Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I wish post #100 involved a more interesting meal.

For dinner, I had roasted butternut squash and couscous, with a St. Arnold's Lawnmower Ale.

Yes, I still have meat fatigue. And I was too lazy to go to the grocery store. As strangely minimalistic as it was, it wasn't bad. I first envisioned adding something to the couscous, maybe some oil-cured olives and citrus chunks, or some black beans and roasted garlic. But no, laziness won again.

I don't own a couscousiere, for obvious reasons, but I'm open to trying to make my own one day (or maybe I just wanted to use the word 'couscousiere'). Today, however, I was using whole-wheat, quick-cook couscous, which is very easy- boil water, dump in couscous. Let sit. Fluff, add goodies. I added some butter and salt, and a very little bit of Kraft Parm. It was nice, a little dry.

The squash was more labor intensive. I love squash, but I almost slice off an arm every time I attempt to tame it in its raw state, and it's impossible to figure out how long it should *really* be cooked, and at what temperature. My new solution is to plop the damn thing in the oven whole, turn the oven on high, and forget about it for at least an hour. It worked beautifully, though the squash was a little on the watery side. You're supposed to choose the most dense squash for better flavor, but I usually end up with the water-retaining ones instead. I managed the squash crisis by using a paper towel to dry them out a bit, then slathered them with butter. Very tasty.

The Lawnmower Ale is from St. Arnold's, Houston's only craft brewery of any importance (ARE there any others? Quick Google says no, but that's too sad for me to believe). It's a grassy, malty, relatively light beer that's perfect for spring and summer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yeah for getting this far