Butternut Squash Soup

I adore this butternut squash soup.  It is luscious and creamy and velvety and yet it does not have a single drop of cream in it.  The flavors are simple, the squash, a bit of onion, thyme and chicken stock (which could be water or veggie stock if you so choose), with a touch of sugar to bring out the natural sweetness of everything.  I also get to use my fire engine red immersion blender when making it which is a major plus, I love my kitchen gadgets.  The recipe is from Food Network Magazine, and they have you serve it in pumpkin or squash bowls, which I only did the first time I made this soup and never since.  It is nice, and very filling, when you eat an entire acorn squash and the soup, but I feel like it is a bit unnecessary.  What IS necessary is the crisped up prosciutto to put on top, that salty crunch is delicious.

Start with a large, naked butternut squash.  Scoop out the seeds and chop it up.  Rumor has it that you buy pre-chopped squash, which some members of my family are rather excited about, I myself sort of enjoy hacking it up with a big knife, although maybe I shouldn't admit that.

 

Once your squash is ready, move onto the onions, just give them a rough chop, you are going to blend it anyways.  Then saute them in 3 tablespoons of butter.  This is important, DO NOT SKIMP ON THE BUTTER.  When sauteing things I am normally a very lackadaisical person when it comes to the amount of oil or butter I use, but with this I really feel like you need the full 3 tablespoons, if not a smidge more.  Also, the smell of onions cooking in butter is one of the best cooking smells ever and I would hate for you to deprive yourself of that by going easy on the butter.  Anyways, let the onion get nice and soft but not brown, and add the thyme (I have never used fresh thyme in anything, I always just use dried) and salt.

Then you toss in the butternut squash and a spoonful of sugar and stir it all around, letting the squash get slickly covered with butter and melted sugar.

Then you pour in 5 cups of liquid, the recipe calls for water but I add 4 cups of chicken broth and 1 cup of water, you could do whatever you want, and simmer it until the squash is cooked through.  At this point you may want to fry up the prosciutto, I have a tendency to forget about it and then try to convince someone else to do it for me.

Here is where you pretend that I didn't get distracted and took more pictures, like of when I blended the soup with my immersion blender (depending on your squash you may need to simmer the soup a bit or add some more water to get the right consistency) and when I served the soup and had it prettily topped with crispy bits of prosciutto and croutons.  Of course, instead of doing any of that I was happily eating my soup and then remembered my blog, jumped up and ran for my camera.  I have turned into a very forgetful photographer and for that I am sorry.  The recipe is here, and remember, 4 cups broth instead of water and don't bother with the squash bowls unless you really want to. 

 

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is recovering nicely from celebrating the coming of the new year last night.  I got all glammed up (or more accurately was glammed up by this lady) and went out with a few close friends in Annapolis.  We started out with dinner at Tsunami, which aside from still having reservations when I checked Open Table the night before New Year's Eve, has delicious cocktails and pretty amazing fries.  In fact I basically go there for the cocktails and fries alone, those and the watermelon salad, with it's pine nuts, feta, and mint, all drizzled with a balsamic reduction, which was sadly not on the menu last night, perhaps because it is winter and watermelons aren't known for their affinity for snowy weather.  Tsunami seems to me like one of those places that are going for the trendy feel but the actual trendy people don't go there, which I have no idea if that is true or not, not being one of the trendy people of Annapolis myself.  Anyways, I have never ordered what they call "main tastes," but I have sampled dishes from every other category, the first and second tastes, sides and sushi.  And the cocktails of course.  I love a good cocktail and these don't disappoint.  Be warned though, just about everything on the menu has some sort of fusion twist, which can be quite tasty, like the smoked chili aioli that comes with the fries, but can sometimes seem just a bit forced, fusion for the sake of being considered fusion and not because it is an innovation on the dish that takes it to a new and better place.  Not to sound like a food snob or anything.

