Curried Coconut Butternut Squash Soup

It’s soup season again!  Which, hopefully, means that I will be back at the soup blog more regularly. I have, in fact, made a number of soups recently, and I have a super easy one simmering in the crock pot now.

This one, however, I made about a month and a half ago, and it’s a little bit of a stretch for me to remember what I did for it. I do remember that it was delicious (even my 9 month old gobbled it down!) and that I wanted to make a record of it. I used this recipe as my base, but I wanted to add more depth of flavor as my Cook’s Illustrated for that month had indicated (no link, but I’ll describe it), and I also wanted to add coconut milk … because anything with curry tastes better with coconut.

The basic idea for deepening the flavor of the squash is that instead of sauteeing it or simmering it, as many recipes call for, or roasting it, which is time-consuming and a little messy (and heats up your house, and I made this at a time when that was more of a consideration), you are going to treat the squash just like you treat the onions for French Onion soup. In other words, you’ll cook them in a little oil or butter over medium to medium-high heat and let them get really deeply browned. Don’t worry if you get lots of brown chunks stuck to the bottom of your pan — there’s a technical term for the brown bits, the “frond,” and that’s where the flavor is getting developed. So, to start this recipe, cut your butternut squash into 1-1 1/2″ cubes and start sauteeing in olive oil. Let the side that’s cooking get nice and brown, and then give the pan a good scrape (you might want to add a little water to get the chunks up – this is called “deglazing”), and then let it brown again (the water should evaporate quickly). Do this for a while until your squash is pretty well cooked and you’ve got a deep brown bunch of squash gunk in the bottom of the pan (Cook’s Illustrated said this a lot more eloquently than I just did, but that’s really what they meant).

Then add your onions and garlic, let them saute until soft but not browned. Then add your curry powder and stir it around for a minute or so, until it’s fragrant. Then add your coconut milk and chicken broth, salt and honey, and let it simmer – give it at least 15 minutes, but this is really flexible, so you can simmer it over low heat for quite a while if need be. Puree with an immersion blender or in batches in your blender.

We ate it with brown rice and some chopped cashews on top.

Ingredients

1. 1 tablespoon canola oil

2. 1 (2 1/2-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes

3. 1 medium onion, chopped (about 2 cups)

4. 2 cloves garlic, minced

5. 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth

6. 1 can (14 oz) coconut milk (light is fine)

7. 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons curry powder (or more, to taste)

8. 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more, to taste

9. 2 tablespoons honey

10. 4 teaspoons plain low-fat yogurt, for garnish

Directions

Heat oil over medium heat in a 6-quart stockpot. Add butternut squash and cook until deeply browned, as described above. Add onions and garlic and saute until soft but not brown, about 6 to 7 minutes. Add the broth, coconut milk, curry powder and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until squash is tender, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat stir in honey and puree with an immersion blender or in batches in a blender until smooth. Season with salt, to taste.

#butternut #coconut #curry

Cream of Tomato Soup — fast and easy!

Today is one of those transition-to-spring days.  Warm enough to tantalize you, but cold enough that you wouldn’t want to stay outside for long.  I thought it seemed like a soup-for-lunch day.  JR thought it seemed like a sandwich (with melted cheese) day.  What’s the perfect meet-in-the-middle lunch?  Tomato soup with grilled cheese, of course!

I did a quick search for recipes that I could make quickly and with ingredients I had on hand.  I settled on this recipe … some day I’d love to have my own standard, go-to, throw-it-together tomato soup recipe.  This was good but, to be honest, it wasn’t “it.”  Not sure what it was missing; maybe it would have been better if I’d followed the recipe, but I didn’t have celery seed or even any of the substitutes that I googled for celery seed.  I also used regular-acid tomatoes and substituted evaporated milk for the half-n-half and regular milk.

This was very tasty, though; I’ll definitely make it again and maybe try to follow the recipe. You can’t beat a very tasty soup made with common ingredients and thrown together in 10 minutes, regardless of the time of year.

Tomato Soup

1. 28 ounces, fluid San Marzano Crushed Tomatoes [I used regular canned, chopped tomatoes]

2. 1 cup Half-and-half [I substituted 1 12-oz can of evaporated milk for the half-and-half and the milk]

3. 1 cup Milk

4. 2 teaspoons Dried Basil

5. 1 teaspoon Dried Granulated Onion

6. ½ teaspoons Celery Seed

7. ½ teaspoons Kosher Salt

8. ½ teaspoons Finely Ground Black Pepper

9. Basil Oil, To Drizzle Over Soup [I omitted this, but you could definitely use it and make the meal quite a bit more fancy]

Combine all ingredients together in a medium saucepan and heat, stirring occasionally.  Puree with an immersion blender.  Drizzle with basil oil and serve.

#tomato #quickandeasy #creambased

Barefoot Contessa’s Chicken Pot Pie

I made this recipe a while ago, way back before we had Titus, which essentially makes it a lifetime ago.  But a fresh blast of cold weather and snow has got me thinking about comfort food.  Fortunately, I posted a link to the recipe on my Facebook and could go back, back, back, before all the one-month baby pics, before the Christmas family pics, before all the birthday wishes, before the congratulatory wishes … and there was this recipe.  I’ll be making it again for guests tomorrow night … not exactly fancy fare to feed guests, but delicious and hearty and, methinks, appropriate for a day when we’ll be digging out from a pile of snow and braving a high temperature of 10 degrees.

Here’s a link to the original recipe.   Since it was just me and JR, I halved the recipe and made it a bit more healthy.  It was still absolutely delicious and I look forward to eating it again tomorrow!

Ina Garten’s Chicken Pot Pie

1 Costco rotisserie chicken, meat picked off (you want 2-3 cups of meat; reserve the dark meat for soup or another use; I’ll use the white meat in the pot pie and use the carcass to make stock) 2 1/2 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade 1 chicken bouillon cube (I used 1 tsp “better than bouillon”) 2 tablespoons butter 1 cup yellow onions, chopped (1 med onion) 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1/4 cup heavy cream (or half and half) (this is the amount for a full recipe, but since I reduced the butter, I used the full amount of cream) 1 cup medium-diced carrots, blanched for 2 minutes 1 cup frozen peas 3/4 cup frozen small whole onions (I couldn’t find the frozen, so I bought a package of fresh pearl onions and blanched/peeled them)

1 teaspoon dried thyme (or to taste — it calls for parsley, but I don’t care for parsley and I love thyme, so I substituted)

Now, there’s a whole pastry recipe that’s full of butter, etc, but I opted for this whole wheat biscuits recipe. You could also use pre-made biscuit dough.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small saucepan, heat the chicken stock and dissolve the bouillon cubes in the stock. In a large pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until translucent. Add the flour and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add the hot chicken stock to the sauce. Simmer over low heat for 1 more minute, stirring, until thick. Add 2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and heavy cream. Add the cubed chicken, carrots, peas, onions and thyme. Mix well.

Put the filling in an oven-safe container of your choice (you could just leave it in the Dutch oven, or put it in a casserole dish, or use ovenproof individual bowls).  Place rolled-out biscuits on top and bake for an hour at 350, or until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling hot.

This also works well as a “make-ahead” recipe.  You just need to be around to pop it in the oven to bake for an hour or so, but it can sit in the fridge even with the biscuit dough on top for a couple of hours.

#potpie #chicken