Roasted Butternut Squash Soup With Apples and Ginger

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup With Apples and Ginger

I have been getting lovely butternut squash from Edgerton Farm for the past few weeks and my children never seem to tire of this delicious and healthy veggie. I had made a spicy soup with it back in August, but today I had some apples left over from lunch and about an inch of ginger root that needed to be used up so Roasted Butternut Squash Soup With Apples and Ginger quickly evolved.

I think that this easy soup would go with just about anything! My son said that this was the best food I had made all month... This proclamation concerns me, of course, because we are just a few days away from October. The poor child has been suffering through sub-par food for 28 days apparently. So glad that I was able to remedy the situation tonight...

Ingredients:

2 small onions, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons of butter
A little bit of olive oil
An inch of ginger root, peeled and grated (see note below)
1 apple, peeled and diced
2 to 3 pounds of butternut squash, roasted
4 cups or so of vegetable broth

Roasting Butternut Squash

Roasting Your Butternut Squash ... 

There are two ways to roast a butternut squash - the easy way and the hard way. The easy way would be to cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, place it on a baking pan and let it cook in the oven until it is roasted and ready to be used. I chose the hard way - I carefully removed the thick peel of my butternut squash and cut up the squash into small cubes. (If you need a friendly reminder about how to cut up a butternut squash, click here.) I spread the squash in an even layer on a cookie sheet sprayed with some cooking spray and sprinkled the pieces generously with salt and pepper.

I let the squash cook in a 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes. When the squash is done roasting, simply turn off the oven until you are ready to use it in your soup. This step can be done ahead of time to make the actual soup preparation a little bit quicker.

Making the Soup ... 

In a large, heavy bottomed pan, melt your butter with a little bit of olive oil. Add the chopped onion, garlic. and ginger. Saute until the onion is translucent. Add the chopped apple and cook for a few more minutes until the apple gets a bit soft. Add the roasted butternut squash. Mash the butternut squash a bit while you stir it well to incorporate all the ingredients together. Add your four cups (or so) of vegetable broth and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to simmer and let it simmer for about 30 minutes - or even more if you forget that you are cooking soup. (Not that I did that...)

When your soup has simmered for a bit, you need to either transfer it to a blender to smooth it out or, if you are fancy, use your handy immersion blender. Because I had salted the butternut squash before I roasted it, I didn't feel the need to add any additional seasoning to the soup. The combination of the garlic and the ginger and the roasted squash was just perfect. Taste test it yourself to make sure the flavors are just right, but I doubt you will need to add much once your soup is done. Enjoy!

A note about ginger ... Ginger is another one of those powerhouse ingredients that I love to have on hand. Ginger is a root and it is known for its anti-inflammatory properties. Ginger is generally sold by the pound so if you pick up a little piece in the produce section, it won't cost you very much at all. I store my ginger in the refrigerator so it is ready when I need it. To use it, simple cut away the tough outer layer and use a grater to grate as much ginger as you need. A little bit goes a long way! Click here for more information about ginger (and beautiful photos) from the talented Jaden Hair who writes the Steamy Kitchen food blog.

A note about immersion blenders ... An immersion blender is a handheld blender that is absolutely necessary if you love to make soup. My immersion blender is ancient (I stole it from my parents' house when I left for college) and it has one speed - on. Plug it in, stick it in your soup, press the big button and watch your chunky soup turn into a smooth masterpiece. If you have about $25 burning a hole in your pocket, I highly recommend you go out and get one.

Three Chili Pepper Chili

Three Chili Pepper Chili

The season of Sunday afternoon chili has begun! Nothing makes me more excited than hanging out on Sunday, watching football, and smelling chili cooking in the crock pot all afternoon.

I am pretty sure that I have rarely made chili the same way twice, but the fam loved this chili so much, I had to write down the recipe before I forgot it.

Cayenne Peppers

Ingredients: 

1 large banana pepper, chopped
1 large green pepper, chopped
2 small cayenne peppers, chopped
1 large red onion, chopped
4 or 5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 ear corn, kernels cut off
A bunch of garlic chives, chopped
1 pound ground beef or sausage
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cans pinto beans, drained
3 tablespoons chili seasoning
**(I have been loving Penzey's Chili 3000!)

