Butternut Squash Soup with Three Types of Sweet Potato

Joyous thanksgiving. Let us use today as another reminder to focus on the things we are thankful for now (my friend Erica, over at Kinds of Honey is particularly good at finding small moments of beauty in the everyday and she reminds me, through her blog posts to be a more grateful and gracious person, something I am quite thankful for) and, at some future point, discuss the problems with celebrating Thanksgiving.

This dish was born out of a mini-dinner party, and a request for butternut squash stew. E wanted a chunky soup (more like a stew), with veggies--and I'm not one to stay no to veggies! When we went to the grocery store, we picked up sweet potatoes, three varieties, to add color, texture, and taste to the soup. We also decided to add carrots (because I always, always have carrots around). This is an easy, moderately low-fuss soup and could easily be made for Thanksgiving if you're prowling for a last minute idea!

At our grocery store, we actually had more than three types of sweet potato to choose from, plus yams. But we went with a white-fleshed, white-skinned sweet potato (O'Henry), a garnet sweet potato, and a Japanese sweet potato. For the soup, I cut these into moderately large bite-size chunks and scrubbed but didn't peel them, since all of the sweet potatoes were organic). If you can't find three types of sweet potato in your local markets, don't worry about it. Just buy three medium sized sweet potatoes and go with it. 

 

For the butternut squash: organic, canned butternut squash puree has been ridiculously inexpensive at my grocery store for several weeks now, so that's primarily what we used. But, I also had a butternut squash I wanted to roast up anyway, so we used about 1 pound of freshly oven-roasted butternut squash in the soup and I save the rest of the meat for another meal. I roasted the butternut squash while I cleaned, walked the dog, and was waiting for the bread to rise appropriately.

Pureeing about half the veggies you use lends to a thicker soup (you could also use less water, but with big chunky veggies, I think this looks weird and the flavor is pretty strongly "autumn" anyway). This is easier with an immersion blender, but could also work in a food processor or a regular blender. If you use one of these methods, please let the soup cool sufficiently so you don't scald yourself, or cause a lid to blow off from heat!

While I worked on the soup, E set a lovely table. She was excited about the opportunity to have a real dinner party, complete with a local wine, and a properly set table. And, truth be told, I felt excited about it too. She arranged my winter squashes and pie pumpkin around a piece of tableware from her family, and then we lit a lovely "holiday" scented candle.

The recipe I based this on actually uses shallot instead of onion, so if you've got easy access to that, I encourage you to use shallots . E and I didn't have shallots on hand and operate on a pretty limited grocery budget. If you wanted to make this vegan, you could use olive oil in place of butter, and coconut milk (perhaps 3/4 cup) in place of the whipping cream.

Butternut Squash Soup with Three Types of Sweet Potato

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 large onion, chopped fine

1 White sweet potato, with white skin (O'Henry), chopped

1 Garnet sweet potato, chopped

1 Japanese sweet potato (red skin with white flesh), chopped

3 medium carrots, sliced into coins

1 small apple (I used three large crab apples)

3 pounds butternut squash puree (see my notes above about this)

8 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

2 teaspoons lemon juice

½ cup heavy cream, scant

Melt the butter in a large soup pan, over medium heat. Add the onion and saute 1-2 minutes, until the onion begins to wilt. 

Stir in the chopped sweet potatoes and carrot coins. Cook 5-7 minutes, stirring infrequently, so the potatoes will begin to caramelize. Add the apple and cook another 3 minutes. 

Add the butternut squash puree and 4 cups of water. Bring to simmer and cook 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Use an immersion blender to puree about 1/2 the chunky vegetables. Return to the heat and add remaining 4 cups of water. Bring to a simmer again. Stir in the salt, brown sugar, nutmeg, and lemon juice. Cook until all the vegetables are tender (to your liking; I like them with a little crunch the first day so they're not complete mush the second day).

Stir in the heavy cream. Adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve hot. 

