40 Clove Chicken & Sauteed Spaghetti Squash

Here's a yummy version of 40 Clove Chicken from the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, and Herbed Spaghetti Squash with garlic, grape tomatoes & parmesean. We're 2 weeks away from our new house & kitchen, so more to come once we unpack. :)

Texas Caviar

Oh, Our Merry Mousse has been a sad little site since Jen & I created it last May! For starters, right after we started this online recipe collection, Troy & I moved back to Dallas after 2 years in Philly, and spent the majority of the summer traveling and enjoying other people's recipes, not our own :) AND, we've been living with my sweet parents since then while we rehab our new home, so all of our culinary gadgets, pots, pans, dishes, my very-much-missed-knives, and cookbooks have been in storage in New Jersey. Jen and her wonderful husband Hans moved to San Francisco in May, traveled, and planned an amazing wedding, and so I am hopeful 2009 will get us both back in the kitchen cooking again!

In the meantime, here's a simple Texas Caviar dish I kinda made up as I went for a game night with friends on New Year's. One must eat their black eyed peas for good luck on New Year's, right? :)

Ingredients:

• 2 cans rinsed & drained black eyed peas
• red, orange, and yellow sweet peppers diced
• 1/2 red onion diced
  
• 1/2 jar chopped sun-dried tomatoes
• 6 pieces of crispy bacon crumbled
• 1/2 cup of crumbled feta cheese
• 2 Ts chopped cilantro
• 2 Ts chopped flat leaf parsley
• 2 Ts balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Squeeze of lime
  
• Salt, pepper, garlic salt and red pepper flakes to taste

Preparation:

Dice/Chop all veggies. Prepare bacon and crumble. Fold veggies, bacon, and feta together. Whisk balsamic, olive oil and salt/pepper/red pepper flakes & garlic salt (to taste), and a squeeze of lime together and dress the salad. Serve with tortilla chips.

Roasted Butternut Squash

This post is way overdue - I made Michael Chiarello's Roasted Butternut Squash puree with a rosemary & sage brown butter for Thanksgiving (molasses & balsamic made it tangy).

Check out the video instruction & see what you think. We enjoyed these as a "sweet potato" substitute, but I'm a little slow to recommend changing traditional Thanksgiving tastes when people expect certain nostalgic flavors ("where are the marshmellows?") *try it and decide for yourself :)