Tarte de Soleil with Sun-dried Tomato Tapenade

Deep into a Humboldt winter, the sun is a shy one, so try and coax it out with this baked deliciousness! While some of us are happily noticing the lengthening of the days, others get a little preoccupied by the tossing of a pigskin ball and its culmination in a big bowl. Whatever your pleasure, here is a fun and beautiful way to celebrate both of these events.

Puff pastry sandwiches a homemade sun-dried tomato and olive tapenade, baked until golden and then served with a dipping sauce. Perfect when you want to indulge or impress. My inspiration was from Smitten Kitchen, and while I strayed a bit, her suggestions were still pretty spot on. Incidentally, buying puff pastry is the easy way to go, but I did make mine - gluten free! - and my current GF cooking goddess is Nicole Hunn of Gluten Free on a Shoestring, check her out!

Roasted Kabocha Squash and Tofu with Ginger and Lime

 

Winter squash was never my thing; I was definitely very late to the kabocha squash party. But once I discovered this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, I cannot get enough of the stuff!

This recipe is pretty straight forward, marinate squash and tofu and then bake. But what is key are the garnishes, but really, without them the dish falls flat, so don’t skimp on them! Make sure that you get plenty of lime and green onions and use them both liberally. If you can’t bring yourself to buy sesame seeds (I love them and always have them in the pantry) it won’t suffer too much. But the lime is essential!

You can use other winter squash besides kabocha, but then you need to peel it either before or after it cooks. Fortunately, you can eat cooked kabocha peel, so much easier!