squash, squash and more.

I promise this will be the last squash post for a while. I'm done with it. I swear. Over it.

I was watching some random pbs thing about the Mexican diet/culture and they were talking about the prominence of squash, beans and obviously tomatoes. It got me thinking. It's cold, I'm not in the mood for more soup, chili of course.
Do not ask me for my chili recipe; not because I don't want to give it out, but because I have honestly never measured anything that goes into that pot. What I can give you is a list of ingredients and some rough estimates.

dried New Mexican chilies – Clean off the pods, open to remove stems, seeds and membranes. There’s already enough heat in the chili from the chipotle, this is really for depth of flavor. If you prefer more heat, you can leave in some of the veiny sides. Put your cleaned out chilies into a pot of about 1 ½ cups warm water. Bring to a boil and let them simmer about 10-15 minutes to rehydrate until they’re soft and significantly larger than before. Dump into a blender and blend until pureed. If there are any seeds or skin floating in there, you can strain it, but I’m not really too fussy.

This will be your base. It has a tendency to be a little bitter (which I suppose you could help by adding in fresh water, but come on) so that’s where the agave comes in. I use about two tablespoons or so, you can use honey or brown sugar.

1 large onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, diced

lots of salt, little cayenne, little smoked paprika, lots of cumin, babypinch of cinnamon

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 chipotles w/ about a tablespoon of adobo

dark chocolate (a couple bars)

1-2 tablespoons agave

1 can tomatoes

1 cup vegetable stock

2 roasted acorn squash (halved &roasted at 400 degrees for about 20 min, one hollowed with halves reserved, one dumped in!)

1 can black beans

1 can kidney beans

I like this in my dutch oven. Something about those heavy bottomed pans...

1. Saute your onion for about five minutes, add in garlic and saute additional one minute or so. Dump in your spices and tomato paste, turn heat down to medium and cook for about a minute. Add in chipotles, adobo, and chile liquid, being sure to scrape up any bottom bits. Let it come to boil, bring it down to simmer.

2. Add in remaining ingredients, minus the last two. Taste for seasoning - you can be modest on the heat here, as it tends to develop more the longer it cooks. Simmer, stirring often, about two hours.

3. Add in beans, taste for seasoning and adjust if needed. Set your broiler to low. Ladle chili into hollowed halves of squash, sprinkle with cheese of your choice and set under broiler just until melted. Enjoy!

Do you have to serve this in the squash? No. Is it 10x more exciting and adorable that way? Yup.