Squirrel Stew

Thank you, readers, for holding me accountable to my plan to cook on Mondays. I am still at it. 

I made Brunswick stew, from a recipe in the New York Times. It's a tomato base stew with potatoes, corn and butterbeans (limas), and some barbecue sauce and chicken -- or squirrel if you want to be true to the 1828 origins of this dish. 

The NYT article quotes humorist Roy Blunt: "Brunswick stew is what happens when small mammals carrying ears of corn fall into barbecue pits." 

I laughed. I didn't use squirrel, my grocery store was fresh out. I used chicken thighs simmered to tenderness. Cornbread muffins with orange butter (just butter mixed with orange rind) cut the heartiness of the stew and would have gone great with squirrel I think. 

The week before, on a cold October Monday with early season snow squalls, I made acorn squash halves stuffed with turkey chili and topped with cheese and a little bit too much cilantro.
 

To go with them I bought Hatch green chile rolls from the supermarket bakery because no meal is complete without some chiles and some breadstuffs.

I made four because that was what the recipe quantities were for. We ate two, and I froze two to take over a week later to my neighbor when she came home from the hospital and wasn't up for cooking.

The turkey chili and the sweet squash were a nice mix scooped up with a fork to scrape all the squash out of the shells. It wasn't spicy, just a nice blend of tastes. 

The Hatch chile rolls were spicy, as they should be, with a late hit on the back of the tongue. 

Both of these meals were really good and fun to make. Should I keep this Monday cooking thing up? I'd like to.