curried butternut squash red lentil soup

I can't seem to eat enough lentils these days. I've been making lentil soup of various types almost once a week! It's a good thing lentils are so healthy.
This time, I had an itch to make a soup that incorporated one of my favorite winter vegetables--squash! I tweaked a recipe from Gourmet magazine (February 2009) to suit me, with delicious results. Not only did this soup turn a beautiful shade of orange, but it was richly flavored, filling, and perfect for a crisp fall day. If I were better prepared, I might have garnished it with roasted spiced pumpkin seeds or served it with a nice grainy loaf of bread, but it stands on its own beautifully.
I should mention that the original version is not a blended soup, but I wanted a puree, so out came the immersion blender!


Ingredients:
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 lb butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp minced peeled ginger
1 tbsp curry paste (I used yellow)
1 cup red lentils, picked over and rinsed
2 qts water (I substituted vegetable stock)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice, or to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper



Heat oil and butter together in a pot over medium heat until the butter is fully melted and the foam subsides. Add squash, onion, carrot, garlic, ginger, and 1 teaspoon salt, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened and beginning to brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Add curry paste and pepper, cook for a couple of minuted longer to allow the vegetables to absorb the curry flavor. Next, add vegetable stock (or water if you prefer), lentils, and simmer for 30-40 minutes, until lentils are tender. Blend soup until smooth, add lemon juice, and give it a good stir before serving. The original recipe also suggests drizzling the soup with cilantro oil before serving. If this is to your taste, you can make cilantro oil by pureeing 1/2 cup chopped cilantro and 1/2 cup vegetable oil with a pinch of salt in a blender.

brussels sprouts

I have successfully convinced at least two people this year that they do, in fact, like brussels sprouts. When I was a kid, I didn't like them either, but this winter... I eat them constantly. Right now, my favorite way to eat them is roasted--Ina Garten's recipe is ridiculously easy and SO good.

ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs brussels sprouts, cut in half lengthwise
3 tbsp good olive oil
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

Preheat your oven to 400F.
Toss brussels sprouts with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread on a sheet pan and roast for 30-40 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally to ensure the brussels sprouts brown evenly. Sprinkle with more kosher salt if desired, and serve! I have eaten them hot out of the oven and also cold as leftovers and liked them immensely both ways. Even if you are a non-believer, I think you should give this a try... It is worlds different from the icky boiled brussels sprouts you may be familar with.

ginger cookies

I must confess to something. I'm going to use this space, as it seems the appropriate place to do so. I'm not the best cookie baker out there. I LIKE cookies, and I bake them, and they turn out well most of the time, but I always have strange issues to work through. I'm impatient, so I don't like to wait for my ingredients to be the right temperature--butter melted in the microwave through overzealous defrosting, I'm looking at you.

However, cookies are portable and delicious, they are good for potlucks and game night and bringing to work, and most of the time you can make the dough ahead of time by at least a day, which is great if you don't have a lot of time.

I stumbled across the following recipe for ginger cookies last week when I was yearning for a warm apartment filled with the delicious perfume of baking cookies. I adore ginger, and the prospect of a cookie with crystalized, fresh, AND ground ginger? Too delicious to ignore.

(Bon Appetit 2009)

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour

1/3 cup minced crystalized ginger

2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup (1 & 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

1/4 cup light/mild molasses

1 1/2 tsp grated peeled ginger

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

Preheat your oven to 350F, and move the oven racks (if you are fancy and have more than one--my tiny oven does not) to the top third and bottom third of your oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and crystalized ginger.

Cream butter and brown sugar together in a large bowl using an electric mixer or elbow grease, if your mixer has gone a bit off it its old age like mine has. Add egg, molasses, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon. Beat this mixture together to blend, then add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients gradually--mix until blended.

Measure about 1/3 cup of white sugar into a bowl, then roll tablespoon-sized scoops of dough into balls and coat with sugar before placing them on the baking sheet. Place the cookies approximately 1 1/2 inches apart, and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the edges crack but the center remains slightly soft.
These cookies stayed fresh for the few days after baking that they survived--I will definitely make these again, and perhaps pack them with even more ginger next time! They were gingery and delicious for fall, but could be given a little added bite if that's your style.

Ps-I wasn't planning to make a pun via photo, but it just happened.

I love gin.

I really love this gin. It's from Oregon, and has a lovely cardamom flavor. www.ransomspirits.com/spirits.php

Just thought people should be aware.

minty pea spread!

Inspired by an episode of Mad Men when deciding on what to bring to, appropriately enough, a Mad Men watching party, I decided that the best thing to do would be to make dip and bring chips--the host graciously provided a chip and dip for the occasion. No one brought an air rifle.

