A new roasted butternut squash soup

2 Nov

A few weeks ago I told you about a humongous butternut squash that I used to make a vegetable dish with onions and za’atar and a vegetarian chili. I froze the rest to use in soup. Well, last week I made the soup, and it is dee-lish! It has fewer spices than many such soups, so the flavor of the squash really comes through.

The recipe is adapted from one by Lindsay Funston, deputy editor at the “delish” online food magazine.

I didn’t have fresh thyme so I used dried. I had only small potatoes so I used three (and because they were “new” potatoes I didn’t peel them). The recipe called for chicken broth but I used vegetable broth, and I found I needed more like 6 or 8 cups, rather than the 4 cups the recipe called for, to get the soup the right consistency; it was still nice and thick.

Ingredients:

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed (about 3 cups)
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbs. butter
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
1 large carrot, chopped
1 Tbs. fresh thyme (or 1 tsp. dried thyme) — plus more for garnish
6-8 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a large baking sheet, toss butternut squash and potatoes with 2 Tbs. olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Roast until tender, 30 minutes.

In a large pot over medium heat, melt butter and remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Add onion, celery and carrot and cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Season generously with salt, pepper and thyme.

Add the roasted squash and potatoes and then the broth. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until all the vegetables are soft. Blend until creamy using an immersion blender (or do in small batches in a blender), adding additional brtoth or water if it seems too thick.

Serve garnished with fresh thyme. A dollop of sour cream on top would also be nice.

Serves 6 to 8

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Roast Chicken with Garlic, Lime and Cranberry Onions

25 Oct

This is delicious, but it’s not a dieter’s delight. The onions and cranberries soak up all the tasty chicken fat that you would normally discard (or save for another use) after roasting the chicken.

Ingredients:

  • 8 to 12 chicken pieces (any combination)
  • 2 Tbs. olive oil
  • 2 Tbs. fresh minced garlic
  • 1 tsp. paprika
  • 1 tsp. kosher salt (ignore if using kosher chicken)
  • ½ tsp. fresh ground pepper or to taste
  • ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
  • ½ tsp. dried thyme
  • 4 cups chopped onions
  • 1 cup dried cranberries
  • ¼ cup lime juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spread the onions over the bottom of an oiled roasting pan.

Place the chicken pieces in a large bowl and rub with the olive oil, then the garlic. Combine the spices and rub all over the chicken pieces. Arrange the chicken skin side up over the onions and roast, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

Remove the chicken from the roasting pan and stir the cranberries into the onions. Place the chicken back in the pan, skin side down and roast for 10 minutes more.

Turn the chicken over again, drizzle with the lime juice, and roast for 20 to 30 minutes more, until the top is nicely browned.

Serve immediately with the chicken arranged on a serving platter on a bed of the cranberry onions.

Serves 6 to 8

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Roasted butternut squash and red onion with tahini and za’atar

13 Oct

Here is a great recipe from the fabulous Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. I love this cookbook, because everything I have made from it has been delicious – but I admit I have not made too many of the recipes because a lot of them are very involved and use a lot of sometimes-hard-to-find ingredients.

This one is relatively simple, and these days, tahini and za’atar (a Middle Eastern herb/spice blend) are relatively easy to find. If you don’t have a Middle Eastern grocery in your area, you can order them online.

The book calls for the squash to be roasted with the skin on. I did not do this because I started with a gigantic butternut squash. In addition to this dish, I made a batch of Three-Bean Vegetarian Chili and froze a bunch of squash cubes to make another soup when the chili is gone. So I used butternut squash cubes instead of wedges and they work perfectly fine. You can save some time and energy by buying pre-peeled and pre-cut squash cubes.

The dish has an interesting combination of flavors, colors and textures. It works well as an appetizer or as a side dish.

I changed the directions slightly, because the onions take less time to roast than the squash, so rather than starting them at the same time, I suggest roasting the squash alone first, then adding the onions.

