Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Bisque

This is a jumbo-yum soup that can easily be made vegetarian by subbing in vegetable broth for chicken broth. The longest part of it is the prep time, mostly because of all the peeling of squash and chopping of vegetables. In the penultimate step, a blender (either hand-held or pitcher) is very, very, very helpful. Otherwise, the whole thing is super easy and it makes a lot!

(BTW, if you like roasted garlic, you might as well halve another head of garlic and toss it into the oven with the called-for two heads. There are few things yummier than warm, roasted garlic cloves smothered on bread or crackers. Speaking of bread, you could probably throw a few croutons on top when serving the soup, in lieu of the cream, if so inclined. Lastly, I often totally omit the cream because it's just so darn yummy already.)


Ingredients
2 heads of garlic, halved crosswise
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 cup butter (1/2 a stick)
3 cups chopped onions
1 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
4 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cut into 1-inch pieces (about 2 medium-sized squash)
6 cups canned low salt chicken broth
3-4 Tablespoons chopped fresh sage (depending on how much you like sage)
1/2 cup plus 1 Tablespoon heavy cream (optional)

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F. Rub cut surfaces of garlic with oil. Put halves back together to resemble heads. Wrap each tightly in foil; bake until tender, about 40 minutes. Cool garlic in foil.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a heavy, large pot over medium heat. Add onions, carrots and celery; sauté until onions are beginning to soften, about 5-8 minutes. Add squash, broth, and half the sage. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer uncovered until squash is tender, about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, unwrap garlic. Squeeze cloves from skin into a small bowl. Discard skin. Mash garlic with fork until smooth. Stir garlic into soup. Working in batches, puree soup in (pitcher) blender until smooth, or use the hand-held blender directly in the pot to the same effect. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Refrigerate uncovered until cold. Cover and keep refrigerated. Bring to a simmer before continuing.)

Before serving, rewarm and stir in 1/2 cup cream. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer soup to tureen. Drizzle with remaining 1 Tablespoon cream. Sprinkle with remaining sage.

Bon appetit!

OMG: Recipe Requests

So, Karen&Luke's party was so much fun! Thank you! Although all the food was jumbo yum, I'm compelled to request recipe posts for the following:

Karen's Sugar-Topped Yumola Cookies
Payal's Creamy Almond Dream
Ann's Toffee Delight

Payal, is your Creamy Almond Dream ever made using coconut milk? Just curious...

Also, Ann, you must must must (okay, please please please) post your recipe for the ginger snap cookies you served when you hosted book club... Speaking of book club, when are we doing that again, and what book is next?

Karen, thanks again for your super hostessing!

Pizza!

A creative way to put the residual veggies in your crisper to good use.
("Residual"? Really? I must have epi/biostats on the brain)

This particular pizza featured andouille sausage, onions, green and red ('tis the season) bell peppers, baby bella and oyster mushrooms, hatch green chile and mozzarella cheese.

Note: It would have been nice to have a pizza stone but this pan worked just fine.

Pizza Dough:
Ingredients: 3 1/2 cups flour
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons yeast
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

To Mix Dough by Hand:
Pour warm water into a bowl. The water should be about 85 to 115° F. Test it with your hand. It should feel very warm, but comfortable. Add the honey and salt . Mix by and hand (or any other method) until well blended. Add the yeast and mix some more. Let this mixture sit for about 5 minutes. Add 1 cup of flour and the olive oil and mix until well blended. Add the rest of the flour (and any other additions) and mix well. The dough should turn into a ball. If the dough does not ball up because it's too dry, add water one tablespoon at a time until it does. If your mixture is more like a batter, add flour one tablespoon at a time. Adding water or flour as needed to get the right consistency will assure you always get a perfect dough. Just remember to do it in small amounts.

Once the dough is balled up, place the ball on a floured board and knead for about a minute. This builds the gluten which helps the dough to rise and become fluffy when cooked. Place the dough in a plastic grocery bag or a covered bowl and store in a warm, dry area to rise.

After about 45 minutes the dough should have about doubled in size. Show it who's boss and punch it down. That's right, give it a good smack so it deflates. Let it rise for another hour to an hour and a half. The dough is now ready to be rolled out. You can punch the dough down one more time if you want and wait another hour or two before rolling out. The choice is yours.

This dough can also be made in advance and refrigerated for a day or so, or even frozen. Be sure to let it come to room temperature before using.

Snow Day Soup!

Snow is my favorite, so what better way to celebrate 3 inches of snow fall than making a Butternut Squash and Sage Soup with my favorite brewer and a 10 miles jog! Ok... so if running isn't for you I recommend the soup paired with delicious mushroom bruschetta (...and wine of course.)

