It’s August and that means one thing here at Fete & Feast: it’s Hatch Chile Month! Over the last several years Hatch Chiles have become something of a celebrated vegetable here in Central Texas. Given my roots in far West Texas just down the road from Hatch, New Mexico, this thrills me to no end. Last year I celebrated Hatch with the likes of macaroni and cheese, enchiladas, green chile cheese beer bread, and green chile palmiers. This year I’m cooking up cornbread, roast chicken thighs, and even grilled cheese, all featuring the little green chile that could.

To kick the season off I’ve put together this recipe for a hand pie stuffed with squash, green chile, tomatoes, and cheese. It’s a fun take on calabacitas, a traditional way to cook squash with onions and green chiles that was featured at my family’s dinner table many a summer when squash were in abundance. I’ve tucked the squash, chile, and cheese mixture into puff pastry to make it convenient finger food, just perfect for a party. You can make these little bites ahead of time and freeze them unbaked so you have a quick meal or appetizer any time you get a hankerin’ for a taste of Hatch. The filling in these empanadas is so substantial they will hold up nicely as a main dish. Serve them with a side of guacamole and a green salad for an effortless Meatless Monday menu.

[Jump right to the recipe: Bulgur Wheat Tossed with Grilled Summer Vegetables]

I’ll confess, come summer time there’s a soft spot in my heart for cold salads. When I was a young ‘un my mom had a simple yet much-loved pasta salad recipe that was her go-to dish for summer picnics, BBQs, and potlucks. It was easy to make and held up well to the brutal heat of Texas summers – no chance of spoiled mayo in this salad. Back then I’d eat my way around the vegetables but today I’m happy to say my palette has improved and I enjoy them as much, if not more, than the pasta.As a part of my ongoing quest to bring more whole grains into my family’s diet, I’ve been looking for ways to make my favorite pasta salads pack more nutritional bang for the buck. While substituting whole wheat pasts for traditional pasta is one quick substitution, I’ve been looking for different bases entirely. I’ve previously experimented with quinoa and but wanted to try something different. Luckily, I’m not the only one questing for more nutritious grains, so there are plenty of options to choose from these days.

For this round of tinkering I went with bulgur, a parboiled form of whole wheat that is dried and coarsely ground. It’s a very common ingredient in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking and many Americans first come into contact with it in tabbouleh. While some of the bran is removed from the wheat to make bulgur, some remains making this grain a great source of fiber and protein. 1/4 c. of dried bulgur (which becomes about ½ c. of cooked bulgur) has about 120 calories, 6 grams of fiber, and 4 grams of protein. When you bulk it up with fresh summer vegetables, you can create a fiber- and nutrient-rich dish that really sticks to your ribs.

While I was changing up the cold salad of my youth, I thought it might be fun to do something a little different with the vegetables too, so I grilled them before tossing them with the bulgur and the vinaigrette. The result is a salad with a little more depth of flavor that you can start the night before if you so desire and toss together up to four hours before you plan to serve it.

As I started thinking about tactics for making the day more manageable, I found myself focusing on the sides. Short of choosing a different cooking vessel for your turkey (grill, smoker, fryer, etc), side dishes offer the most opportunity to mix up your preparation techniques to make the day more manageable. Along the way, I came up with five tactics to find side dishes that won’t be competing with the turkey for oven space during day. As I was thinking of sharing my tactics here, I realized examples would be useful, so I hunted down a collection of recipes that represent these tactics, which you can of course use as is, or use as a guide for your own menu planning. Of course, if you have two ovens, you have a little more leeway, but even so, unless every dish cooks at the same temperature, I think you’ll find that these tactics will be helpful even if you have the luxury of extra oven space.

Do you have a favorite tactic or recipe to make Thanksgiving menu planning and cooking easier? Please share in the comments.

Remember the Turkey Has to Rest for 30 Minutes

When I was putting my Turkey Buying 101 post together, the expert I interviewed stressed several times that letting a turkey rest for at least 30 minutes after cooking and before eating is critical to serving a tasty turkey. While it does mean your whole kitchen has to smell like turkey for an extra 30 minutes before you can east, it also means that you have 30 minutes of oven time to use to finish, reheat, or even wholesale cook a side. While many vegetables and stuffing recipes call for up to 60 minutes of oven time, if you look for recipes that cook in 30 minutes or so or that are of the make-ahead and re-heat variety, you can make the most of this precious time.