Ingredients:

1 large butternut squash (about 2¼ lb.), cut into ¾-in. x 2.5-inch wedges
2 red onions, cut vertically into 1¼-inch wedges
3½ Tbs. olive oil
3½ Tbs. light tahini paste
1½ Tbs. lemon juice
2 Tbs. water
1 small clove garlic, crushed and chopped fine
3½ Tbs. pine nuts
1 Tbs. za’atar
1 Tbs. coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 475 degrees.

Put the squash in a large mixing bowl, add 3 Tbs. of the oil, 1 tsp. salt and some black pepper and toss well. Spread on a baking sheet with the skin facing down and roast for 30 to 40 minutes (peeled cubes may take a little less time).

After 15 minutes, add the onions, and stir well to get the onions coated with the oil. Stir frequently so everything cooks evenly. When the squash and the onions are fully cooked and have browned somewhat, reove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Make the sauce: place the tahini in a small bowl and add the lemon juice, water, garlic and ¼ tsp. salt. Whisk until the sauce is the consistency of honey, adding more water or tahini if necessary.

Put the remaining 1½ tsp. oil into a small frying pan and place over medium-low heat. Add the pine nuts and ½ tsp. salt and cook for about 2 minutes until the nuts are golden brown (be careful, because they can burn really easily!) Remove from the heat and transfer the nuts and oil to a small bowl to stop the cooking.

To serve, spread the vegetables out on a large serving platter and drizzle over the tahini. Sprinkle the pine nuts and their oil on top, followed by the za’atar and parsley.

Serves 4


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Peanut kale

18 Aug

Kale is super-plentiful right now, maybe in your backyard garden, in your friends’ gardens, or — if you must — in farm markets and supermarkets. This easy and tasty recipe can be served either as a side dish or as a salad, either warm or at room temperature. It’s adapted from a recipe by Kathy Patalsky that I found online when I was looking for something to do with a big bunch of kale.

Ingredients:

4 cups of kale, chopped, stems removed (1 large bunch)
1 Tbs. peanut butter
2 tsp. soy sauce
1 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
2 tsp. brown rice syrup, agave nectar, honey or maple syrup
Ground black pepper to taste
½ cup red or white sweet onion, thinly sliced|
Optional (but recommended):
½ tsp. chopped ginger
A few dashes cayenne pepper
½ tsp. chopped garlic

Directions:

 Put all ingredients except kale in a large pot and stir to combine. Add the kale, cover the pot, and heat over high flame for just a minute or two until the small amount of liquid starts to boil. Turn off the heat, and shake the pot a few times with the lid on. Wait a minute, then remove the lid and stir well (but gently). The steam will have wilted the kale enough to make it tender; stir just enough to make sure all of it has come in contact with the sauce.

Serve immediately or keep for a few hours and serve at room temperature.

Serves 2

A Sunday Twofer: Zucchini-Tomato Salad and Pesto

9 Aug

zucchini tomato pesto salad

A friend had given us a giant zucchini, one that will probably feed us for at least three meals, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. She had also given us some lovely tomatoes. And I had half an onion in the fridge. So I was really happy to see a recipe in the paper just a day or so ago for a zucchini, tomato and basil salad.

Problem was I had no fresh basil. Another friend had given us a big bag of basil a few weeks earlier, and I had already turned it into pesto! No worries; I decided to make the salad using pesto and a little red wine vinegar instead of the basil and vinaigrette. It worked great!

I also discovered I had already run the tomato, zucchini and basil salad recipe, or one very much like it, in 2013, the year I started this blog.

I figured if I’m now going to give you the variation using pesto, I should give you the pesto recipe as well, because it’s so easy. So the basil recipe follows the salad recipe. I usually make half a batch, using two cups of basil, and then freeze the pesto in small amounts (enough to make a nice pasta sauce for two to four people). Freeze it in an ice cube tray, if you have one, then save the frozen cubes in a plastic freezer bag.

Of course you can use store-bought pesto if you don’t want to make your own.

In 2013 I also wrote about what to do with too much basil. It was one of my earliest pieces for this blog. You can find it here.