Almost ready for the crock pot

Directions:

Crumble the sausage and let it brown in a heavy bottomed pan.

Add the onion, chili peppers, garlic, and corn. Stir well to combine.

Put the meat and veggies into your crock pot. Add the diced tomatoes, pinto beans, garlic chives, and chili seasoning.

Let it cook on low for about 5 or 6 hours.

Garlic Chives

Serve with tortilla chips and your favorite toppings. I chopped up some fresh scallions, extra cayenne peppers and garlic chives to add some kick! My husband loves sour cream on his so we put a little bit of that out as well.

The Local Ingredient List: 


Crumbled Sausage from C-Saw Hill Farm
Red Onion and Garlic from Greene Family Farm
Non-GMO Corn, Cayenne Peppers from Charlene's Garden
Green Bell Peppers and Banana Peppers from my garden...
Garlic chives ... hmmm... not sure! But they are fantastic! 

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Bakes Sweet Potato Fries

Sweet potatoes are so good for you! There are many ways to prepare sweet potatoes, but baking them makes a very kid-friendly, gluten-free, side dish or afternoon snack.

Baked sweet potato fries are so easy and delicious and require very little preparation. They barely made it to the table for dinner ... as you can see, one of the littles decided to help herself to the plate before I could serve it!

I like to estimate about 1 large sweet potato for every 2 people. Peel the sweet potatoes and slice them into fry-like pieces.

Season them with salt and pepper and drizzle them some olive oil - about 2 to 3 tablespoons. I toss them together with my fingers to evenly coat the potatoes.

Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray and then spread the fries in an even layer. The more spread out they are, the more evenly they will cook. If you cram a bunch of fries onto your pan, they will not cook as well. (Confession: I usually cram a lot onto the pan, simply because I want to have enough to feed the masses seated around my dinner table ... if you notice the picture above, my fries are not so crispy! )

Cook at 425 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes. Using a spatula, gently turn the sweet potato fries over and continue cooking for another 10 to 15 minutes - maybe more if you like them very well done.

Sweet potatoes ... peel and slice 

Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper

Roasted Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti Squash

Did you get a large spaghetti squash in your CSA box recently or have you eyed these yellow wonders at the farmers market wondering how the heck you should prepare it?

For years, I heard great things about spaghetti squash but was never brave enough to try to prepare it myself. Last week, one appeared in our local version of a CSA delivery - the Cornucopia Box from Charlene's Garden in Rutherford County - and I just had to figure out how to cook it before another one landed on my doorstep.

I checked out a few bookshelf sources - The Joy of Cooking, Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook, and Betty Crocker. No luck. I googled directions online but that was not so productive either. Lots of directions involved piercing the skin with skewers so that the squash would not explode! I started getting concerned...

Scoop out the seeds

In my kitchen, when all else fails, we roast. I cut this large squash in half - I had to test out a couple of different knives to find one that would finally work, but we successfully divided it in half and set to scooping out the seeds.

After scooping out the seeds, season the inside of the squash with salt and pepper.

Turn it cut side down on a baking sheet.

Let it cook for one hour at 375 degrees.

Cook for one hour at 375 degrees

After it is done cooking, use a fork to gently scoop out the insides - it will actually look like spaghetti! The kids got such a kick out of the real "spaghetti" strings.

Spaghetti squash tastes great as a side dish or all by itself. My daughter added pesto to hers while my son ate his with some leftover diced chicken. Delicious!

Roasted Spaghetti Squash

Check out the spaghetti!

Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet

Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet

If you ever watch Rachael Ray, you might have heard her chatty self talking about making "stoup" - a cross between a soup and a stew. I like to think of a cassoulet as a rustic French version of a "stoup." A cassoulet generally involves tomatoes, white beans, and sausage. A traditional cassoulet is supposed to have more white beans than tomatoes, alas, it is still tomato season down here so this cassoulet was all about the tomatoes and sausage and a little bit less about the white beans.

