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I’m a self proclaimed spice addict. If there is a spice shop anywhere I’m visiting you can rest assured I’ll be going in. I love buying custom blends to remind me of the places I’ve visited – Lake Geneva Spice Blend (like Old Bay), Napa Valley Rub (the best Italian blend), and various seafood blends from Alaska are just a few in my collection. I even received from my parents RawSpiceBar’s monthly blends for a Christmas gift. I love spices. Why? Because while the initial investment can be pricey a little goes a long way and they will transform simple ingredients into something amazing. This is especially true if you use whole spices where you can and grind them up in a mortar and pestle – yes it is another dirty dish, but once you smell the difference once you will never go back.

Just look at how pretty they are…

I decided to make this to use up some butternut squash from our CSA. Our CSA is amazing and in the winter provides frozen already pureed squash which really simplifies prep. The recipe I used from TheKitchn’s Emma Christensen – http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-southwestern-butternut-squash-soup-recipes-from-the-kitchn-213095 – walks you through how to work with a whole squash. I love the freshness of that, but know that the near butchery act of deconstructing a butternut squash can be a huge deterrent in trying a dish like this. Many grocery stores have frozen squash puree. It was a staple of mine in college and would be perfect here.

I didn’t make any changes aside from starting with puree from TheKitchn’s recipe. In my experience their recipes are generally spot-on so I don’t alter them unless I’m missing an ingredient and need to do so. If I were to make this for one of my good friends who is spice adverse I’d use extra paprika instead of the cayenne. I always do that when working with the spice averse then you add flavor instead of just removing spice. I also pretty much always use greek yogurt in place of sour cream for a topper, for the most part you can’t tell the difference. I found it was perfect with just cilantro and the greek yogurt on top.

A number of years ago I made a New Years Resolution that I’d highly recommend to any cooks who claim to not be bakers – I resolved to “become a baker”. And I was successful, perhaps too successful. I conquered scones, biscuits, yeast dough, and even bread. I became the go to cake baker and found a carrot cake recipe that my dad requests for any and all events where he’s the guest of honor (Father’s Day and his birthday especially). Before that year began I made a bundt cake using the pan one of my very best friends got me as a wedding gift.

This first bundt cake was perfect –

And so was the second –

That whole year of becoming a baker I made no other bundt cakes, clearly I’d already conquered it. Then last April I decided to rebel from my dad’s request and make him a root beer bundt cake. It was decidedly unperfect. It was so unperfect it had to become a trifle as no portion came out of the pan into anything that looked like a cake. And that trifle was great, nobody refuses cake chunks integrated with cream cheese frosting, or at least nobody I know.

Then, I gave up for months. The worst thing you can do in cooking or baking is follow an almost failure turned improvised success with inaction. I didn’t want another disaster on my hands.  Then for aforementioned dinner party I made another – it was okay. Not perfect, but not an epic disaster. It did not come out in one piece, but it could be salvaged and pieced back together. I was getting closer! That began a string of bundt failures as I hoped to edge closer to success. The most epic failure looked like this…

That’s when I decided no amount of greasing or letting it rest was going to work. We needed to look at other failures and learn from their mistakes and methods. One popular method involves a combination of resting and steam. You boil water in a kettle and then you dump it all over a dish towel. The methods diverge from here some suggest draping it atop the pan and others suggest sitting the bundt on top of one – for maximum success I did both. And again it was closer, but not there yet.

That’s when I caved and ordered a fancy baking spray from Williams Sonoma. As far as I could tell this is a common bundt pan issue. The first 2-3 are perfect and then something goes awry with the coating. I was admitting semi-defeat and enlisting more professional tools. And you know what – it worked.

The moral of the story is twofold and both are classic life lessons. 1) If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. 2) Good tools may not be everything, but they sure can help.

My mom is a wonderful host. She throws parties so casually she’d sometimes make the Barefoot Contessa look flustered. Ever since my now husband and I moved into our condo I’ve aspired to be that easy going while entertaining. Now that we have a house selected carefully for its entertaining potential that aspiration has elevated. They say practice makes perfect…and I’m working on it and I’m getting there.

I’ve found the best way to practice is to have slightly more people than you can easily cook for without thinking much about it and to make sure all those people are good friends. A few weekends ago my friend inquired what I’d be doing for the season premiere for Downton Abbey. I let her know I was thinking of having my mom over and she and her husband were welcome to come for dinner before the show. And with that it was off to menu planning.

I’d just rented Rachael Ray’s “Everyone is Italian on Sunday” through the digital lending library. I know plenty of people don’t love Rachael and I can even see their points – she may or may not have used ghostwriters in the past, she is not a true “chef”, etc. But me? I love her. I can’t help it. She was one of the first cookbooks I purchased when I discovered my love for cooking on my own terms. She also makes everything look easy.

I settled on pork loin, roasted broccoli, mashed potatoes, and a salad all from her new cookbook. I also opted to make a chocolate bundt cake from a recipe I’d found online. How’d it go? I have no pictures NONE. No photos of my using all coordinated white servingware, even a gravy boat. No photos of the completed (and delicious) dishes. No photos of the nicely set table. No photographic evidence of my greeting guests who were 15 minutes early while I was in the middle of the final stages of preparation with a calm smile on my face and questions about their lives and how they were doing. And that to me is the sign of a good dinner party. I didn’t get a chance to take a quick picture because I was too busy living.

As we approach New Year’s Day I’m reflecting as most people do on what I’d like the coming year to look like. One of those things is to take my hobby of cooking and expand on it and share it. Maybe someone will read, maybe they won’t, but there’s only one way to find out. I hope you’ll join me in 2016 for healthy recipes, indulgent recipes, projects, fast meals, and more.