Skinny oven baked squash risotto

Skinny oven-baked squash risotto is a satisfying meatless weeknight meal or an easy but impressive side dish -- without all the stirring.

I never make risotto. Seriously: I made it once or twice and, with all the freakin' stirring and attention it required, I quickly removed it from my repertoire. No time for that.

Until now! I'm bringing risotto back because I found it can be easily baked in the oven, with very little stirring and even less attention.

Made with acorn squash, this skinny oven-baked squash risotto is satisfying and filling enough to stand alone as a meatless weeknight dinner entree, accompanied by a green salad. Because we are trying to eat more meatless meals around Casa de Ninj. But it also makes an easy but impressive side for a Sunday dinner.

And, of course, you could easily substitute butternut squash for the acorn, if butternut's more your jam.

Best fall recipes without pumpkin

Give pumpkin a rest and celebrate the other flavors of fall -- apples, pears, butternut squash -- with nine easy and delicious recipes.

I didn't mean for this to turn into the pumpkin-less fall. Really. I'm not a hater of pumpkin, as evidenced by all the pumpkin recipes I've posted in the past.

But this year? Can we please just give pumpkin-spice-whatevs a rest?

For just once, let's celebrate all the other stars of fall, too -- apples, pears, butternut squash, acorn squash -- and give pumpkin a day off.

Check out my favorite no pumpkin fall recipes below, with everything from breakfast muffins to crunchy salads and creamy comfort food weeknight dinners to chewy cookie bars.

Butternut mac and cheese

Butternut mac and cheese is a hearty, meatless dish that even the pickiest eater will love; so good, they'll never suspect it's healthy!

This recipe originally appeared in 2013 on the Kitchen Apparel blog, as part of a blog swap. Since that blog is no longer active, Sandra, its owner, graciously gave permission for me to repost it here at Yankee Kitchen Ninja. We'll miss Sandra's gorgeous photography and healthy recipes but wish her much luck and success in her new endeavors.

As part of the blog swap, given that we planned it for October, we considered making something with pumpkin. Then, as now, we realized that we were already completely sick of pumpkin (and assumed you probably were, too) so instead opened our topic up to all fall squash.

And, out of “all fall squash”, we both ended up making a pasta dish using butternut squash.

But come on, who can blame us? It's the squash that, with a little butter and maple syrup, can nearly taste like candy.

(Not quite like candy, I realize. But more like candy than, say, a paper bag though, right? Bear with me, I tend to be dramatic when it comes to trying to get you to make a recipe I like.)

Sandra's recipe (which I'm happy will live on as part of Yankee Kitchen Ninja!) was a gorgeous, delicious pasta with butternut squash, broccoli and cranberry beans. I urge you to try it. But I also urge you to try this butternut mac and cheese recipe -- it's freakin' awesome, and only partly due to the fact that Mr. Ninj actually ate it.

Little back story: Mr. Ninj is not a fan of vegetables and claims that it's not often the taste but the texture that turns him off (he is genuinely afraid of asparagus in any form). It's sort of like having a 3-year-old picky eater, to which I'm sure many of you can relate. So when he saw the roasted butternut squash sitting on the kitchen counter as I pulled this dish together, he freaked. I assured him that, because it was being incorporated into the cheesy sauce, he'd never even know it was there.

I was lying, of course -- but, holy smokes, it turned out to be true!

Healthy butternut and sausage chili mac

A healthy new twist on the classic chili mac dinner with butternut squash, sausage and kale, served Cincinnati-chili-style over pasta.

Now that we've put the pumpkinpalooza frenzy behind us for another year, it's time to talk about other delicious fall flavors. Like butternut squash. Fortunately for Mr. Ninj and the rest of you that have "texture issues" with squash (insert eye roll here), butternut squash pairs extraordinarily well with sausage.

And bacon. But that's a whole different post. Today we're focusing on butternut with sausage.

I'm calling this dish "chili mac" because it's a bit hard to classify: too hearty to be simply pasta with sauce yet not saucy enough to be chili. I'm also describing it as "Cincinnati chili style", so I hope you're familiar with Cincinnati's slightly offbeat way of eating chili served over spaghetti.

What I can tell you without any waffling is that this chili mac is pure fall awesomeness, thanks in large part to the sweet, seasonal butternut squash, which, in my opinion, is so much better than its cousin the pumpkin. Such a shame that the pumpkin gets the lion's share of the love and props. I bet a butternut-spice latte would be just as awesome. (Note to self: Next year, create a butternut-spice latte.)

I have seriously fallen in love with this chili mac -- I can't stop making it and, when I do, I can't stop eating it. Have you ever made a dish that gets you really excited for leftovers the next day? This is one of those dishes.