Zucchini and Tomato Salad with Pesto

Ingredients:

2 – 3 small zucchini or an equivalent amount from a large zucchini, sliced or diced
3 plum tomatoes or an equivalent amount of cherry/grape tomatoes, chopped
½ small onion, sliced thin
1 Tbs. fresh parsley or 1 tsp. dried parsley
2 Tbs. pesto, homemade or jarred
1 Tbs. red wine vinegar

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and allow to sit at room temperature for at least an hour before serving.

Serves 4

Basic Pesto

Ingredients:

4 cups packed fresh basil leaves
½ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
¾ cup grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese
6 cloves garlic, or more to taste
¼ cup olive oil
Warm water as needed
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In the bowl of a food processor, combine all the ingredients and pulse until smooth but not a paste. Adjust seasonings and pulse again to mix. Add a little bit of warm water if it seems too thick.

If you don’t want to serve it all at once, freeze it in small quantities (an ice cube tray is a great way to do this).

Serve either warm or at room temperature. You might want to thin the pesto with a little milk or cream before using it as a sauce.

Makes 2 cups (enough to serve 8 or more as a pasta sauce)

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Spicy Red Lentil Soup

30 Jul

lentil soup spicy

Yes, loyal readers, I do sometimes make something other than lentil soup, even though I’ve posted many variations on this theme lately. Reasons abound: lentil soups are my husband’s favorites, they’re easy to make in whatever variation you choose, and lentils are really healthful. Most lentil soup recipes make a lot, so you can refrigerate or freeze leftovers and enjoy many meals (unless you’re making it for company).

This one is interesting because it uses bulgur in addition to lentils. The original recipe came from the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, but I varied it a bit. The original called for twice as much bulgur, which made the soup too thick — I had to add lots more water while it was cooking just to keep it liquid. It also suggested more chili flakes, which made it too spicy even for me, a spice-lover! A half-teaspoon is ample, but vary this according to your taste.

The soup gets very thick when you store leftovers in the fridge, but you shouldn’t need to add water; it loosens up when you reheat it.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
½  chili flakes (or to taste)
3 Tbs. tomato paste (half a small can)
10 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups red lentils
1 cup bulgur
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh mint leaves for garnish

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion, garlic and bell pepper and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chili flakes, tomato paste and stock. Stir well and bring to a boil.

Add the lentils and bulgur and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. If it’s too thick, add some water.

Puree half the soup in a blender or with an immersion blender and return it to the saucepan. Stir well and cook another few minutes before serving.

Serves 8 to 12

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Fried Rice

13 Jul

Fried rice

This is more a method than a recipe, so take the amounts given below a little loosely.

Basically this is a great way to use up leftover rice and vegetables — and also chicken or beef, though those are not essential.

In my house, there are usually only two of us for dinner and it’s hard to make some things in small amounts. Stir-fried vegetables is one of those things, since you need a decent variety of veggies, and by the time to slice up even a small amount of half-a-dozen kinds of vegetable,  you’ve got more than you need for two side-dish servings.

Ditto with rice. My go-to rice-making method calls for 1 cup of rice, which makes enough for 4 servings, so we almost always have leftovers.

The other day I served rice and stir-fried veggies and I intentionally prepared more vegetables than I’d need so that I’d have some to use the next day with the leftover rice in a dish of fried rice. I used a small onion (sliced vertically), a few strips of red pepper, a quarter-pound of sliced mushrooms, a small summer squash (sliced), about a cup and a half of snow peas and three stalks of bok choy (sliced).

I also used bean sprouts, but I didn’t add them in with the other vegetables because they cook so quickly and get overcooked easily. When the vegetables for the first night’s dinner were almost done, I took out and set aside half of them for use the next day in the fried rice. Then I added the bean sprouts to my dish of stir-fried veg. and cooked for just a minute or so more The next day, when I made the fried rice, I added some fresh bean sprouts (and also a sliced scallion) to the leftover stir-fried vegetables.

Use any combination of vegetables that appeals to you; good choices include onion, mushrooms, snow peas, red pepper, broccoli, sliced bok choy, zucchini, sliced celery, matchstick carrots. Chop the vegetables into small pices. Stir-fry the veggies according to how much cooking time they need; start with the onion, followed by mushrooms, then do broccoli, red pepper, snow peas, celery, bok choy, carrots, etc. If you use bean sprouts and scallion, add them last because they take next-to-no-time to cook.

