Squash and crockpots

Snow days have me yearning for comfort food (not to mention hot chocolate or a soy chai latte).  The Rogan Josh somewhat falls into that category, a sensory delight, hot and delicious-but the lamb left both Mike and I a little queasy and foggy.  We are wondering if it was the fat content in the lamb.  I found some crockpot recipes for this week knowing I would be tired of cooking and that I had busy days (I cooked early last week to get through those days).  I needed marinara sauce for one so I made that Monday to put on spaghetti squash for us/noodles for the boys.  Great recipe!  I did use proscuitto (still getting through that big pack I bought at BJ's) instead of saltpork and left it in the marinara.  Leave it out for vegetarians.

The butternut squash lasagna was heavenly!  My definition of a comfort food.  I couldn't find Whole30 hot Italian sausage so I used 90% lean ground beef, red pepper flakes and fennel to simulate it.  And I added about 5 cloves of garlic to the tomato sauce in the blender.  I'm a garlic freak, what can I say?

Day8-Monday
Bfast-fritatta/onion, mushroom,garlic with guac + 1 strawberry
Lunch-leftover rogan josh
Dinner-marinara over spaghetti squash, mesclun salad with tomatoes and cucumbers and olive oil/ raspberry balsamic, mustard vinaigrette

Day9-Tuesday
Bfast-fritatta crammed with onions, mushrooms, garlic and tons of spinach, 3 strawberries
Hardboiled egg after MTB
Lunch-chipotle
Dinner-Butternut squash lasagna casserole, chicken "wings" (see below), and mesclun salad. A small handful of dried cherries for dessert

Kaveh made these awesome chicken wings with wing drummettes and legs at Deep Creek.  I throw in thighs too to feed hungry boys (and meateaters like me).  This time I just used the legs and thighs.

Chicken "Wings"
(preheat oven to 375, I did 400 last time and it worked well)

legs and thighs, with skin removed (about 3 lbs)
6 cloves garlic, minced
avocado or olive oil
red pepper flakes
salt/pepper

sauce

8 oz Frank's Red Hot sauce
2+ TBSP ghee
2 TBSP apple cider vinegar

Put wing in large bowl.  Toss with oil, garlic, a couple of dashes of red pepper flakes and salt and pepper, seasoned to your liking.  Put in 13x9 pan or cookie sheet covered by foil (for easy clean-up) and place in oven for 25 mins.
Mix sauce by melting ghee in large pyrex or the like in microwave.  Add hot sauce and vinegar and whisk together.  Preheat grill to med/med-high heat, depending on how closely you will watch it.
Take chicken out of the oven, and completely douse in sauce.  Place on grill and baste with leftover sauce, making sure to do this only 2x as you need to thoroughly cook the sauce if the chicken was in it.
I typically leave the chicken on the grill for 2 mins per side and do each side 3 times.

YUM!