Winter Squash on Toast

First published by Mark Bittman in the New York Times in 2012, this recipe is a crowd-pleaser for fall cocktail parties or as a Thanksgiving starter. Adapted from the New York Times. We used kaboucha squash, and it was great. Serves 8. ½ - to 3-pound winter squash, peeled, seeded and cut into pieces ⅛- to ¼-inch thick ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil ½ teaspoon dried chili flakes, more to taste 3 teaspoons kosher salt 1 yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced ¼ cup apple cider vinegar ¼ cup maple syrup Good dense bread, such as a baguette or ciabatta, cut into ½-inch slices ½ cup ricotta, goat cheese or soft feta cheese Coarse sea salt 4 tablespoons chopped mint

Heat oven to 450°. Combine the squash, ¼ cup olive oil, chili flakes and 2 teaspoons of salt in a bowl and toss well. Transfer the mixture to a baking sheet or roasting pan, stirring occasionally until the squash is soft. Some of the end bits may be caramelized, which is a good thing. This will take about 15–20 minutes. Remove from oven.

Heat another ¼ cup olive oil over medium-high heat, add the onions and remaining teaspoon salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are very soft and dark, about 15 minutes. Add the vinegar and maple syrup, stir and reduce until it the mixture thickens to a jam-like consistency and most of the liquid is gone, at least another 15 minutes.

Combine squash and onions in a bowl and smash with a fork until combined. Taste for seasoning.

Brush both sides of the toast with olive oil, and put under broiler until the toasts are golden brown on both sides. Spread cheese on toasts, then top with the squash-onion mixture. Sprinkle with coarse salt and garnish with mint.

7 Tips for watching your waistline over Thanksgiving

by Giacomo Abrusci, special to Edible DC@giacDC on Twitter

Thanksgiving is one of those days when we all tend to overindulge, and sometimes it's just the beginning of those five unwanted pounds that you have to try to work off come January when the holiday season ends. Here are a few ideas for surviving Thanksgiving with your waistline intact.

1. Have a balanced breakfast or lunch. A healthy start to the day will boost your metabolism and keep you from binging once you sit down at the table.

2. Avoid bad snacks and reach for the good ones between meals, such as nuts, fruit, and veggies. Those cookies look great but so does your waistline — save yourself for one indulgent Thanksgiving dessert and enjoy every mouthful.

3. Stay conscious of your liquid calories: from sodas to super sweet cocktails to vino, it all adds up faster than you think.

4. Keep hydrated to keep everything moving on the inside. Sipping on water will also keep you from overeating and drinking.

5. Watch out for the super creamy potatoes, extra fatty gravy, and diabetically sweet sauces. There is usually a healthier option, like using vegetable broth in mashed potatoes and gravy and sweetening with fruit juice or agave instead of sugar. If you can't bear to change Grandma's recipe, try to use less butter and cream, or at least eat smaller portions.

6. Try and get your heartbeat up for a couple minutes at least once or twice a day. The gym is probably out of the question if you're busy cooking all day but a brisk walk around the block, a two minute plank, or even a little extra private time with someone special can make a big difference.

7. There are plenty of healthy options on that Thanksgiving buffet. Fill up on turkey, salad, and vegetables, then you can indulge in a modest amount of decadent treats without too much guilt.

DC's fastest female bartenders shake it for charity

By Eden Stiffman, special to EdibleDC

The crowd at The Howard Theater sipped on cocktails from the event's liquor sponsors throughout the evening. (Photo by Eden Stiffman)

Some of the District’s fastest female bartenders met for a stirring and shaking showdown Monday at the Howard Theatre.

The event kicked off the fourth year of Speed Rack, “the March Madness of boobies and booze,” as event co-founder Ivy Mix calls it, which serves two purposes: to promote women in the male dominated field of bartending, and to raise money to battle breast cancer.

Speed Rack founders Ivy Mix and Lynnette Marrero kick of the fourth season of the all-female speed bar tending competition. (Photo by Eden Stiffman)

Here’s how it worked: A crowd of tipsy spectators watched two contestants at a  time compete in timed heats, making four classic cocktails selected at random. A panel of discerning judges, including Todd Thrasher, bartender and owner of PX and Restaurant Eve, and Jamie Leeds, chef and restaurateur at Hank’s Oyster Bar, rated each drink based on accuracy of proportions and technique, adding extra time to a score when the cocktail wasn’t quite up to par.