Make a thin pancake out of a beaten egg and slice it into threads. Alternately, you can scramble the egg and chop the cooked egg into small pieces.

The fried rice comes together very quickly as you heat a little bit of oil then fry up the cooked rice, the cooked veggies and the egg shreds. Finish with a little soy sauce and you’ve got a great supper!

Ingredients

1 egg
1½ to 2 cups cooked white or brown rice
2 cups chopped mixed stir-fried vegetables
1 cup leftover chicken or thinly-sliced cooked beef (optional)
1-2 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 Tbs. soy sauce

Directions

Heat a large skillet or wok over high heat. Whisk the egg, and when the pan is hot, add a few teaspoons of oil and heat for 10 seconds, then add the egg and swirl it into a pancake. When it is firm but not brown, flip it quickly to set the other side and then slide out onto a plate. Roll the flat sheet of egg into a tube and slice. Set aside.

Heat the rest of the oil and add the rice, stirring quickly to coat it with the oil. Add in the vegetables and the chicken or beef if you use it, and the egg slices and stir to heat everything evenly. Add the soy sauce and stir for another minute or so to coat everything in the pan, then serve.

Serves 2

 

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Moroccan Carrot, Lentil and Prune Soup

14 Jun

lentil soup with prunes

This is a soup with an intriguing flavor that crosses Moroccan influences with the flavors of tzimmis, a slow-cooked European Jewish melange of sweet potatoes, carrots and prunes. If you like tzimmis you’ll love it! The recipe comes from the Sunsweet Prunes people.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs. canola oil
1 onion, diced
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
½ tsp. ground turmeric
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
3 carrots, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
¾ cup dried lentils
½ cup pitted prunes, chopped
1 can (14 oz.) diced tomatoes
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2 Tbs. lemon juice
1 Tbs. chopped parsley
1 Tbs. chopped cilantro
Pinch salt and pepper

Directions:

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onions and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook, overed, for 5 to 7 minutes until onions are softened.

Increase heat to medium. Add cumin, coriander, turmeric and cinnamon and cook for 1 minute. Add carrots, garlic and one-third cup water. Cook, covered, for 5 minutes; add a little water if the vegetables start to stick.

Add lentils and prunes and mix well. Stir in the tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Stir in stock and reduce heat. Simmer for 30 minutes or until vegetables and lentils are tender.

Stir in lemon juice, cilantro, parsley, salt and pepper.

Ladle into warm soup bowls and serve immediately.

(Note: If you prefer a smoother texture, puree the soup with an immersion blender.)

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Mushroom-Barley Soup

2 Jun

This is a quintesential comfort food, so it’s been a great panedemic recipe. Leftovers will keep for a week or more in the fridge.

The last time I made it I realized as I was getting started that I had no fresh mushrooms! That didn’t matter much — what’s really essential is the dried mushrooms. We once got a huge jar of them at Costco, and it lasted us about 10 years. Sadly, Costco no longer carries the product. You can find dried mushrooms in bulk food stores and some supermarkets. Or you can buy them online. Don’t freak out at the sky-high per-pound price; you need very little and they weigh next to nothing, so an ounce or two will last you a long time (and they don’t spoil).

If you have porcini mushroom caps, use 3 to 5 of them. If your dried mushrooms are in bits and flakes, measure out about 3 tablespoons of pieces.

Ingredients:

3 to 5 dried porcini mushrooms or 3 tbs. dried mushroom pieces
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
1-2 carrots, chopped
1-2 stalks celery, chopped
4 – 8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced
6 cups stock (vegetable, beef, chicken)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can Great Northern or cannelini beans
1 bay leaf
¼ cup fresh chopped parsley or 1 Tbs. dried parsley
½ cup pearled barley
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Soak the dried mushrooms in boiling water to cover for a half hour.

Heat the oil in a large pot and sautee the chopped onions for about 2 minutes. Add the carrots and celery and continue cooking until the vegetables are soft, another 3-5 minutes. Add the fresh mushrooms and cook until soft.