This is a super easy crock pot meal! Perfect for any time of year - don't be afraid to use your crock pot even if it is still warm outside. We even use our crock pot in the summer because it doesn't get the kitchen as hot as using the oven or having something simmering on the stove for a long time. (Truthfully ... with four small children around, I rarely have anything simmering on the stove for awhile! Nothing good could come of that.) Of course this delicious recipe is also naturally gluten-free - the ingredient list is super simple - delicious local Italian sausages from C-Saw Hill Farm, chopped tomatoes from my garden, a delicious white onion, and a few cloves of garlic. We served our cassoulet over rice but you could also serve it over pasta, a baked potato, a chunk of hearty bread, or just by itself.

Ingredients: 

1 lb Italian sausage, cooked
3 or 4 large chopped tomatoes
1 medium onion, diced
4 or 5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 can (or 2) white beans, drained

Directions:

Combine all ingredients into a crockpot. Simmer on low for about 3 to 4 hours. Enjoy!

Gluten-Free Apple Crisp With Ground Flaxseed

Gluten-Free Apple Crisp With Ground Flaxseed

Apple season is under way here in North Carolina and I am already looking forward to many, many months of apple-y desserts. Apple crisp is certainly one of the easiest desserts that you can make. It also works really well as a gluten-free dessert because there isn't much flour in the recipe to begin with. I have been adding ground flaxseed to just about everything lately so I decided to give my simple apple crisp recipe a little boost with some flaxseed. Why not?

Flaxseed is just plain good for you and when it is ground up, you don't even notice you are eating it. I happen to like the nutty taste of it so I will put it on yogurt or oatmeal, but incorporated into a recipe, your family will never know it is there.

A nutritionist from the Mayo Clinic, Katherine Zeratsky, gave a brief summary of the nutritional benefits of flaxseed  and I am quoting it below... (Click here to read more from her article.) Just one tablespoon of ground flaxseed would provide the recommended daily intake of omega-3 fatty acids for an adult! Flaxseed is a little powerhouse! I found mine already ground at our local Earth Fare grocery store.

"Flaxseed is high in fiber, omega-3 fatty acids and phytochemicals called lignans. Flaxseed is commonly used as a laxative (to improve digestive health or relieve constipation). Both flaxseed and flaxseed oil have been used to help reduce total blood cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad") cholesterol levels and, as a result, may help reduce the risk of heart disease." Katherine Zeratsky, Mayo Clinic

North Carolina Gala Apples

The details ... 

Start by chopping up a bunch of apples - enough to fill the bottom of a pie dish or 8 x 8 pan.

Combine the following ingredients in a large bowl:

1/2 cup of light brown sugar
1/4 cup of your favorite gluten-free flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
3/4 cup oats
6 tablespoons butter, softened

Brown sugar, oats, flour, flaxseed

Crumble the butter into the other ingredients. I like to use a pastry blender. (A pastry blender is one of those VERY handy and very inexpensive kitchen tools!) If you don't have a pastry blender you can use two forks or two knives to cut the butter into the ingredients to create a crumbly effect.

The handy pastry blender

To finish ... 

Sprinkle the crumbly mixture evenly over the apples. Put in a 375 degree oven and cook for about 30 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream for dessert or eat it for breakfast with a nice cup of coffee. Yum!

Apple Crisp: Cook at 375 degrees for 30 minutes

Zucchini, Potato, and Chickpea Curry

Zucchini, Potato, and Chickpea Curry

This vegetarian curry is so delicious and hearty! My kiddos and I gobbled it right up for dinner tonight. A curry is a pretty generic term meaning any spicy Middle Eastern dish of meat or vegetables served over rice. There isn't simply one kind of curry. If you buy curry powder at the grocery store, it is most likely a combination of traditional Middle Eastern spices like fenugreek, coriander, cumin, turmeric, fennel, cayenne, and others. If you don't cook a lot of Middle Eastern foods, buying a good curry powder is an easy way to spice up your normal meals without buying all those individual spices.

Locally grown red-skinned potatoes ... delicious

Most of my meals begin with a quick look at the kitchen counter and in the cupboard to see what might need to be used up soon ... today the winner was zucchini and potatoes. I had about a half dozen zucchini sitting on the counter and a bag of lovely red-skinned potatoes just begging to be used. Since I needed to be out of the house right around the dinner prep hour, it was the perfect night to put the crock pot to good use. And so a quick curry was devised...

