Bread salad is often thought of as a summer dish, marrying lush tomatoes in season with day-old bread, vinaigrette and other seasonings.

But you can turn it into a fall favorite by substituting the tomatoes, now out of season, with butternut squash (or other winter squash), as blogger Karen, from the blog FamilyStyle Food, did in this recipe for GoBoldWithButter.com.

RECIPE: BUTTERNUT SQUASH BREAD SALAD

Ingredients For 6 Side Servings

1. PREHEAT the oven to 400°F.

2. TOSS the squash with the onion, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste on a large rimmed baking sheet. Add ¼ cup water. Roast until squash is tender and golden in color, 25 to 30 minutes.

3. POUR the vinegar over the roasted squash and gently toss. Sprinkle the kale leaves over the hot squash and toss again to slightly wilt.

4. PLACE the bread cubes on a rimmed baking sheet and toss with butter. Bake for 10 minutes or until the bread is crisp and toasted.

5. SCRAPE the squash mixture into a large serving bowl. Add the bread and radicchio and toss. Serve with curls of Parmesan.

Find more delicious recipes at GoBoldWithButter.com.

 
HOW MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF SQUASH HAVE YOU TRIED?

Check out our delicious Squash Glossary.

Bread salad, like French toast and croutons, is one of those recipes invented by necessity: Poor people needed to get another meal from leftover bread that had gone stale.

Panzanella is a Tuscan-style bread salad made with a loaf of day-old (or older) Italian bread, cubed into large croutons and soaked in vinaigrette to soften it. Chopped salad vegetables are added. The translation we have found for “panzanella” is “bread in a swamp,” the swamp being the water or vinaigrette in which it was soaked.

While today’s recipes are rich in ingredients, the original preparers foraged to pull together vegetables from the garden—cucumber, onion and tomato—and possibly purslane, a salad green that grows wild. Early recipes were heavy on the onions, the cheapest ingredient to pair with the bread. When there wasn’t enough oil to spare, the bread was moistened in water.

Today, this peasant dish is a popular first course in Italy. It doesn’t appear often on menus of U.S.-based Italian restaurants. That’s too bad, because it’s a dish worth having often.

As long as you have vinaigrette-soaked bread, you can create the salad with almost anything from the pantry or fridge. It’s a great way to use up any leftovers—including beans, cheese, fish, meat and rice—and aging produce.
 
MORE BREAD SALAD RECIPES

• Bread Salad With Fruit Recipe
• Greek Bread Salad Recipe
• Grilled Chicken Bread Salad Recipe
• Layered Mexican Corn Bread Salad Recipe
• Mixed Vegetables Bread Salad Recipe

Oh, do we love marrons glacés, candied chestnuts. They have been a favorite confection from our first childhood bite, atop a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a fancy silver dish in the tea room of a long-departed department store.

Then, relatives visiting France would return with boxes of them, an annual treat. Sometime later, we discovered them in local specialty stores and we began to buy our own—until they became so pricey that we learned to make them. With today’s tip, you can, too.

Following the fall harvest in France and Italy, local confectioners as well as large companies prepare marrons glacés, a popular holiday gift. They can be individually wrapped in gold foil or sold in a jar covered with sugar syrup.

If you read the novel La dame aux Camélias (The Lady of The Camellias) by Alexandre Dumas fils, you’ll discover that marrons glacés are the only type of confection eaten by the heroine, courtesan Marguerite Gautier. Her clients were expected to keep her in good supply.

But you don’t need admirers. Create your own supply with this recipe:

Although it takes 1-2 days to complete the recipe, actual cooking time is less than 30 minutes. For the rest of the time, the candied chestnuts soak in their sugar syrup.

Ingredients For 2 Pounds

1. PLACE the chestnuts in a large pot with just enough water to cover the tops. Bring the water to a boil and cook the for 15 minutes; drain and discard the water. Remove the chestnuts one at a time with a slotted spoon.

2. RUB the thin, bitter membrane off the cooked chestnuts, using a clean towel or your fingers). The chestnuts will be soft, so be careful not to damage them.

