Roasted Butternut Squash Salad

Butternut squash are a real pain-in-the-ass to peel.

They look innocent enough--with their pale orange skin and cute oblong shape. But damn, that skin is thick! However, once you manage to fight your way through the skin, I have learned that you will be rewarded with a beautiful, bright, orange flesh that becomes so tender and sweet once you cook it.

This was my first time cooking butternut squash, and I decided to just cube the flesh and roast it in the oven with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle over a nice bed of romaine--or even better, peppery, spicy arugula--and you have yourself a colorful, filling salad.

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad

with balsamic vinaigrette , candied walnuts, applewood smoked bacon, and fresh raspberries

I don't have exact measures for the ingredients. It all kind of depends on how much salad you're making and the amount of toppings you prefer. I just came up with this combination based on what I had on hand. I lightly roasted the walnuts in a small non-stick skillet with a sprinkling of sugar. This resulted in a warm toasty nut that wasn't coated with an obscene amount of sugar. However, the salty, crunchy bacon made all the difference! It provided a really nice contrast to the sweet, soft butternut squash.

My beautiful toppings, waiting to be scattered across a bed of lettuce. The balsamic dressing I used was also very simple--just a quick whisking of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Definitely try this salad with arugula. It is the perfect combination!

UCLA Dining Hall Creation #1

So I've spent a decent amount of time the past few days reading food blogs and I've come to one conclusion--there's an INSANE amount of food blogs out there. The ever growing list of "blogs I read" on the side bar of my blog is testament to that.

A lot of the blogs made me drool and want to head over to a certain restaurant right then and there. A lot of them made me jealous of their gorgeous pictures. A lot of them made me want to just jump in a kitchen and start cooking or baking. All in all, they inspired and reinforced the foodie in me. However, even through the myriad of food photos, recipes and restaurant reviews, I realized there was one thing that I could offer that not many other food bloggers can--an insight into the culinary world of UCLA dining services.

University dining halls are often known to have disgusting if not inedible food. I'm not going to lie. UCLA has GOOD food. For someone like me, with such a sometimes-inconvenient discerning taste when it comes to food, it's quite a statement to say I enjoy the food in our dining halls.

Our dining hall offers an incredibly fresh salad bar. There are no soggy pieces of wilted lettuce, only crisp dry (sometimes even organic) mounds of green goodness. There are toppings galore to allow for thousands of different salad combinations. In addition, the dining hall offers grilled chicken breast that are usually juicy and flavorful. Even "high-end" restaurants can sometimes be guilty of topping salads with dry boring chicken breast. Below is a picture of a salad that I created for lunch from the dining hall salad bar and grill. I have yet to sneak a camera into the dining hall and this picture was taken on my iPhone.

Balsamic Chicken Salad

Grilled Chicken Breast, Roasted Red and Yellow Peppers, Grilled Mushrooms, Cherry Tomatoes, and Cucumbers over a bed of Romaine Lettuce and a Balsamic Vinaigrette

It looks delicious for an iPhone picture of college dining hall food, doesn't it?