The veggie collection

Ingredients: 

3 to 4 medium zucchinis, chopped
6 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 medium to large onion, chopped
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, diced
1 jalapeno or other spicy pepper, seeded and chopped
1 can diced tomatoes (about 14 ounces)
1 can water
1 to 2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 large can chickpeas, drained (about 24 ounces)

Spices ... 1 tablespoon ginger powder, 1 tablespoon cumin, 1 tablespoon coriander, a few shakes of salt and multiple twists of the pepper grinder

Directions: 

Chopped Zucchini

Combine everything except for the chickpeas into the crock pot. Stir. Cover and cook on high for about 3 hours. Add the chickpeas and cook for an additional hour.

A note about spice ... If you are not serving the curry to little eaters, you can add some cayenne pepper to give this an extra kick. For this curry, I totally skipped the cayenne and just added some crushed red pepper on my bowl at the end to give it a little kick and spare the littles.

54 Leaf Basil Pesto

Fresh Picked Basil

For the record, there are only 27 leaves of basil in the colander pictured to the left. I sent the girls out of the house to collect 25 leaves of basil. They brought back 27. I realized that 27 leaves would certainly not be enough to make even a small batch of pesto. So I sent them back out to pick 25 more leaves. They returned with 27. Being a teacher, I had to turn this cooking session into a little bit more of a math problem, of course, so I asked them how many total leaves of basil do we have now. In unison, they turned to their brother, and asked, "Quinn, how much is 27 plus 27?" Quinn, ever ready for a good math problem, promptly replied, "54!" And so we made 54 Leaf Basil Pesto.

54 Leaf Basil Pesto

54 leaves of basil will get you about 1/2 of a pint of pesto. Basil is pretty easy to grow just about anywhere. However, to be honest, this is the first season that I have successfully grown basil here in North Carolina and it grew up in a random spot in my garden most likely due to compost, not because I actually planted it there myself. So be it. My basil plant is absolutely huge. The bees love to visit it and I love to have the bees constantly visiting my garden. It's a win-win. If you grow basil, try to keep pruning it back so that it doesn't start to flower on top - I just break off the tops and toss them into the garden if things start looking out of control. Or, like today, make 54 leaf basil pesto.

Basil, walnuts, garlic, cheese ... pulse

To make pesto, all you need is a food processor and your basic pesto ingredients: basil, garlic, some dry cheese (romano, parmesan, etc.), salt, a few nuts (optional - I used walnuts today), and olive oil.

Directions: 

Add 3 cloves of garlic, 54 leaves of basil, a handful of shaved cheese, and about 8 to 10 walnuts into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse it a few times. Add some olive oil - probably a few tablespoons to start - about one or two pours. Pulse it some more.

Pesto is one of those things that you have to make without measurements. You need to look at it and ask yourself, does this look like chopped basil or does this look like pesto? If it still looks like chopped basil, pulse it some more and add more olive oil. You must taste it a few times to know how much salt to add. The genovese style of basil is probably the most common type of basil you will see around. If you let your basil get overgrown, your leaves might taste a little bit bitter and need a bit of extra salt to balance out the flavors. After you have added your first round of olive oil and tasted it once, add a little bit of salt. Decide if you need to add more olive oil. Pulse it some more. Add more salt if necessary.

Kitchen shears are a must-have for cutting up pizza!

We used part of our pesto on a delicious gluten-free pizza crust from Udi's. Yum. And the rest I quickly put into a small container in the fridge so that I would stop eating it right out of food processor. Pesto is great on sandwiches, on pizza crust, served with crackers, as a dip for bread or veggies. Delicious! Enjoy.

Fun fact for the day... Does it matter what type of salt you use? Yes, it does! I used fine sea salt to make this pesto. You never want to use coarse sea salt as an additive in something like pesto. Coarse sea salt is best used when you are going to season something and serve it right away. If you season something with coarse sea salt and then let it sit for a while, the coarse sea salt will dissolve over time and make your food saltier than you intended. (Just in case you ever find yourself on CHOPPED or The Next Food Network Star being interviewed by Alton Brown ... now you know.)  

