An Unplanned Dinner

There are some nights where you're tired, hungry, and determined to eat whatever sounds delicious, even if it seems a bit random. Saturday night was sort of like that for my mom and I. I had been at work for the majority of the day and came home to only leave again in order to make a trip to Lowe's and the grocery store. Luckily, I managed to find all the herbs I needed at both stores so that was a successful part of the evening. I even threw in a roma tomato plant, but back to our dinner. I knew walking into the grocery store that I was going to make something from my new cookbook, Plenty (read more about it here). I chose a really beautiful dish, Roasted Butternut Squash with Sweet Spices, Lime, and Green Chili. I made a few alterations to the dish but I will talk more about that later. Continuing on with the grocery shopping, my mom requested guacamole so the ingredients for that went into the cart too. The last element of the meal was tilapia, which my mom was craving along with a heavy dose of lemon juice to go with it. 

When we got home we began cooking, starting with guacamole. Well really I made it and my mom stood by anxiously waiting to dive into the finished product. She was right to be anxious, as I am not one to brag but I do make the world's best guacamole. That is honestly the only thing I make that I boast about. This particular recipe for guacamole comes from Alton Brown. I must seriously thank him for this brilliance because I have yet to devour guacamole that touches this one.

Cilantro made its way into every dish
but it's prominent in this guacamole.

Guacamole in the making

Once I finished our appetizer, I moved on to my butternut squash. When making it, I did make a few changes to the recipe. My version of the dish is available on my allrecipes page. Yotam Ottolenghi's version calls for cardamom and allspice, which sounded amazing but I'm not sure if anyone realizes this but cardamom is SUPER expensive. This is why instead of buying it at the grocery store, I went along with the flavors of my guacamole and subbed in cumin and cayenne.

The squash gets a spice rub before roasted,
so much flavor in such a simple dish!

The only other change I made was my choice to leave out the green chili. I couldn't handle any more spice, the cayenne was already enough. My mom and I agreed, after cleaning the plate, that the final result was very tasty and actually quite pretty. 

I love the vibrant green against the natural orange of the butternut squash. It always dazzles me how beautiful food naturally is, along with how tasty it can be! This dish was no exception and we gobbled it right up. This was definitely a promising start to tackling this cookbook. 

Yet the dish was not the last part of the meal! My mom even made something. Remember the tilapia I mentioned earlier? She baked it with some lemon and garlic, we even threw a little left over cilantro on top. It was quite good and wonderfully simple. 

See all that liquid? I told you she likes lemon juice.

It was a hodge podge of a dinner but it was filling and it satisfied our cravings. Considering we were just cooking for the two of us we had a nice night. Besides any night with my guacamole is a good night. 

Just kidding! Kind of.

-Madison