Butternut Squash and Sage Soup

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion , chopped (about 2 cups)
2 butternut squashes , peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage , plus 8 to 18 leaves for garnish
4 cup chicken or vegetable broth
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper , to tasteVegetable oil, for frying

In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent, 8 to 10 minutes. Add squash; cook 5 more minutes. Add chopped sage and broth; bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and cook until squash is very tender, about 30 minutes. With an immersion blender, puree soup until smooth (or puree in small batches in a food processor fitted with knife blade). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

In a small pan, heat 1/2 inch vegetable oil until hot. Drop sage leaves in about 3 at a time and fry until just crisp; remove to a paper-towel-lined plate. Serve soup hot, garnished with 2 or 3 sage leaves per bowl.

Butternut Squash and Sage Soup garnished with fried sage and goat cheese

Mushroom Bruchetta- Oyster, Portabella,& Shiitake Mushrooms with Goat Cheese

Earthy's booty... errr... bounty

I picked my winter CSA share today... Some pics, since I know y'all love your veggies.

Included in the booty was:

• kale
• cabbage
• red cabbage
• butternut squash
• onions
• potatoes
• sweet potatoes
• red leaf lettuce
• celery root
• beets
• parsnips
• carrots
• rutabagas
• purple-topped turnips
• heirloom corn

And, probably some other stuff I missed.

Cake. No, not the band. And then some...

I wanted a nice, simple cake. Nothing too crazy. Just some basic elements that everyone loves. Almost like peanut butter&chocolate, but not... You get the idea. So, there was the thought of pudding (yumola) & a basic spongey cake (mmm mmm) & a little bit of chocolate (who doesn't love that?). Wouldn't you know it? The French have already thought of it. Except, a Frenchie thought of it while in Boston, while working at the then Parker House Hotel atop School Street downtown, right across from King's Chapel. They called it Boston Cream Pie. Except, of course, it's a cake. Now, I'm not sure whether to blame the misnomer on the Frenchman or on Bostonians in general, but whichever is at fault, I'm not surprised. Two additional little facts about the cake and its aura. First, the hotel kitchen that created it is also known for another ubiquitous table accoutrement: the Parker House dinner roll. Yup, that piece of white bread, crunchy&golden on the outside, tender&white on the inside, came out of the very same place as Boston Cream Pie. The Pie is also the official dessert of this great Commonwealth. (One more thing: the hotel itself was quite the place to be in Boston's literary heyday... check it out sometime.)

Anyway, the recipe I used came from Martha Stewart. It can be found here. I essentially followed it to the letter, thinking it would be no-fail. Well, I forgot that Martha's actually not a native of Massachusetts... which might explain the not-quite-no-fail attributes of this cake... Regardless, a few fuzzy pictures follow. The mise-en-place is first, naturally. (Note the sleek black Kitchen Aid.)

And so, it went well, generally, except for the cakey bit... of which only the top half (which became the bottom half) turned out cooked. The bottom half (which became the top half) was a dense mess. Edible, but hardly worth it. You wouldn't have known it by looking at it.

Even once assembled, it looked quite yummy. I will say that I didn't have the proper cake plate, which made the presentation slightly less than aesthetically pleasing. In any case, the pastry cream, which I made the day before, was outstanding. I would definitely, most definitely, use this recipe again. It can be found just off the link for the cake recipe, above. The chocolate glaze is a no-brainer (semi-sweet chocolate and heavy cream.... yeah, how is that not good?). I will find a new spongey cake recipe, or split the batter before baking. If anyone has a good basic cake recipe, please pass it along! I definitely aerated it sufficiently... Might not be enough flour... Or, who knows? There's a reason I'm not majoring in chemistry.

On another note: my older brother actually asked for seconds of the cake. That easily was a first for him. A first! And I don't think he was doing it to be nice.

Finally, what, pray tell, did I do with all those whites? Did I throw them away? Tsk tsk. That would've been wasteful. Instead, behold, a sea of meringue...

Chocolate Revel Bars

In the midwest, we have an entire category of dessert called "bars." I've been told you might recognize them as "cookie bars" or "squares," but really they're just bars, and they make up an entire category in my grandma's old tin recipe file. Pretty much any ingredient can be made into a bar: there are those based on cereal (Rice Krispie bars, Special K bars), fruit (rhubarb bars, fireside fruit bars), nuts (pecan pie bars), and of course chocolate. And as much as I love to roll my eyes at many of the '50s recipes handed down to me, lots of them are pretty darn good.

Chocolate revel bars have been a go-to recipe "to feed a crowd" in my family for as long as I can remember, and the recipe's origin had always been a mystery to me until last night. I'd imagined that one of my pioneering, intrepid ancestors had scraped together her nickles, gone into town and bought sweetened condensed milk and chocolate, donned her apron, mixed them together to discover that it's really really sweet and really really delicious, and then passed the creased and stained recipe card down to her daughter's daughters. But last night Ariel discovered a suspiciously similar recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook...so I guess my family didn't invent this one. However, the slight differences between the Better Homes and Gardens recipe and ours are an interesting history in themselves - along the way someone incorporated some extra butter, nuts, and chocolate, and added some salt.