Serves 4-6

Mark Bittman's No-Knead Bread, with a twist

So, way back in 2006, Mark Bittman posted a no-knead bread recipe. It's super-simple and I've made it several times (or made it several times back when I was still eating gluten). I remember the first time I had it was at my friend Bekah's house, as a loaf of bread her husband made and which they also, if I remember correctly, served with a winter-squash soup. It was lovely.

In 2008, Bittman posted a speedier version that had a much shorter fermentation time and used more yeast (to speed up the process). I haven't tried this version, but in my mind I prefer the 2006 recipe because I usually (try to) plan major baking projects ahead of time. 

In this case, I just barely had time to plan ahead for this bread and almost wound up doing the speedier bread (which would have been more difficult with an 8-hour work day schedule, in all honesty.) While we were doing laundry earlier this month, E suggested we invite our friend Caitlin over for dinner, stew or soup, perhaps? I agreed and E asked if I could make bread.

"Sure," I replied, as I tried to work out how I might make bread on the same day I also worked. That's when I remembered Bittman's recipe. Simple to mix up, simple to work on when I finally got home in the evening, it could easily be ready in time for a mini dinner party on a work night. Perfect. Especially perfect when Caitlin said she liked butternut soup and when E said she wanted it chunky, with other vegetables. More on that in another post. Bread would be the perfect accompaniment to butternut squash soup, the house would smell lovely, and I'd have my GF bread I made a few days before. I looked forward to the evening--and to planning with E which butternut squash recipes we would base our soup on.

The next night--the night before our dinner with Caitlin, I started the sponge for this bread--which also turns into the dough, so perhaps "sponge" isn't the right word, and then let it sit out for nearly 24 hours (the recipe says at least 12 hours, preferably 18) and hoped it wouldn't overproof. I've never actually had this bread overproof, but I'm sure it's possible.

When I got home from work, I incorporated a little more flour, folded the dough over on itself a couple of times and let it rise another 15 minutes. Then I rolled it into a ball shape, coated it generously in flour and let it rise, on top of a warm oven (I was also roasting butternut squash that afternoon) on the oven for 1 hour and 45 minutes (the Bittman recipe calls for 2 hours, but because I had it rising in a warmer-than-70-degrees place, I was able to speed up the process a bit). I preheated a cast-iron pan (that had a lid, a good lid is key, I didn't preheat the lid) and then rolled the dough into the pan.

The dough actually didn't roll into the pan all that well. Bittman's recipe calls for using a towel, but E and I don't own tea towels and terry cloth won't work. Not to worry though, it didn't make a difference in the way the bread baked up--or not really. The holes in the dough were smaller than the last few times I made it.

My pan was also a little smaller than ideal, but I didn't feel like digging out my larger one. The bread baked up to have a very crunchy crust and a chewy inside, like good French bread. Next time E wants French bread, maybe this is what I'll make instead (only without herbs). Because I used a smaller pan, the bread did take about another 30 minutes to finish baking and it was just done on the inside.

Because the herbs marinate in the dough so long, you really don't need a lot to craft a loaf that has a nice, herbal flavor. Fines herbes are fairly mild herbs, which is also nice because they don't overwhelm the loaf. Caitlin and E had this with butter they made themselves.

This bread, along with the butternut squash soup, would make a perfect pre- or post-Thanksgiving day meal. It tastes (and smells) like autumn. One of E's co-workers, when she heard what we were having, said this was "autumn soul food." Indeed, it is.

Herbed No-Knead Bread

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting

¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon fines herbes

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast, salt and herbs. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Careful not to overwork it here--this is the easiest spot to just start kneading the dough, if you're used to that step in making bread. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour (I put it back in the bowl); put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour. Cover with another cotton towel (or be like me and cover the whole bowl in a plastic bag from the grocery store) and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Pumpkin-Chipotle Soup

So, I was biking along on a Saturday morning and what did I spy in the ditch? A runaway pumpkin! What more could I want out of life. I'm sure it escaped from a truck on the way to the farmers market. It was a lovely little pie pumpkin that suffered a hairline fracture when it fell. I rescued it...only to take it home, scoop out its guts, and slip it into the oven (lightly coated with oil, face down) for about an hour, until the flesh became tender.

