Squash Fritters and Starting School

It happens all the time – despite my best intentions, food goes to waste because I only need, say, HALF an onion or 1 cup of cauliflower instead of the whole head. The remainders sometimes sadly are forgotten until they go bad and with a heavy heart I toss 'em in the trash. Which reminds me I need to figure out how to compost, apartment-style. Anyway, with 3/4 of a butternut squash aging in the fridge, I was determined to find an easy recipe to use it up tonight. No one recipe was quite right so I combined a couple of ideas and came up with some quite delicious veggie fritters! Kickass.

Butternut Squash Fritters
2 cups butternut squash
1/2 onion
1/4 cup amaranth
8 oz. tofu
1/2 cup cashew pieces
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbl. olive oil
1/2-1 cup soymilk
S+P to taste
Ghee, for frying
Tamari, as dressing.

Preheat oven to 275. In food processor, grind cashews. Add tofu and combine. Set aside in bowl. Again in food processor using grating blade, grate squash and onion. Add to cashew mixture and blend. Add amaranth, flour, eggs, oil and S+P and mix well. Finally, add enough soymilk to create a sort of batter. It should not be runny at all, just moist enough to hold together.

In cast iron skillet, heat 1 Tbl. ghee over medium heat. You could use oil instead but the smoking point of ghee makes it less likely that your fire alarm will go off. Drop ice cream scoop-fulls of veggie batter onto skillet and flatten with a spatula. Cook for a few minutes and flip. Cook until browned. Since you will be working in batches, keep cooked fritters in the oven to stay warm. Serve with tamari and a green salad or green veggie side dish!

Part of my reason for using up extra stuff in the fridge is because I'm going away for 3 nights to start school at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in NYC! It's going to be once or twice a month until July and at the end I'll be certified as a holistic health counselor, ready to work with individuals and groups. It's so exciting! This is a field I am (obviously) so interested in and committed to. It feels awesome to start something fresh and do something I believe in. So, the travel back and forth to NYC might be rough but I'm going to do my best to stay sane and get enough rest so I actually make it through my classes. So much more to come about this, I will surely be writing more in the future about the program. Biggest news for weekend #1 is that Marion Nestle, author of What To Eat, will be speaking. Stay tuned and in the meantime, use up that leftover celery in the fridge, would ya?