The baby spinach salad I had last night was quite tasty although the picture doesn't quite do it justice.  The spiced cashews on top were my favorite part.  Between the 6 of us we also ordered quite a selection of sushi, which by my uneducated sushi palate was very decent.  Then of course there were the fries, of which I could not even get a decent picture before they were completely devoured.  We alternated between raving about them and inhaling them, going on about the perfect amount of chunky sea salt one minute and then chowing down the next.  All in all, it is not a bad place to pop in for a drink or a bite if you are downtown.

Homemade Werthers: The Ice Cream Edition

When you have an ice cream maker, ice cream is incredibly easy to make, you can pretty much toss anything in there, turn it on and in 30 minutes you have a frozen treat (seriously, the recipe booklet that came with mine suggests using it to make frozen daiquiris, and I have a sneaking suspicion that store bought chocolate milk would turn into a great chocolate ice cream).  Of course that is just basic ice cream and the fun part is tarting it up a bit and this super easy "Philadelphia  style" ice cream (meaning it doesn't have eggs, meaning that it is good for a lazy cook) is an excellent base for whatever mix ins or additions you want to use, such as shards of homemade caramel.  And let's just say that my vanilla ice cream with caramel bits in it went over a LOT better than my pumpkin pie ice cream.  I used this ice cream as the base and mixed in these caramels.  

Start by mixing together 2 cups of milk (I used 1/2 whipping cream and 1/2 milk) with a teaspoon of vanilla and 1/2 cup of sugar.  Stir it until the sugar is all dissolved.  And that is the basic vanilla ice cream recipe; as the Breyers commercials tell us, you don't need all that crap in your ice cream.

You can chill that mixture for awhile before pouring it into the ice cream machine, but that would require patience and we all know that isn't exactly my strong suit.  Anyways, now you just follow the directions for your ice cream maker, mine is electric so I can just watch it swirl around, which is strangely hypnotic and I don't want to admit how much time I can spend staring into it, but you may have to crank yours.

Meanwhile, smash up some caramels with a rolling pin, I would suggest breaking them up into fairly small bits, I wouldn't want them bigger than an M&M, mini chocolate chip size would be good, although my plastic bag started to tear and so I stopped a bit before that stage so as to avoid making a mess that I would need to clean up later.

When your ice cream seems like it is just about ready, add the caramel bits and let the machine mix them in.

You could eat it right away at this point, but I let it hang out in the freezer for about a half an hour before digging in.  I don't think that actually made much of a difference.

Homemade Werthers

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, I know I did.  One of my presents was a candy thermometer which I have wanted for ages, although it turns out that I am not the sort of person who does the whole cooking with careful precision thing very well and so on my inaugural candy thermometer where I tried to make homemade caramels, instead of lovely chewy packets of goodness I ended up having to smash a sheet of hard sugar into chunks with the end of an ice cream scoop.  They were still tasty though, like a Werthers that had been salted (you see I sprinkled sea salt on the top for that trendy fleur de sel thing).  Anyways, I think I cooked the sugar too long or something, but I am not entirely sure as I know next to nothing about candy making.  It was fun though, and since I used some of my Christmas money to buy myself a new camera, I have some lovely pictures.  And I have decided to smash the caramels even more and mix the shards into some homemade vanilla ice cream tonight, I will let you know how that goes.  O, and I used this recipe.

Start by lining a 8x8 square pan with parchment and lightly butter it.

Then mix the milk, butter and a bit of salt together and bring to a boil, then remove from the heat.  

Then mix the sugar, corn syrup and water together, stirring until the sugar dissolves, which if you are a bit impatient will feel like it is never going to happen because there is only 1/4 of a cup of water and a whole bunch of sugar.  But have faith, it will dissolve eventually.

After awhile it will look like this, pretty sugar bubbles.  Then you stop stirring it and only swirl gently so that it can turn a nice golden color.

When it looks like this, add the milk mixture, which will be quite dramatic and bubbly, and recommence stirring.

Stir and stir and stir until it reaches the correct temperature, and remember the temperature is key, you wouldn't want to over cook it or anything like that....

When it is exactly 248 degrees, pour the caramel into the prepared pan and sprinkle with sea salt and let sit until it sets, which in my case took about 15 minutes and then it was rock hard slab.