Now, I have never been a big chips & dip person... I'll buy a bag of tortilla chips and some salsa for a party, but that's about as far as it goes. I'm not sure if it is because dip has gone out of fashion in home entertainment, or because I am poorly equiped to entertain, but I didn't know more than one recipe for dip, and had to do some investigating before I settled on this one.



The recipe (Jamie Oliver's, found on http://www.dinneralovestory.com/) is actually a spread for delicious bread, and in full disclosure is best suited for this purpose. We ate it with pita chips, which were delicious, but the consistency of the dip is not well suited to being scooped up by the chipful.

I loved that it included fresh mint--I can't get enough mint when it is in season! Also, peas are so deliciously fresh tasting that I couldn't resist trying this out.



Ingredients:

1 cup frozen peas, thawed

a handful of fresh mint leaves

2 tbsp fresh parmesean cheese

juice from 1/2 lemon

1/3 cup olive oil

salt to taste



Everything goes into a food processor, where you blend it into submission, or until it is smooth. I stopped to taste mine and ended up adding more lemon juice--mint, parmesean, salt, and lemon juice can all be tweaked depending on your tastes. Serve on a nice crusty bread, drizzle a little olive oil, and grate some fresh parmesean over the top, and you won't be disappointed. Even though it didn't work as well for dip as for a spread, my friends really enjoyed this and I will definitely make it again!

crepestravaganza

I've already written about crepes--I love them. Once you get the hang of it, they are easy to make, and it's a nice breakfast to whip up if you're having people over or if you just want to spoil yourself a little. I use Julia Child's crepe recipe, which, if you haven't tried... you should. The gold standard, in my humble opinion. I had an extremely successful brunch with a lady friend over the summer, and I just thought I'd share some pictures... Our crepe fillings were particularly successful: melon & prosciutto, fresh strawberry, blackberry, and golden raspberry with triple sec whipped cream and shaved dark chocolate, seared scallop, spinach, and hollandaise sauce with bacon... We were stuffed, and pretty impressed with our crepe accomplishments.

a lighter potato/leek soup

I seem to have several recipes for potato leek soup. I happen to be quite a fan of leeks, and soup is one of my favorite things to make—but the recipes I looked at all seemed too heavy for a warm summer day. I searched around for some summery soups to enjoy, and just happened upon a spring recipe for potato leek soup with no milk or butter in it to make for a lighter dinner while still making use of the leeks I had my eye on. This recipe from http://chicagoist.com looked fairly simple, which appealed to me as a low-key weekend dinner option that wouldn’t take up a lot of my time. I of course ended up making it a major project, as I chose this time to also make homemade vegetable stock to use in the soup, but it really was worth it.

Ingredients:


1 clove of garlic, diced

½ cup diced pancetta

1 tbs olive oil

2 large leeks, chopped (the white/pale green parts)

1 pound of yellow potatoes

1 cup vegetable or chicken broth

1 cup water

flat leaf parsley and green onions (for topping)

In a medium-sized pot, boil potatoes until slightly soft. I put mine in the refrigerator to cool off, as they need to be cut into 1 inch cubes and I didn’t feel as though second-degree burns would go all that well with my soup. This also frees up the pot to use for the next steps, which means less dishes for me to wash! Next, heat the olive oil in your medium-sized pot, then add the garlic and diced pancetta.

I should note here that I am never convinced that there is enough garlic in ANY recipe, and I often double or triple (in this case) the recommended amount of garlic. If you are a nonbeliever, you can stick to 1 clove of garlic, but I will say that the extra garlic was an excellent choice in this particular recipe. The garlic and pancetta should sizzle merrily away until lightly browned. The leeks are the next addition and should be cooked on medium heat until soft—you don’t want to brown them. Add the cubed potatoes, water, and broth (I added an extra ½ cup of broth to mine), and cook until the potatoes are soft—approximately 20 minutes. Blend about 1 cup of soup in a small food processor (or alternately, use an immersion blender to smooth out the texture of your soup a bit), and add back to the pot. Serve, using the green onions and parsley as garnish.

A word about parsley: I don’t really like it all that much. I might be alone in this, but I almost never buy parsley unless I think it is vital to the integrity of the meal, or if I am entertaining and want the presentation to be especially nice, OR if I have several other things to use parsley in before it goes bad. None of those things were the case in this instance, but I love green onions and can nearly always find an excuse to use them, so I garnished my soup with green onion and fresh ground pepper, which was lovely.

Summer is an excellent time to enjoy a nice chilled glass of rosé, and, incidentally, rosé pairs quite well with this soup. I am a bit of a neophyte when it comes to rosé, I must admit, but I spent a bit of time exploring the selection at Metropolitan Market and I chose La Vielle Ferme Côtes du Ventoux 2009 rosé, which was a lovely deep pink in color, and was dry with a fruity bouquet. It was also affordable—I believe it was under $9 on sale. I will definitely be drinking more rosé as our summer heats up!