This Friday night I came up with a challenge for myself. I had actually been thinking about using these ingredients awhile ago, but I finally had the motivation to do it. I don’t have much patience when it comes to baking and recipes that require multiple steps. However, my excitement took over and I frankly didn’t care about time and how many dirty dishes I would have to clean afterward. This is what kitchen experiments are all about.

Now enter my… laboratory, shall we? Mwahahaha!

I should probably tell you what I was up to though, right? Well, folks, I had a kabocha on hand and I was thinking about ravioli and ricotta. What if I made something like that? So I decided to make lasagna out of polenta (which is so simple to make), and then I would layer the kabocha and ricotta mix.

Focus people, ignore the carton of Almond Breeze!

First I made the polenta and spread it out on a sheet and let it cool until I was ready to layer and bake. Then I baked the kabocha with cinnamon, sage, and brown sugar until it was soft. If you’d like, you can peel the kabocha, but I just kept the skin on mine. Once that was done baking I mashed it and mixed in the ricotta. You can also add more salt, or anything else you’d like to the mix – perhaps nutmeg? I pulled the polenta out of the fridge and cut 4 strips, since the recipe I followed for the polenta made 2 servings.

So the temperature and baking time will vary for this because I used a toaster oven. I baked this at 350° F for about 35 minutes. I probably should’ve baked it at a higher temperature because the following day I re-heated it at 400° F and it turned it much crispier and better. My advice is to just keep an eye on it!

Voila!

I served it with the cute little cherry tomatoes Brittany gave to me, and a glass of white sangria.

Beautiful!

Here are my leftovers:

Mid-bite it occurred to me that I should top it with maple syrup and almonds.

So you can see the layers.

This was very yummy, and I can say that this experiment was a winner! However, I do want to play around with the herbs in this recipe; I felt that sage wasn’t quite right. What should I call this recipe? Anyone have any suggestions?

A cup of almond milk with coffee ice cubes anyone?

I’ll show you guys what I did with the rest of the kabocha. I think I may turn orange soon… just a warning.

I busted out one of my favorites dishes!

I mashed the kabocha and stirred in soy creamer, butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. I also topped it with steamed edamame and black currant Crofter’s Superfruit spread.

Get in my belly.

Spelt bread, tomato, sharp cheddar, red onion, Naturenaise “mayo”, Trader Joe’s sweet relish, and pepper. I toasted this all together (I spread the “mayo” on afterwards) till the cheese was gooey and melted.

This burned my tongue like no other - ouch!

Then I did this, and learned my lesson.

Kabocha soup leftovers

Since I used up my goat cheese in my first bowl, improvisation kicked in. I roasted some tomatoes and made a beautiful mess with toasted seeds and soy creamer. Gosh, sometimes I get so into the color of food! It’s like I forget that I’m going to be eating this and not hanging it on a wall.

Just for the heck of it, I’m going to throw in my favorite grilled cheese sandwich.

On Cinnamon-Raisin Swirl bread with a side of cherry tomatoes, cauliflower baked with s&p + nutritional yeast

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend – it’s not over yet! Yesterday I made a beautiful, green, mushy mess. Can anyone guess what I whipped up?

Finally, thank you all for the well wishes for my critique. Most importantly, your comments reminded me that we’re not alone! I think in someway or another, we can all relate to each other and we go through similar things – afterall, we’re human. This weekend I tested myself in the kitchen, and it got me thinking about challenges in our lives:

“Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”

p.s. did anyone notice I didn’t post a breakfast in this post? Oh my dears, just wait till the next one!