Butternut mac and cheese

Did you see Monday's post for pasta with butternut squash, broccoli, cranberry beans and bacon? It was a guest post from Sandra over at Kitchen Apparel. We did a blog swap: her post and recipe appeared on my site and mine on hers.

My post was for the butternut mac and cheese you see above: go check it out!

10/7/15 UPDATE: Kitchen Apparel is no longer an active site but you can find my butternut mac and cheese recipe right here instead -- http://www.yankeekitchenninja.com/2015/10/butternut-mac-cheese.html

Pasta with butternut squash, broccoli and cranberry beans (guest post)

Hello fellow Ninja followers. Let me introduce myself. I am Sandra, and today we get to hang out together here in Julianne’s space. She was awesome enough to play a little blogger switch with me. That’s right, I am a fellow food blogger, but also a huge fan of The Ninj. I don’t have to tell you why she is so awesome because you frequent here regularly, too. The Ninj and I happened to connect the way most bloggers do, by chance. I quickly learned how cool she is by reading through a bunch of her recipes I found out we had a lot in common.

We like to cook. We like to can. We like to have fun. Not every food blogger is fun, believe me I know. We live a few states away, I’m in New Jersey, but I wish I lived in Vermont. I guess that doesn’t count. If we lived closer I’d like to think we would be friends that would hang out every so often. Hang out in a sense that I would raid her orchards the second she went grocery shopping. Like all good friends do, right? Seriously the Ninj is not only awesome, she is “I have fruit trees in my orchard” awesome! (I’d hit up the cherry tree first, who’s with me?)

CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2013: tomatoes and winter squash (13 ideas)

This is the final installment for 2013 of my CSA Share Ninja Rescue, a weekly feature in which you tell me on Fridays what veg you got in your CSA share box (or found at the farmers' market) that you don't know what to do with and I'll give you a whole bunch of recipe ideas on the following Monday.

Even though I'm wrapping up this feature for this year, I know that many of you will continue receiving CSA shares well into the fall and perhaps even through the winter; if you need some ideas, feel free to message me or post your request on my Facebook page.

And rest assured that the CSA Share Ninja Rescue will be back in 2014 as well.

But for now, since it's nearly fall, I thought I'd leave you with ideas for two perfect transition veggies: tomatoes, which are signaling the end of summer (and the ramp-up of crazed canning season!), and winter squash, which heralds the arrival of fall.

Please note that I am skipping pumpkin. This is for two reasons:

1. I respect seasonality. Therefore, I recently pledged not to jump into the pumpkin patch until it is truly pumpkin season (read: October 1), no matter what Starbucks' latte menu says.
2. I'm sure you're being inundated on blogs, Facebook and Pinterest with pumpkin EVERYTHING, so I doubt you're out of ideas quite yet.

Many thanks to all of you who have made requests or left comments this year. As I always note, this feature is only successful when you participate and tell me what you need -- and we were very successful indeed in 2013!

Now, the recipe ideas...

Tomatoes

• Tiny tomato bisque: Easy and quick, this bisque is equally as delicious with fresh or frozen tomatoes (the recipe is at the very end of the post)
• Tomato jam: Made with fresh tomatoes, this is a wonderful savory condiment to use throughout the tomato-less winter
• Green tomato cake: I make a few of these spice cakes and freeze them when I'm forced, by an impending frost, to pull all the unripened tomatoes off my plants (that should happen soon, unfortunately)
• Bloody Mary tomato salad: A salad that tastes almost like a cocktail -- one of my faves!
• Fresh tomato and sausage ragu: Kick your pasta up several notches with this delicious sauce
• Gazpacho: Perhaps the easiest and most delicious way to use up nearly everything from your CSA share all at once
• Marinated Dried Tomatoes: ZOMG -- I love these! They are so wonderfully tangy on pizzas and even better when rehydrated in a cream sauce over pasta

Winter Squash

• Curried acorn squash soup:  I see this as a lovely soup for lunch or a light dinner
• Acorn squash muffins: Delightful for breakfast or an afternoon snack -- or even as a substitute for cornbread with chili (see below)
• Roasted butternut squash with quinoa, sausage and greens: Amazing fall flavor and full of whole-grain goodness
• Crockpot turkey chili with butternut squash and apples: Loaded with veggies and beans, this is a fall-flavorful riff on traditional chili about which my readers rave (there's a bonus cornbread recipe in there as well!)
• Butternut squash gnocchi with sage brown butter: Don't let the craptacular photo put you off -- this is some wonderful pasta, made with squash instead of potatoes
• Butternut squash-infused rum: I'm planning to mix this rum with ginger beer for a signature Thanksgiving cocktail

So ... what was your favorite recipe (or recipes) from the 2013 CSA Share Ninja Rescue? Leave a comment: The Ninj wants to know.

Roasted butternut squash with quinoa, sausage and greens

Roasted butternut squash with quinoa, sausage and greens

Yes, the recipe is a mouthful -- both in name and in flavor.