Add the stock and the canned tomatoes and stir.

Drain the dried mushrooms, slice them thin and add to the pot. (You can use the liquid that you drain off, but put it through a strainer first.)

Add the canned beans, bayleaf and parsley.

Bring the soup to the boil, then add the barley. Return to the boil, Reduce to a simmer, and cook, covered, for about 30 minutes.

The soup is better if you make it at least several hours before you want to serve it and reheat.

Serves 8

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Dr. Joe’s Everyday Bread

20 May

bread everyday

This started out as a very popular recipe from the New York Times for no-knead bread. It uses only four ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast (unless you modify it with other grains). My husband, Joe (the “Dr.” is for his PhD in English), adapted the New York Times recipe and now makes this bread regularly. It is indeed our “everyday bread” recipe.

You can vary the basic recipe by replacing a cup of the flour with whole wheat flour or raw oats or replacing half a cup of flour with oat bran, wheat bran or fine bulghur.

It’s easy to make a very tasty bread without a lot of effort, but you do need to plan ahead, because the dough needs to rise for 8 to12 hours. We mix the dough in the evening, cover it loosely and let it rise overnight, then shape and bake it in the morning.

You can use all the dough to make two to six loaves, depending on size. You can make traditional oblong loaves in loaf pans or round “boules” (three to six depending on size) on a flat baking sheet. The recipe below assumes you will be using all the dough at once.

But here’s another method, for making just one loaf at a time. After you’ve mixed up the dough, take out enough for one loaf (whatever size you like) and put the rest into a lidded container in the fridge. (The dough will keep rising for a few hours so make sure the container has plenty of headroom.) Follow the recipe below for your first loaf.

When you’re ready to make another loaf from the reserved dough, take out a lump of cold dough and shape it into an oblong loaf or ball. Put the oblong into a loaf pan or the ball on a piece of parchment paper on your counter. Cover the loaf with a slightly damp tea towel (or, for a ball, with a large inverted bowl). Let the dough warm up and rise for two or three hours before baking.

The dough will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Here’s a good method for making a single round “boule.” Take a lump of dough and form it into a sphere that will fit into a Dutch oven or similar heavy metal lidded pot. Let the dough rise on parchment paper on the counter for about an hour for just-mixed dough or for two to three hours for dough from the fridge.

When you turn the oven on to preheat, place the empty pot with its lid into the oven. Just before baking, slash the dough three or four times with a sharp knife and spray or brush it with water. Pick up the parchment paper and carefully place the dough ball inside the Dutch oven. Cover the pot and put it in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes. (Be sure to use good oven mitts because the pot will be very hot!)

A couple of helpful tips: Joe loves his “Swedish dough hook” for mixing up the dough. You can find them online. (Amazon calls it a “Danish dough hook,”and the King Arthur flour folks call it a “dough whisk.”) And a shower cap is great for covering the bowl containing your rising dough because it will expand if the dough rises byond the top of the bowl.

Ingredients:

7 cups flour, preferably bread flour
2 tsp. salt
½ tsp. granulated or instant yeast
3 cups water (room temperature)
1 additional cup flour

Directions:

Mix the 7 cups of flour, the salt and the yeast in a large, rigid bowl. Add the water and stir with the dough hook or a large wooden spoon, being careful to incorporate all of the flour mixture; don’t worry if the dough is a little lumpy.

Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature overnight, or at least six hours (up to 18 hours).

After the dough has risen (usually the next morning), tip the dough onto a large board or a counter covered with flour; use a rigid spatula to scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl.

Knead for about a minute, working in enough additional flour so the dough becomes elastic and is no longer sticky.

Use a large knife to cut the dough into the number of loaves you want. Line your loaf pans or flat baking sheets with parchment paper.

Shape the dough into oblong loaves or round boules. Use a sharp knife to cut a few slash marks into the top of each.

Let the dough rest for an hour, covered loosely with a clean tea towel or a large bowl.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Bake large loaves for 25 to 30 minutes; small loaves will take a little less time. The bread should be golden-brown on top and should sound hollow when you tap it on the bottom.

Cool on a wire rack.

 

 

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