As I said, this feeds a crowd - you bake it in a 10 x 15 inch jelly roll pan and could probably get 5 or 6 dozen bars out of it. And since this no longer a secret family recipe, I'll share it with you.

Dough part:
1 c butter, softened
2 c packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2.5 c all purpose flour (can sub with some or all whole wheat pastry flour, if you're into that sort of thing)
3 c rolled oats (calls for quick cook; I use normal with no problem)

Chocolate part:
12 oz chocolate chips
14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 c chopped walnuts or pecans (we've always used walnuts - optional of course)
2 tsp vanilla
2 T butter
1/2 t salt

Cream the butter and sugar, then mix in the baking soda, eggs, and vanilla. Mix in as much of the flour as possbile (it's quite thick by this point) and stir in the rest by hand. Stir in the oats (this takes a little muscle). Then, in a saucepan, melt together all the chocolate filling ingredients minus the walnuts. Pat the dough into the jelly roll pan (again, this requires some muscle), reserving as much as possible for the topping. Spread on the chocolate mixture, sprinkle with the walnuts, and then drop the rest of the dough on top in blobs for the topping - you won't be able to cover the entire surface but it'll spread a little and all turn out in the end. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.



Mixing in my beloved KitchenAid.



Another new toy for my birthday - a newfangled version of an old-fashioned nut grinder from my aunt. I'd never seen one, but apparently my grandma had one. It worked pretty well - a little finer than I would have liked for this purpose.



Spreading the chocolate filling.

Carrot Soup

The other week, Payal and I went to the Copley Square farmers' market (aka the happiest place on earth) and bought these amazing purple carrots. I've read that the original carrots were actually purple, but an orange mutant so captivated the Dutch (who were quite into breeding) that they bred it to conquer the carrot world. Too bad, in a way, because there are also red, blackish, almost white, and yellow carrots out there - but thankfully, these varieties are available if you seek them out or happen upon them!

To show off the color and try out one of my new birthday toys - an AWESOME immersion blender - I decided to make a carrot soup. The carrots themselves are sweet and delicious and I believe would make a very pretty purple soup. I didn't have quite enough purple carrots so I used about half purple and half orange - guess what color that makes!

I just did the simplest version possible (not even any pepper - but that's just because I couldn't figure out how to refill my cheap pepper grinder), but there are many possibilities here. Add some fresh ginger at the beginning? Creme fraiche at the end? Coconut milk? Indian spices? Fancy toppings - cilantro, croutons, fried cheese cubes?

Here's what I did, but this is really just an outline:

2 onions, chopped
1-2 T butter or olive oil
3-4 c vegetable broth or water
2.5 lb carrots, cut into 1-inch chunks (ehh...maybe 15 medium carrots?)
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onions in the butter or oil until translucent, then add carrots and broth. Cook until the carrots are tender enough to blend, probably about half an hour. Blend in an immersion blender or food processor, then return to the stove and season to taste. Really, that's it.

Most Nutritious Song Ever

A friend just sent me a link to this song, entitled "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell." It's really only worth listening to the first ten seconds, because it's quite painful. You'll get the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8ViYIeH04

But it got me thinking about our fast food culture (what doesn't?). And then I remembered a song we used to sing at church camp, the premise of which is pretty much just repeating the names of fast food chains to a catchy refrain. I remember always being vaguely annoyed by it, but probably more because I was an outcast in 3rd grade Sunday school (oh, the irony) and thought it was dumb (my outcast status probably had much to do with this sort of disdain) and less because of the implications of glorifying fast food through song.

Does anyone else know this song?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JsYqN0v4iw

(You only have to watch the first 30 seconds, if you can take it that long.)

Apparently this is the original version. I had no idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayOr5wd219Q

Finally, you can get creative and add your own favorite fast food spots, as Girl Scout Troop 1440 in Wakefield has done:

http://cheesecakeandfriends.com/Troop1440/songs/PizzaHut.htm

Lentil, Sweet Potato and Apple Stew

Lentil, Sweet Potato and Apple Stew

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp paprika
• 2 celery stalks, cut into chunks
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into
• 1-inch chunks
• 3 1/2 oz dried lentils
• 2-3 small yellow squash, cut into chunks
• 1-2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into large chunks
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper
• 1 1/2 cups low sodium vegetable broth

Heat oil on medium-high in a large heavy pot. Add onion and cook five minutes, until softened and starting to turn golden. Add garlic, coriander and paprika, and cook for one minute. Add celery, sweet potato, lentils, squash and apples; stir for one to two minutes. Add salt and pepper. Pour in vegetable broth, cover, bring to boil, and then simmer gently for 35 to 40 minutes until lentils are soft and cooked through. Serve hot with fresh bread. Yields two servings.