Then I scooped out the meet and stuck it in a storage container. It was only then that I asked myself: okay, now what?

So, I made pumpkin butter (see my Autumn Harvest Butter). Only there was still pumpkin left.

Then I made this soup. The smoky chipotles compliment the sweet molasses and the lentils help thicken the soup and add a bit of protein. You can skip the cayenne if you want to make it a little less spicy, but I love having it in there. There isn't a lot of bite to the soup as its currently written (but note: I have a high spice tolerance), but if it's too much, you can smooth it out and tone it down with a dollop of yogurt (or sour cream) on top.

I serve this with fresh, whole grain bread usually, but if bread isn't your thing, then you could easily couple it with a side of a sauteed green or roasted Brussels sprouts.

Pie pumpkins differ from other types of pumpkins in that the flesh is a little sweeter and they tend to be less fibrous. But, if you've got another pumpkin handy, just use that. It should work out about the same--and don't get rid of those seeds. You can roast them with salt and/or spices, or you can candy them! Consider serving a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds on top of this thick soup.

Pumpkin-Chipotle Soup

1 teaspoon olive oil
¼ medium onion, chopped
1 rib celery, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons ginger, minced
3 tablespoons split red lentils
15 ounces 100% pure pumpkin or fresh, roasted pumpkin
4 cups water
1 tablespoon (or to taste) chipotle pepper in adobo, minced
1 tablespoon molasses
¼ teaspoon (or to taste) cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Yogurt or sour cream (optional, garnish)

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, sauté onion and celery in the oil until onion begins to turn golden. Add garlic and ginger, sauté for 1 minute. Add red lentils and sauté 30 seconds. Add in the pumpkin, water, chipotle, molasses, and cayenne. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Use an immersion blender to puree the soup mixture, then stir in the cinnamon and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to heat once more. Serve hot with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream, if desired.

Red Indian Stew for Just a Few

This dish can be as mild or spicy as you like--and if you prefer more spicy than someone you'll be eating it with, kick the spice up some and serve the stew with a dollop of yogurt, which can be mixed in to cut the heat for those people with more sensitive tongues.

One of the great things about this stew is that it is rather forgiving. If you don't have the exact ingredients listed below, substitute--especially when it comes to your choice of protein. I've used chickpeas, Quorn, TVP crumbles, lentils, navy beans, shrimp, squid, and kidney beans in this in the past. This particular incarnation calls for lentils, because that's what I had on hand, and the end of this summer's zuchinni.

Dad came up the original vegetarian version of this stew--it originally used chicken--and then modified it to suit our tastes.

Red Indian Stew for Just a Few
2 teaspoons Garam Masala
+/- ½ tablespoon crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon tres ochos pepper (optional, for additional heat)
1/2 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
3/4 cup chopped onions
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large zuchinni, chopped
2 medium potatoes, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 ounces dried brown lentils
1 clove chopped garlic
1 cup canned tomatoes, chopped or diced
1 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
3 cups vegetable stock
1 cup chopped cabbage
Yogurt, optional

In a small bowl, combine the Garam Masala, crushed red pepper, and paprika. Mix well. Set aside.

Heat oil in a medium saute pan, over medium heat, When the oil is hot, add the onions to the pan, sauté until golden brown and season with salt and pepper. Add the zuchinni, potatoes, and carrot. Saute 3-5 minutes. Add the lentils, garlic, tomatoes and ginger. Continue to sauté for 1 – 3 minutes.

Add the stock and bring the liquid to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes and lentils tender. Add the cabbage and cook another 3-4 minutes, until the cabbage has just started to cook. Remove from the heat and serve with rice or naan, and a dollop of yogurt (optional). Serves 3-4, depending on your appetite!