Erin Davey, a visiting bartender from The Mandarin Hide in St. Petersburg, Fla. Erin competed against Andrea Tateosian, of The Gibson, in the first round. They were tasked with mixing a Sidecar, a Bobby Burns, an El Diablo and a vodka martini. (Photo by Eden Stiffman)

The final round featured a shake-off between Julia Hurst, of The Partisan, and Tyler Hudgens, of the Columbia Room. The dueling mixologists were asked to make a Vieux Carré, a Hanky Panky and two “dealer’s choice” drinks made with ingredients of the judges’ request.

The final round featured a shake-off between Julia Hurst, of The Partisan, and Tyler Hudgens, of the Columbia Room. (Photo courtesy of Alfredo Flores)

“It’s a really great cause,” said Hurst, who was competing in the competition for the third time. “I definitely stand behind both fighting breast cancer and promoting women in the field—I think it’s really important,” she said. “And it challenges me to break out my speed skills."

Julia Hurst, of The Partisan, beat out fellow local Tyler Hudgens, of the Columbia Room, by just 2 seconds for the title of Ms. Speed Rack DC. (Photo courtesy of Alfredo Flores)

Hurst says she didn’t practice. “I used to have a really high-volume cocktail job so basically my whole job was training for Speed Rack.”

Her fans rushed the stage when she won, beating out Hudgens by just 2 seconds.

Monday’s event brought in over $5000, which will be donated to charities including Share Cancer Support, the National Breast Cancer Foundation and the Susan Love Foundation/Army of Women.

Hurst will compete in the national finals June 7 in New York City.

More than just a holiday song: Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

by Giacomo Abrusci, special to Edible DC

Chestnut season is here! These make a great and healthy addition to your dessert or snack menu around the holidays, and, of course, are perfect in stuffing for a Thanksgiving turkey.

Fresh chestnuts can be found this time of year in farmers markets and area grocery stores, and they are fairly easy to prepare. Once you roast and peel them, you can munch on them whole (I like to sprinkle a little sea salt on them), or chop or purée them for many different recipes.

First, on the rounder side of the chestnut, slice through that hard brown skin down one side; try not to cut too deeply into the meat of the nut. In my family we usually cut an “X”; I don’t know why we do it that way, that just what my grandparents did.

Once you have your chestnuts prepped you have two choices: Put them under the coals of your fireplace or fire pit for 10 minutes Roast them in the broiler, turning them occasionally for 15 minutes or until the shell starts to char and peel.

That’s it. Let them cool, peel back the skin and enjoy!

Pro tip 1: Try using a slightly dull paring knife or steak knife. Anything sharper can slice through the chestnut and cut yourself. Either way, be careful!

Pro tip 2: Placing a towel under the chestnuts as you cut through the skin can help keep them from slipping.

Pro tip 3: Putting the hot chestnuts in a paper bag or covering them with a towel so they steam as they cool will make them even easier to peel.

Entrepreneur Interview: Brennan Proctor, Founder of UncleBrutha’s Allsauce

by Jordan Anthony-Brown, special to Edible DC

Editor’s Note: This is the complete interview that was excerpted in the Early Winter/Holiday 2014 issue of Edible DC: “Getting Saucy with UncleBrutha and Apinya”, page 32

Like many hot sauce lovers, Brennan Proctor used to have a few go-to products that he used when wanting to add some spice to his food. However, Proctor always felt a sense of dissatisfaction when searching his hometown of D.C. for quality hot wings. “I didn’t like the flavor of most wings,” says Proctor, “they were either just hot for the sake of being hot, or didn’t really have good flavor.” And so he did what any enterprising individual would do, and set out to create his own wing recipe. “I used some of my preferred hot sauce products as the base, along with other ingredients, but was always motivated to create something from scratch rather than off-the-shelf products.”

That motivation started a ten-year process of experimentation, which eventually led to the creation of a hit product. During that time period, Proctor also re-located to Los Angeles, becoming a highly-respected sound producer for hit music videos in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While working in Los Angeles, Brennan began bringing his newly minted wings to industry gigs, functions, and events, to the point where it almost became mandatory. “I began to wonder what was more popular – my sound production expertise, or my hot wings,” says Proctor with a smile. The success and popularity of the wings spread through the grapevine, until one holiday season a colleague suggested bottling the sauce as a Christmas present for clients. Using handwritten labels, Proctor took on the task and began to bring the sauce to jobs. And so, UncleBrutha’s Allsauce was born.

The process of creating UncleBrutha’s Allsauce was expedited by technological changes in the music industry. “By the early 2000s, the digital age of music was on the rise, which led to the cutting of budgets and jobs in the music industry,” says Proctor. He headed back to his native Washington D.C. in 2003, and by 2004 had fully launched UncleBrutha’s as a premier local product, establishing his store as one of the top vendors at D.C.’s Eastern Market. However, when Eastern Market was badly damaged in an infamous 2007 fire, Brennan was forced to close his store and began to conduct business from an online platform, under which it still operates.