3. BRING the water, sugar, and vanilla/vanilla bean to a boil in a medium pot, stirring constantly until it boils. Continue to cook the mixture for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. The syrup will thicken.

4. ADD the prepared chestnuts to the boiling sugar syrup and stir until the syrup returns to a boil. Continue cooking, stirring frequently (and gently!), for 10 minutes.

5. POUR the candied chestnuts and syrup into a large, wide-mouth container; cover when cooled. Let the chestnuts soak in the syrup for 12 to 18 hours.

6. REMOVE the vanilla bean; the chestnuts are ready to use. You can spoon them into dessert dishes and top with whipped cream; or in shot glasses with some of the syrup.

HOW TO ENJOY CANDIED CHESTNUTS

Marrons glacés are an ingredient in many desserts and are also eaten on their own. Most fans agree that the best way to enjoy a candied chestnut is plain, with a cup of tea, as you might enjoy a bonbon or a macaron. But that’s just the beginning of a menu of delights:

• As an ice cream topper, with the syrup. In fact, if the pieces break in the preparation, this is an ideal use for them.
• In a “faux” Mont Blanc, atop a mound of whipped cream with some plain cookies or shortbread on the side. (Actual Mont Blanc uses sweetened chestnut purée instead of candied chestnuts.)
• In ice cream. Mix chopped pieces and the syrup into a pint of softened vanilla ice cream and return it to the freezer to harden. (In France, you can buy it in pints, ready to eat.) Chestnut ice cream is delicious, but you don’t need marrons glacés to make it. Regular cooked chestnuts plus sugar do nicely, either chopped and mixed in or blended in as purée.
• As sophisticated cupcake toppers, sliced or cut in half to make the delicacies go farther.
• With fresh goat cheese or Brie. Serve candied chestnuts and your favorite mild bread or crackers (we like it best with toasted raisin semolina bread).
• In holiday cakes and cookies. Add chopped candied chestnuts to cake batter or cookie dough. Try a batch with crystallized ginger or chocolate chips. Consider muffins, loaf cakes, bundts and other opportunities. Our grandmother used to add them to her coffee cake recipe.
• The chestnut-infused sugar syrup can be used on ice cream, pancakes, toast, etc., with or without the chestnuts.

 
THE HISTORY OF CANDIED CHESTNUTS

The seasonal confection originated in southern France and northern Italy, where chestnut trees are plentiful. Prior to the Crusades (1095-1291 C.E.) there was no sugar in Europe. Sugar cane is native to Southeast Asia, from which it made its way to the Middle East, where it was discovered by the European crusaders. So the process of candying fruits in sugar syrup—and all of the other wonderful things we do with sugar—had to wait for the return of the crusaders to Europe.

The first candied chestnut confections seem to appear at the beginning of the 15th century in the Piedmont region of Italy, among other places. The earliest written recipe is from the court of Louis XIV at the end of 17th century.

In 1882 in the Ardèche département of south-central France, the first factory was built with the technology to produce marrons glacés industrially. However, many of the nearly twenty steps necessary from harvest to finished product are still performed manually, which is one reason why the treats are so pricey. [Source]
  

Elvis Presley’s favorite food was a pan-fried sandwich of peanut butter and sliced banana (recipe). To be seriously indulgent, he might have enjoyed washing them down with this peanut butter and banana cocktail, a kind of adult milkshake.

We hadn’t seen a peanut butter cocktail of any type until the folks at Blue Chair Bay Rum sent us this delicious dessert cocktail recipe, for National Peanut Month (November). It’s made with their made with their banana rum and coconut rum.

If you can find peanut butter ice cream, feel free to use it instead of the vanilla ice cream for a peanuttier drink.

RECIPE: PEANUT BUTTER & BANANA COCKTAIL

Ingredients For 1 Drink

Preparation

1. COMBINE ingredients in a blender and process. Pour into a tall glass.

2. GARNISH and serve—perhaps with a side of peanut butter cookies.
  

And then, there’s cheesecake. This recipe, courtesy of Cabot Creamery, comes from Jacques and Pauline Couture of Missisquoi Valley Farm in Westfield, Vermont. The farm is a winner of Vermont’s Outstanding Farm of the Year.