Nutritional info per serving: 410 calories; 9 g fat (1 g saturated, 0 g trans fat); 67 g carbohydrate (22 g fiber, 19 g sugar); 20 g protein

Red Velvet Cupcakes

There is nothing healthy about these cupcakes, other than the fact that they were made from scratch and maybe the raspberry on top.

Click here for the recipe from Food Network's Paula Dean (That's why I said "nothing healthy" although they are DELICIOUS!)

New Mexican Flour Tortillas

Growing up I spent a lot of time helping my grandma and great-grandma rolling out tortillas. By age 4 I had perfected the art of the Mickey Mouse and the Hot Air balloon shaped tortillas.


5 c. all purpose flour (I've tried half whole wheat and it worked well)

1 TBS baking powder

1 1/2 to 1 3/4 c hot water

2 1/2 tsp salt

3 TBS lard or solid shortening

Combine dry ingredients; cut lard or

shortening in. Add hot water

in small amount while kneading thoroughly. Dough should be stiff and not sticky. Cover and let

sit for 5-10 min.

Sprinkle flour on all surfaces. Using a rolling pin, roll about 1/2 c of dough into a very thin circle. Bake on a very hot griddle until browned.

For

Sopapillas:

Follow above directions. Cut rolled out dough into 3x3in squares and fry in oil until brown. For a sweet-treat: after frying, roll sopapillas in sugar and cinnamon, or eat plain with honey. Also great stuffed with beans and other taco fillings!

Calabacitas

Serves 6

4 medium green zucchini, cubed

3 Tablespoons shortening (or olive oil)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon onion, chopped (I use a lot more than this)

2 green chiles, chopped

1 small can whole corn, drained or 2-3 cobs

1 cup milk (optional)

salt, to taste

Melt shortening, saute squash, onion, green chile and garlic until tender. Add corn and milk and simmer for 15 min

Crash

So while having a conversation with Ann over milkshakes I expressed my curiosity to attempt the diet from Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure. After indulging in far too many sour patch kids this weekend the detox of two days of leeks attracted me. Ann made mention that "for a nutrition school there really isn't enough fad dieting going on." So in sort of a Julie & Julia-esk spirit I decided I would attempt several of the fad diets out there and blog about them... Starting with my 2 days of leeks and leek water (And no Ann, there is no butter involved). I don't have a desire to lose weight nor do I believe in dieting, but I figure it'd be fun to attempt the recommendations that the popular media is throwing out there. I lack serious self-control so this should be interesting. I also will not be eating anything that is frozen (think lean-cuisine). Here is a list of some of the diets I will be choosing from http://www.webmd.com/diet/evaluate-latest-diets. Also if I get too crabby and my lack of eating starts messing up my running I will have to abandon my project. Just had my last snack: PB&J

Zucchini and Tomatoes

It seems fitting to start this off with zucchini - they're the first vegetable (even more so than sweet corn) that I can remember associating with a season. Every summer Saturday when I was little, my parents would drag me out of bed to the farmers' market in Minneapolis, which seemed huge and chaotic and very far away to my bleary-eyed little soul - we had to take the highway, and it wasn't the familiar one that went to my mom's work. We always came away with zucchini, tomatoes, and gladioluses (I remember my mom agonizing over which colors!).

This first recipe is not so much a recipe as a really good idea. As far as I know, my dad invented it to use the zucchini and tomatoes from the market, but I'm sure it's been invented by others. We creatively call it "Zucchini and Tomatoes" (hey, we're all scientists). It was such a given on summer Saturday nights that I have many memories associated with it, too (including the time someone left the plastic cutting board under the frying pan and just couldn't figure out what was that smell). In fact, it was only a few years ago, eating sauteéd zucchini that had been prepared by someone else's dad, that it occurred to me that zucchini could be cooked without tomatoes and sliced lengthwise instead of the round way.

It was good before my parents had heard of olive oil or parmesan that didn't come from a green can, but since I've been making it myself, I've experimented a little bit - adding fresh basil or whatever fresh herb you've got around seems to be good, as is adding little chunks of melty mozzarella.

Zucchini and Tomatoes



several small or 1-2 large zucchini, sliced into thin rounds
an onion, diced
olive oil
3-6 fresh, lovely tomatoes, roughly chopped
salt, pepper, freshly grated parmesan to taste

Sauté the onion in olive oil until it begins to soften, then add the zucchini and tomatoes. Stirring from time to time so nothing burns, cook until the tomatoes turn into a sauce but the zucchini are still green and not too mushy. Season to taste. Really, make this however you like it.