I browsed epicurious.com for vegetarian main dishes and decided to try making a Roasted Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Tart. It was seasonal, and it looked like it would be substantial. Tom and I stopped by Wegmans in Fairfax -- my favorite grocery store anywhere -- on the way to the cabin to pick up our food supplies, and I was somewhat panicked when I realized that they were out of whole butternut squash. Fortunately, Wegmans also sells fresh, diced butternut squash, and that ended up being a whole lot easier to deal with anyway.
I decided to go ahead and make the pastry dough crust included with the recipe instead of buying a frozen crust, even though this required me to lug along my food processor, rolling pin, silicone pastry mat, and pie weights (not such a big deal, since we were already bringing along all sorts of equipment for our other weekend cooking and baking projects). The dough was easy to handle and baked into a beautiful, golden crust. The filling was not all that difficult to prepare, and the tart looked and smelled wonderful when it came out of the oven.
For dessert, I decided to make chocolate soufflés. Normally I bring a birthday cake to the cabin, since the annual cabin trip traditionally takes place over Jim's birthday, which is the day after Veteran's Day. Since Veteran's Day inconveniently falls on a Wednesday this year, and five days is a bit much for a long weekend, we decided to go up to the cabin for a quick three-day trip, just Friday through Sunday. I told Jim that I probably wouldn't bring a cake this year, since it would be doubtful that we could finish it in the short time we would be at the cabin (especially because I also brought along two loaves of banana bread that I baked the day before we left, and refrigerated dough for a batch of Jacques Torres' chocolate chip cookies, which Jim likes to eat fresh out of the oven). Jim jokingly said that he didn't care, so long as there were still candles.
I made my usual chocolate soufflé recipe from epicurious.com. Usually I make the pistachio ice cream that goes along with the soufflés, but I didn't feel like dragging along my ice cream maker to the cabin as well. I decided to try something new and make an Earl Grey Custard Sauce to go along with the soufflés instead. I wish I had taken a picture of the sauce. It was the color of coffee with cream and in fact tasted exactly like Earl Grey tea. It was a very good complement to the soufflé, and a bit like having tea with your dessert!
Recipes:
- Roasted Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Tart from epicurious.com.
- Warm Chocolate Soufflés with Pistachio Ice Cream from epicurious.com.
- Earl Grey Custard Sauce from epicurious.com.
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