• Baked Brussels Sprouts with Parmesan Cheese – Change your guests’ minds about Brussels sprouts with some good cheese.
• Wild-Mushroom Bundles – Make the bundles the day before and heat them in the already hot oven for 20 minutes.
• Herb Stuffing Muffins – Individual stuffings cook more quickly than a big batch. Toss these in the oven as soon as the turkey comes out and they’ll be ready to serve at the same time.
• Roasted Potatoes with Bacon, Cheese, and Parsley – Do most of the work on these cheesy potatoes ahead of time and finish them in 15 minutes.
• Yukon Gold and Fennel Puree with Rosemary Butter – A quick turn in the microwave reheats these make-ahead potatoes.

Make the Most of Your Stovetop

Your stovetop has several burners, use them! You can do a lot more on the top of the stove than mash potatoes or steam vegetables so look for recipes that spend all or most of their cooking time on the stove top to take advantage of every heat source you have to work with in your kitchen.

• Steamed Carrots with Garlic-Ginger Butter – This healthy side comes together quickly and isn’t too heavy.
• Corn and Parsnip Cakes – An unexpected side that combines the flavors of fall with a new take on a cornbread.
• Sautéed Green Beans and Pears – A new twist on a savory-sweet combination you usually find in peas and carrots.
• Glazed Red Pearl Onions – Make these the day before and quickly reheat them on the stove top.
• Savory Couscous – Not your typical Thanksgiving side but a fun one that cooks quickly and has infinite variations.
• Wild Rice and Mushroom Stuffing – Move stuffing from the oven to the stovetop to free-up precious oven space.
• German-Style Fried Potatoes – Do most of the work on your potatoes the day before Thanksgiving and finish them quickly on the stove just before dinner.
• Squashed Rosemary Potatoes – A quick and easy stove-top take on potatoes.

Use Your Slow Cooker

Many favorite Thanksgiving sides are long cooking, making them perfect candidates for your slow cooker. The recipes I’ve found are really templates for your own versions of them, so start with these as a base and customize them to fit your personal taste. To find other slow cooker versions of your favorite sides, simply Google “slow cooker side” and you’ll find more options than you can shake a stick at.

• Slow Cooked Au Gratin Potatoes – A possible replacement for the standard mashed potato. Change up the cheese to compliment your meal or use your favorite.
• Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese – A kid-friendly side that adults love too. Take it up a notch with more sophisticated cheese or a bit of truffle oil.
• Slow Cooker Candied Yams – A traditional favorite becomes fix-it and forget-it.
• Stuffing from the Slow Cooker – Skip the bird and the oven and cook your stuffing in the crock pot.

Consider a Salad

While a plain tossed salad doesn’t seem appropriate for a Thanksgiving table, an interesting and next-level salad absolutely does. Many salads can be made ahead or require no cooking at all, and they can bring a lighter option to what is a traditionally heavy meal. Look for salads that feature fall ingredients and more substantial dressings.

• Pear Lettuce Salad with Maple Dijon Vinaigrette – The maple vinaigrette gives this a fall feel and the pears compliment other Thanksgiving flavors.’
• Celery Root Salad – A new take on celery that’s also make-ahead.
• Spiced Pumpkin, Lentil, and Goat Cheese Salad – Replace your favorite yam or squash recipe with this salad for a lighter take on a side.

Find More Sides

Finally, as you are recipe hunting for sides that fit these tactics, you’ll find these sites most helpful.

• Epicurious Thanksgiving recipe collection
• My Recipes Thanksgiving section
• Simply Recipes Thanksgiving recipes
• Rachel Ray Thanksgiving Central
• Fine Cooking Mostly Make Ahead Thanksgiving
• Food Network Thanksgiving

When I was a youngin’ growing up, my family always had a garden. My grandmother was an amazing gardener, having been the daughter of a farmer and a child of the depression, and really had a great knack for growing just about anything she put her mind to. I’m sorry to say that I did not inherit/learn/grok her gardening skills. I would even go so far as to say I have a black thumb, which is why this blog’s tagline is “Party and Eat” as opposed to “Plant and Grow”. But even though I can’t grow them, I enjoy cooking with seasonal ingredients. Its summer time in Texas and that means squash in abundance, and some cases over abundance if I’m being honest. You can’t swing a cat at the farmers market or grocery store without hitting a big ol’ pile of squash, but from my perspective that’s a good thing. Squash is versatile, colorful, and inexpensive so it’s one of my favorite summer foods.