While Jacques runs the dairy farm, Pauline is busy managing their maple syrup business and bed and breakfast. This Maple Cheesecake is one of the many delightful treats prepared for their overnight guests.

The Coutures make this recipe with Cabot Creamery’s salted butter and cream cheese.

Make the effort to use maple sugar instead of table sugar: You’ll be pleased with the difference. (Check out the different types of sugar.)

We also like to garnish the top of the cake with maple candies, shaped like maple leaves. They’re available in hard, clear amber leaf or a semisoft, opaque beige leaf.

Prep time is 20 minutes, cook time is 55 minutes.

Maple cheesecake. Photo courtesy Cabot Creamery Cooperative.

Ingredients For 12 Servings

• 1 sleeve graham crackers (9 whole crackers)
• 4 tablespoons salted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup granulated maple sugar (or substitute white sugar)
• 3 packages (8-ounces each) cream cheese at room temperature or softened in microwave (you can substitute reduced fat cream cheese)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup Grade A Dark Amber maple syrup (see the different grades of maple syrup)
• Optional garnish: maple leaf candies in maple syrup or maple sugar

1. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F. Wrap the bottom and sides of a 9- or 10-inch springform pan with aluminum foil (to prevent leakage while baking).

2. PLACE the graham crackers in 1-gallon zip-close bag; crush into fine crumbs with rolling pin or heavy pan (you will have about 1-1/3 cups). Combine in a bowl with butter and sugar, stirring until well blended. Press the crumb mixture over the bottom and partly up the sides of the pan.

3. COMBINE the cream cheese and eggs in a food processor and process until smooth. Add the maple syrup and process until combined. (Alternatively, in large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese with electric mixer on low speed until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time just until blended, then beat in the maple syrup.) Pour the mixture into the crust. To ensure no cracks on the top of the cheesecake, create an optional bain-marie: Place cheesecake in large roasting pan and add boiling water partway up sides before baking.

4. BAKE for 45 to 55 minutes or until set nearly all the way to the center. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool, then cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Remove from pan, garnish with candies around the top rim and serve.

WHAT IS MAPLE SUGAR

Maple sugar was the preferred form of maple by First Nations/Native American peoples. Unlike the sap or syrup, the sugar could easily be transported.

It is produced by evaporating the sap of the sugar maple tree (and some other maples). The sap is boiled until almost all of the water has been removed and the remainder has crystallized solid (the same process is used to boil sugar cane sap into table sugar).

Maple sugar has a strong maple flavor and aroma, just like maple syrup. It sold in pressed blocks, granulated in bags, or molded into small shapes like maple leaves, to be enjoyed as candy.

Maple sugar can be used in recipes in the same way as cane sugar is used, but is almost twice as sweet—so plan accordingly in recipes. A rule of thumb: When using maple sugar, use slightly more than half the amount specified for cane sugar.

We enjoy using it:

• In baking (it’s a nice surprise in a pie crust)
• In coffee or tea
• On oatmeal
• In meat rubs

Every kitchen has a standard vegetable peeler to slice the skin from carrots, cucumbers, potatoes and other veggies.

But there’s also a serrated peeler, which works better on softer produce like mangoes, nectarines, peaches, plums and that toughest of peeling challenges, tomatoes.

Most home cooks who have both use the word “love,” as in, “I love the serrated peeler!”

Of course, you can use a serrated peeler where you’d use a conventional peeler, on anything from asparagus to zucchini. But we use both, so we don’t dull the serrated blade on potatoes when we want to keep it sharp for those pesky tomatoes.

The standard technique to peel thin-skinned produce is to blanch the item in boiling water, then chill it in ice water, then remove the skin with a sharp knife or fingers. A serrated peeler is the better way.

Peeling tomatoes, bell peppers and mangoes is easy with a serrated peeler. Photo courtesy Crisp.

And instead of charring bell peppers over a flame to remove the skin, just use a serrated peeler.

How can you resist?

• The angled-head serrated peeler from Crisp is $8.99 at CrispCooking.com. It also has an “eyer” at the top.
• The highly regarded Messermeister serrated swivel peeler is $7.95 at Amazon.com.