Regular readers know that I'm continuing my participation in the From Scratch Club's virtual book club, in which a group of home cooks selects a cookbook and then makes and discusses some recipes from each chapter or section. We're currently cooking our way through Liana Krissoff's Whole Grains for a New Generation (we're lucky enough to have Liana participating in our online discussions, too!).

Our last grain topic was rice. This time, it's quinoa.

I've become a huge fan of quinoa over the past few years, in large part because it is easy to prepare while also being one of the few good-for-you grains that Mr. Ninj doesn't hate (See? No kids, yet I have my own picky eater to deal with).

I chose this recipe from Liana's book because I love butternut squash. Since I, too, often pair it with sausage, as is called for here, I knew I couldn't go wrong. Added bonus? Liana included a recipe for making your own quick sausage, which was easy and awesome.

Red pepper pumpkin soup

Enjoy this easy recipe for red pepper pumpkin soup -- for lunch or dinner, it's a creamy sipping soup that will warm your body and spirit.

Red pepper pumpkin soup

Before you say, "Two soup recipes in a row?", let me point out that, here in Vermont, it is 21 degrees and has already snowed -- before election day.

So yes, soup again.

But I'm giving you a lovely, seasonal soup that is so delicious and easy it would be appropriate to serve at the Thanksgiving table, if you serve a soup course.

So you really can't complain.

(And if you do, well ... no soup for you.)

I love red pepper soup. I have a go-to red pepper soup recipe that I make quite a bit, so I almost didn't try this recipe. I worried that the addition of pumpkin and sweet potato might disqualify it as a sipping soup, which is what my red pepper soup is: a soup that is comforting as well as nourishing, a soup that you drink from a coffee mug in front of the fireplace rather than from a bowl at the kitchen table.

But, being all ninja-like, I threw caution to the wind and tried it.

I think you'll be glad I did.

Crockpot turkey chili with butternut squash & apples ... and best-evah cornbread!

Easy crockpot turkey chili with black beans, butternut squash and apples -- plus the best-evah cornbread muffins!

Turkey chili and cornbread

Cold, rainy days just scream out for a big pot of chili.

What makes that pot of chili even better is when it's cooked in a crockpot all day long so you can go off and do other things.

Winner!

Speaking of winners, I made this chili a few years ago for an employee chili cookoff when I was working at a large security software firm (they called it the "Super Bowl of Chili" -- yeah, that's what passed for funny and clever to software developers). I did not win (so I guess the "speaking of winners" segue was a bit misleading -- sorry) but believe me when I tell you that I taught that group of geeks a thing or two about food presentation.

I like this chili recipe because it is loaded with veggies and the rest of the ingredients lean a bit to the lighter side; it has plenty of spice and flavor without promising to give you heartburn ... or worse.

Summer harvest zucchini bread: a recipe

Summer harvest zucchini bread

Harvest time in the garden is the most rewarding time of the year.

But it can also be the time when you realize your planning and planting mistakes and, hopefully, learn some lessons.

This year's lesson learned?

Two people cannot eat this much zucchini.

(Especially when one of the aforementioned two people has never met a vegetable he liked.)

Yes, folks, it's zucchini overload time here in Ninjaville, as I'm sure it is where you live as well. You know this time well: large quantities of the stuff start showing up in the break room at work, with little "Help Yourself!" signs.

Don't get me wrong, I love zucchini -- heck, that's why I planted it. (Way too much of it, apparently, but that's a "lesson learned" now, water under the bridge. )

So, if you have indeed helped yourself to someone else's zucchini bounty or have found yourself overwhelmed by the prolific courgette, I have a completely wicked way for you to make it useful.

CSA Share Ninja Rescue: Summer Squash

Photo courtesy of David Lat via stock.xchng

I'm sure you guessed that, after highlighting zucchini last week, summer squash would be showing up next.

Guess what? Today is "next." 

Everybody can saute squash and what not, so I tried to feature a couple of recipes that were a bit more on the unusual or adventurous side.

As always, if you need help with a veggie you've received in your CSA share, leave a comment below or send me an email before this coming Friday.

Recipes suggestions are posted on Mondays.

• Summer squash soup: From The Kitchn -- they had me at "simple."
• Summer squash gratin: You know me -- I'd probably sneak some sausage into this dish from 101 Cookbooks and turn it into a main dish.
• Grilled squash and zucchini: From Epicurious, this recipe originally appeared in Gourmet. I like it because of the light dressing that you add after grilling.
• Squash marmalade: This has got to the best use of excess squash I've ever seen. Can't you just see it on zucchini bread? (from Joyce at Friends Drift Inn)

If you try any of these recipes or have a favorite squash recipe of your own, tell me about it in the comments below!