As long as I’m being honest, I’ll confess that as kid I didn’t much like squash. When it was in season, squash of every shape, size and color it made an appearance on our dinner table once or twice a week and every time I passed it by. In retrospect, I was clearly missing out. Not surprisingly my child does the same, but I hope that one day she too will enjoy squash in all of its glory. Until then, I’ll eat her serving.

Calabacitas?

I developed my stuffed squash recipe as a twist on one of my favorite dishes from Paula Lambert’s Cheese, Glorious Cheese cookbook, Squash Calabacitas. In her recipe, Paula sautés slices of green and yellow summer squash with some onions and then mixes the whole thing up with corn kernels, tomato, and Hatch green chiles. She tops the dish off with a healthy handful of Colby cheese for an ooey-gooey squashy paradise. Growing up, my family made a very similar dish with the squash and tomatoes from our garden, along with fresh green chiles we’d picked ourselves in Hatch. The flavors in this dish whisk me back home to my childhood kitchen faster than you can say “calabacitas”.

For my take on this recipe, I create a stuffing of the corn, tomatoes, and onions, with ground up corn tortillas thrown in as a binder. I add in a bit of dried ancho chile powder for a spicier flavor, and I use manchego cheese instead of Colby because I like the complexity it brings to the dish. The dish is great for serving at a dinner party because you can stuff the squash ahead of time and then put them in the oven to roast pretty much unattended until they are ready to serve. This squash is a great side for your favorite cut of steak grilled to perfection and topped with Chipotle Cilantro compound butter.

Recipe: Squash Stuffed with Corn, Tomatoes, Green Chiles

Details

• Difficulty: Easy
• Serves: 6 (½ stuffed squash per person)
• Prep Time: 40 minutes
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Weight Watchers™ Points: 3

Ingredients

• 3 medium zucchini squash
• 2 thin corn tortillas
• 2 tsp. ancho chile powder
• 3 oz. manchego cheese, cubed plus 1 oz. shredded manchego cheese
• 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium shallot, diced
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 1 c. fresh corn kernels
• 2 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 4 oz. chopped green chiles
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Slice the top ½ inch from the squash. Split in half horizontally and scrape out the seeds.
3. Bring enough salted water to cover the squash halves to a boil. Drop the halves into the boiling water and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Remove shells from boiling water; nestle close together in a glass baking pan, and season with a little more salt and pepper.
5. Tear the corn tortillas into large pieces. Add them to the bowl of a food processor along with the chile powder and the cubed manchego cheese. Pulse until the mixture resembles very coarse cornmeal.
6. Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan.
7. Cook the shallot and red onion until soft and starting to become translucent, about 5 minutes.
8. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the corn, tomatoes, and green chiles. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes.
9. Combine the tortilla mixture with the sautéed vegetables. Check for seasoning; add salt and pepper to taste.
10. Mound some of the stuffing into each squash half.
11. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes
12. Remove the foil, sprinkle with the shredded manchego cheese, and return to the oven. Cook for an additional 5-7 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly.

Recipe for Success

• This recipe works well with any sturdy summer squash that has a bit of size to it. I haven’t tried it yet, but I expect it would work well with acorn squash as well in the fall. Bigger, thicker squash may need more time to bake.
• To make this a main dish, cook and drain hamburger meat or chorizo, or a combination of both, to add to the stuffing. Serve two halves as a main course with a green salad.
• You can use frozen corn for this recipe if fresh isn’t available. Thaw the corn and drain it well before using.
• You can make this dish 4-6 hours before you’re ready to bake it. Make the recipe from steps 2-10 and refrigerate the stuffed squash. Let the squash sit out for about 15 minutes before finishing with steps 11 and 12.

Learn more about summer squash