Once it is ready, either slice or smash, depending on whether or not you followed the recipe correctly.

Merry Christmas!

I would like to wish you a very merry Christmas!

Full of pretty cookies

Raviolis

Maybe a snowball fight or two

And all those special people you call family!

Nigella's Gingerbread

I may have mentioned this before, but I like molasses.  I like the syrupy ribbons it makes when you pour it out of the jar, I like the name "Grandma's Robust Molasses,"  I like it in cookies and breads, and bbq sauce.  This gingerbread has its fair share of molasses as well as fresh ginger and a lovely lemon glaze that is a great contrast to the moist, sticky cake underneath.  Also, it is a Nigella recipe and you all know how I feel about her, anything she makes is worth a try and is most likely amazing.

Start by melting the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, molasses, cinnamon, and ginger together.  I was afraid of burning the sugar so I did this over pretty low heat.

Then remove the melty sugar mixture from the heat and mix in the eggs, milk and baking soda.

Put the flour in a bowl and pour the liquid ingredients in, mix well.  Like Nigella says, it will be a VERY liquid batter, thus making it a bit difficult to mix well, I had to use a whisk to get the lumps out.  

Pour into a foil lined pan.

Bake for about an hour, until it is firm in the middle.

Once the gingerbread is cool you can make the icing, I had to double the icing recipe and didn't use any water, it was the right consistency with just the lemon juice and powdered sugar.  Once the icing is set cut into squares, like the ones on the middle tier.  

Gingerbread with Lemon Icing from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

1/2 c. plus 2 T butter

1/2 c. plus 2 T brown sugar

3/4 c. plus 1 T corn syrup

3/4 c. plus 1 T molasses

2 t fresh ginger, grated

1 t cinnamon

1c. plus 2 T milk

2 lg eggs, beaten

1 t baking soda, dissolved in 2 T warm watter

2 c. flour

Icing: 2 T lemon juice

1 c. plus 4 T powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 325

In a saucepan, melt the first 6 ingredients together over low heat.

Remove from the heat and mix in the milk, baking soda and eggs.

Pour over the flour and mix well, it will be very wet.

Pour into a foil lined 12x8 pan and bake for 45 min to an hour until risen and firm.

Let cool, then make the icing by whisking together the sugar and lemon juice, if needed thin with a bit of warm water.  

Spread the icing over the gingerbread, let it set, and cut into squares. 

Lemon Sugar Cookies

We have our traditional sugar cookies that we make every year for christmas, these aren't those cookies.  Those are cut out cookies, made using the same cookie cutters and frosted with buttercream and topped with sprinkles.  These are chewy, lemony and almost completely unadorned (I say almost because I couldn't help myself, I added some red sprinkles to the sugar I rolled them in to make them look a little festive).  O my are they tasty.  I am discovering that I am quite fond of lemon, I have absolutely no idea why it has taken this realization so long to dawn on me, but there you have it, lemony baked goods are my new loves.  I even remember the first time I admitted my love of lemon, my sister and I were trying to decide on which mini cupcakes to sample from this place and I selected the meyer lemony lemon and then I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about how I could possibly recreate it.  The sweet and tart and bright deliciousness of baked goods that feature lemon can't be denied, and if you don't believe me, try these cookies.  I found the recipe here and didn't tweak it at all, except for the red sprinkles.

Start by mashing the lemon zest and sugar together.  It didn't turn a lovely pale yellow like the recipe said, but I'm sure something happened and mushing things about is generally not a bad time.

Then mix the dry stuff together.

Next, cream the butter and sugar, mix in the egg, then the flour, pretty standard cookie making stuff.  Also, please ignore how terrible the picture of the dough is, I don't know how it ended up so blurry but I made it smaller in hopes that it would be less noticeable, but I don't think that helped much.

Then you just scoop out about a tablespoon of dough at a time, roll it into a ball and roll it in the sugar.  Bake until the edges turn a bit golden, they are super soft and chewy when you take them out but get a bit crisper as they cool.