In addition to being sold online, UncleBrutha’s is featured in stores such as Whole Foods and Yes! Organic Markets, and receives heavy use at several area restaurants, including Busboys & Poets, Eatonville, and The Argonaut. But Proctor insists that his sauce isn’t like your average off-the-shelf product. “One thing that makes UncleBrutha’s different is that it’s not just for use as a condiment; using even a small amount – such as my mother’s favorite ‘1/8^th of a tablespoon’ in recipes, will enhance your favorite dishes without infusing too much heat. Just a few drops will enhance flavors, without overpowering them.”

As the holidays approach, Proctor encourages using a couple of drops in some of your favorite dishes to enrich their flavor and infuse heat, without making them too hot to handle. “One great thing to do with Allsauce is to add a few drops to a broth or stock that you’re using across the winter or holiday season, which gives a unique flavor when cooking things such as collard greens, or making gravy from the stock. But there are many uses for Allsauce in recipes rather than just to top off food. It’s much more than your typical condiment, and that’s why we call it Allsauce.” Based on my experience thus far, Proctor is right – a few drops of his sauce will go a long way.

Learn more about UncleBrutha’s products at www.unclebrutha.com.

Entrepreneur Interview: Adam Ross, Co-Founder at Apinya

by Jordan Anthony-Brown, special to Edible DC

Editor’s Note: This is the complete interview that was excerpted in the Early Winter/Holiday 2014 issue of Edible DC: “Getting Saucy with UncleBrutha and Apinya”, page 32

Sometimes, a great product comes to life through ordinary means, as did Apinya Thai Food Co., created and owned by husband and wife team Adam and Apinya Ross. “Since we met in 2011, we’ve taken turns cooking dinner, with Apinya typically making food from Issan – the Northeast Thailand region where she grew up,” says Adam. “One night, she made a dipping sauce from ginger, garlic, chilies, vinegar, and soybean paste. It was a perfectly balanced combination of salty, sour, sweet, and spicy. It had to be shared.”

The couple immediately started bottling the original Thai Chili Sauce in their kitchen, looking to pass it out to friends and seek feedback. Over the next 8 months, Adam and Apinya worked with 36 different ingredient combinations and 68 test batches to evolve the original iteration, while maintaining the balance, heat, and adherence to Thai flavors. Finally, in October 2012, the two were able to find a commercial kitchen and cook up the first retail batch, combining experience and knowledge to transform their work into a passion. “Apinya worked in her mom’s restaurant in Thailand for almost 20 years, and I had a background as a graphic designer in brand development. It didn’t take a second thought to combine our talents into a business. Neither of us would have guessed that this is what we would be doing, but it really has become our passion.”

However, one sauce wasn’t enough. After receiving praise for the original Thai Chili Sauce, they wanted to make more flavors, but looked to concentrate on unique ones. “We weren’t interested in filling Thai food clichés like ‘sweet chili sauce’ or ‘peanut sauce.’ Nor did we want to make them vinegar-based like so many other hot sauces. We wanted to make hot sauce, not hot vinegar,” says Adam.

The challenge was to find the right ingredient and flavor pairings to make the sauces work. To do so, Adam and Apinya took a methodical approach, making a chart of every ingredient used in Thai cooking. “We bought dozens of unusual spices and vegetables we’d never heard of or seen, just to taste them for the first time,” says Adam. After months of experimentation, they arrived at the conclusion that every sauce had to include Thai chilies, as they had more heat that jalapenos, and tied all the sauces together. By June 2014, Apinya Thai Food Co. boasted five distinct sauces: Thai Basil Aji (inspired by Peruvian aji verde salsa), Coconut Harissa, Ghost Vindaloo (which includes bhut jolokia chilies, one of the hottest varieties in the world), Pumpkin Panang, and the original Thai Chili Sauce.

Rather than saying that the sauces “are good on everything,” Adam prefers to focus on the fact that each one has its strengths. “The original Thai Chili Sauce is good with seafood and fish, primarily because of the ginger. The Thai Basil Aji, however, is great on chicken and veggies. The Coconut Harissa is a great substitute for barbecue sauce because it carries a similar sweetness and smokiness, along with other flavors, and we love the Pumpkin Panang with deli sandwiches because of its tanginess. And finally, the Ghost Vindaloo pairs well with lamb and tomato-based dishes.” And though designed as and intended to be used as condiments, Adam does hear of customers using them in other ways, such for marinades and stir-fry. “If you use them for other applications, we’d recommend diluting them with coconut milk or a soup stock, and adding soy sauce or salt.”

Find out more about Apinya products at http://www.apinya.co/.