up. Needless to say, I made my own version of the recipe that night.

It involved a quinoa/vegetable mix very similar to a recipe I made a few weeks back that basically consists of quinoa, whatever vegetables you like (this recipe included mostly stock vegetables, but I mixed it up with a little asparagus and tomatoes), some spices and what I thought was most interesting - walnuts. You cook the quinoa and the vegetables separately - sauteeing the veggies in a little bit of olive oil and your spices (mine were garlic, crushed red pepper, oregano and a little bit of salt) and then mix in the quinoa and walnuts. The walnuts not only add crunch, but also a nice nutty flavor to the quinoa which if you just take a bite of the quinoa is a little strange but is an ideal pair for the sweetness of the acorn squash.

This dish is not only delicious, but visually appealing as well. A great dish to serve if you are trying to impress guests as it is not very difficult, doesn't take too long, and looks and tastes great! You also get two servings per squash! This can be used as a full meal as well - but would leave the plate looking empty if you were entertaining. Check out my pics of this tasty treat!

Hope everyone and their stomach's are ready for a foodie's favorite holiday!

Happy eating :)

Aly

Restaurant Review: Gyu Kaku

Hi, hello, konichiwa!

Recently, I went to the Japanese BBQ restaurant Gyu Kaku. For those who are unfamiliar with Japanese style BBQ, it is where you have a grill in the middle of your table, and you grill the foods yourself.

As a co-worker recently said, it kind of seems ridiculous to pay someone else for you to cook your own food, but hey - it's all about the experience these days, right? my short answer: sometimes.

I would say that this is one of those times where it may be worth it. (Disclaimer: my friend had a groupon - so we didn't really pay full price).

The restaurant is located a little bit off the beaten path (East of Michigan Ave. on Ohio - near NU Hospital) but it has a cool vibe - reminiscent of it's neighbors in River North (dim lighting, modern asian inspired design). My first hint that it was going to be a good meal - there were a lot of Japanese people dining in the restaurant. Not to sound racist in any way, but if a person of Japanese descent thinks the Japanese BBQ is good - it must be pretty legit.

The groupon we had was for a pre-determined menu for two that included Short Rib, Filet, Skirt Steak, Basil Chicken, vegetables and a fried rice type dish - TONS of food. I am not a huge red meat eater, so I was a little bit skeptical but hey - I'll try anything once. And let's be honest - one of my favorite app's is "The Rock" at Japonais - a thinly sliced steak that you grill yourself on a rock heated in the oven to 500 degrees.

Honestly - especially with red meat, I would almost venture to say I would prefer to cook it myself because I know how I like it cooked. The seasonings on all of these steaks were fabulous and I can say that I tried each meat more than once because they were that good! They were cut up into bite size pieces, so I was able to cook each bite to my preference - and not to toot my own horn but I cooked them perfectly! The vegetables were so-so, but the fried rice dish was amazing.

The vibe of the place wasn't great - it's not somewhere that I would go to meet anybody - but I would say it is a good date restaurant. It's the right amount of dark, it's not too loud, it's reasonably priced, and you are basically sitting around a fire - could be pretty romantic if you wanted it to be.

I wasn't in love with the place, but I left very satisfied. Overall, I would give the service a 3 out of 5 stars (nothing great, but nothing to really complain about); the "scene" a 2.5 out of 5; and the food a 3 out of 5.

I would go there again, but I wouldn't list it in my top 10.

Until next time,
Aly

These are a few of my favorite things

No - I am not going to write about girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes - because in my opinion, that would be just a little bit creepy.

But I am going to write about my favorite thing about fall: Pumpkin.

I love pumpkin so much, that I don't even limit this to a "fall favorite". To me, pumpkin is incredibly versatile - it can be used in just about any meal, entree, side, dessert, drinks - you name it, you can probably use pumpkin!

Personally, I am a fan of the desserts. I have a massive sweet tooth, and pumpkin desserts never cease to hit the spot. The chart topper is definitely pumpkin cheesecake - with rum brown sugar whipped cream. My mom makes this every Thanksgiving (and occasionally when she feels like being really nice to me). It is legitimately heaven in my mouth. Cheesecake used to be my favorite dessert, and now every time I taste a plain or other flavored cheesecake, it just isn't the same. Honestly NOTHING compares. This has become such a hit, that it has replaced pumpkin pie at all Gourley/Euler family Thanksgivings - including extended family that don't even come to our house anymore. I'm not a pro baker (there's not too much leeway when it comes to recipes, so I'm just not as big of a fan) but I don't think the actual construction is too difficult - you combine a can of pumpkin pie mix with the ingredients you use to make cheesecake. I think the difficulty comes in the actual baking - so thanks mom for making this perfect dessert!

Even though I don't LOVE baking, I do enjoy it, so last week I was just perusing my cabinets and noticed I had pumpkin and chocolate chips. What better to make than pumpkin chocolate chip cookies?! I searched the interweb and stumbled upon this recipe courtesy of cooks.com: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1810,154175-254200,00.html

The recipe was super simple and they are the ideal type of cookie. It's a cakey cookie that is the perfect level of fluffy. And it's not one of those cookies that is moist and fluffy only when it's warm. This cookie stayed moist and fluffy until they were all gone (4 or 5 days). I tried to bring some out to San Antonio to share with my team, and I was super careful with them since I knew how soft and chewy they were - but by the time I got off the plane, I had a huge glob of pumpkin chocolate.... mush. Naturally, I still ate some (just as delicious - I mean, let's be honest, it all ends up looking like that anyways) but was just a little too embarrassed to tell my team. Since I didn't want to eat the entire bag - mainly because I had eaten so many the night I made them - I eventually told them and gave them the bag of pumpkin chocolate mush. They loved it.

Besides sweets, I love pumpkin in just about everything. A couple of my other favorite pumpkin recipes are pumpkin risotto (which you can also put inside chicken - yum!) and pumpkin stuffed raviolis.

For all you loyal followers of mine (yes... all 3 of you) I promise to be a little bit more diligent about this!

Have a great weekend,
Aly