Spiced kabocha squash with apples

Kabocha squashes are amazing. They're low moisture so they're perfect for making gnocchi. They also play nicely with other fruits and vegetables--like right here in this spiced bake. Kabocha squash is a lot like pumpkin as far as density goes. Get a cleaver and whack yours open.Scoop out the seeds, peel and cube it as best you can. I'm not showing any pictures of that process because it was hard to do and a total bloodbath for the squash halves. Here's the fairly attractive aftermath though--nice little chunks of kabocha squash.Toss with salt, pepper, 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1/4 cup chicken stock. Set it to bake at 400 for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.Here's what it looks like afterwards--the cubes should be soft but not too mushy.Meanwhile, get 1/4 cup of golden raisins...
And some apples. I had 3 quite small ones that had large cores, so I suspect after peeling and trimming that they might be the equivalent of one very large apple.
See? This is all that came from those 3 apples--it's about 1 cup peeled apple cubes.
Add them to the squash mixture along with the raisins, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon fresh crumbled rosemary, 1 teaspoon vindaloo powder, 1 teaspoon chile powder, 1/4 cup more chicken stock and a tablespoon brown sugar.
Return it to the oven to bake for another 10 - 15 minutes, stirring after 5 minutes. The apples should be soft and everything should be bubbling nicely.
Perfect alongside pork or anything that could use a chutney-like side dish.

Peach rhubarb compote de maman

I have made something very similar before with strawberries, but Phil's mom had just brought us a whole bagful of gorgeous sweet peaches. Then a couple days later my mother came to visit, bearing two huge bunches of rhubarb. Our moms like to take care of us.Georgia is no place for rhubarb. It's sad but true. It grows like a weed--actually may even be a weed--in Wisconsin though, so here was a metric ton of the good stuff. Chopped it all up into 1" chunks...And put it in my big dutch oven, along with 6 peaches, roughly chopped.Add 1 1/2 cups of water and a heaping 1 cup of sugar, bring it to a boil and then let simmer until it all falls apart, stirring often. If you have less rhubarb and peaches on hand than I did, just proportionately decrease the amount of sugar and water. If it seems too liquidy, keep the lid off the pot so it can reduce down. It probably took about 30 minutes total, but that is very much dependent on how much fruit you end up putting in there. You want it to reach a jammy sauce-like consistency but don't worry too much because it will firm up more when it cools down.Delicious over yogurt, especially topped with some granola. I've had yummy compote and granola every morning this week--isn't that just like mom to make sure you eat a good breakfast?