Easy Chopped Tomato Salad

Easy Chopped Tomato Salad

This is one of those recipes-that-isn't-a-recipe posts. My family loves every single ingredient that goes into a salad but one ... lettuce. There are a few bursts of lettuce love around here but, for the most part, if I can make a salad without lettuce, I do.

For this easy salad, I chopped up three large tomatoes and one beautiful scallion. I also diced up one slice of white onion - teeny tiny pieces so as not to alert the  senses of the little people - and had the kiddos grab fistfuls of basil leaves from the garden.

I tossed all of these ingredients together with a few shakes of coarse sea salt and a swirl (or two) of olive oil.

I love finding new cheese!

Just to be different, I added in chunks of a really yummy cheese I found while wandering around Reid's Fine Foods the other day. My kids love it when I add in cheese to salad - although I love to make a traditional caprese salad using mozzarella, any cheese will do - crumbled goat cheese, feta, cheddar, you get the idea! My dad always put extra sharp New York cheddar cheese in our salads so I love looking for different cheeses to try. And, if the kids don't love my experiment... all the more for me.

The local ingredient list: Tomatoes from Edgerton Farm, Scallion from Charlene's Garden, Basil from our lovely backyard... Cheese from Ashe County Cheese. Delicious!

Gluten Free Blueberry Cobbler

Gluten Free Blueberry Cobbler

The blueberry season is officially over here in North Carolina. I managed to squirrel away a few bags of berries in the freezer, but this cobbler used up the last four cups of fresh blueberries that I was able to secure. This last flat of berries were fine but they weren't the spectacularly sweet berries that my kids and I have been enjoying all summer. In fact, I have had these four cups of berries sitting in my fridge for quite a few days and I knew that no one was banging down the doors to gobble them up anytime soon - especially now that we are in the midst of delectable peach season. What better use of so-so berries than a cobbler?! 6 ingredients. So simple.

4 of the 6 ingredients...

I tossed my quart of berries in a couple of tablespoons of demerara sugar and let them sit for a bit while I got dinner ready. I stole a berry here and there but the taste was not rapidly improved even coated in sugar. I was worried. I decided to throw the blueberries into a saucepan, add a few tablespoons of molasses and let it all heat up a bit. This seemed to do the trick. The berries were taking on a lovely flavor as I gently tossed them around in a pan making a bit of a berry sauce.  There was hope!

Ingredients: 

6 tablespoons butter
4 cups of blueberries
3 tablespoons sugar + 1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons molasses
1 1/2 cups gluten free Bisquick
3/4 cup half and half (or you could use milk)

Directions: 

Melt the butter in the oven

1. Melt the butter in the bottom of an 8 x 8 pan for one or two minutes while the oven is heating to 350 degrees.

2. Combine blueberries, sugar, and molasses in a saucepan over medium low heat. Stir constantly but gently until a sauce starts to form. Remove from heat. Pour the berries over the melted butter.

My gluten free sous-chef

3. In a separate bowl, combine the bisquick, 1/2 cup of sugar, and half and half. It will be lumpy and hard to stir. Make sure that all the ingredients are well incorporated.

4. Drop the lumpy batter evenly over the blueberries. You might want to help the batter out by spreading it a bit with a spoon to make sure that most of berries are covered. When I cooked it, it didn't move much from exactly where I dropped the batter so don't expect it to cover any holes that you might leave!

5. Cook for about 30 to 35 minutes until the top is a nice golden brown and you can see the blueberries bubbling up the sides. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream! Enjoy!

Gluten-Free Blueberry Cobbler ... It's ready!

Notes about the ingredients: I used Gluten Free Bisquick and this came out really delicious - delicious as in you couldn't tell that it was gluten-free at all according to my brutally honest husband. I imagine, but I haven't tested it myself, that if you were to use regular Bisquick you would achieve the same yumminess.

Demerara sugar. Why demerara sugar? Well, I love buying ingredients from the bulk bins at my local Earth Fare store - just because. This week we needed some sugar (mainly for my iced coffee addiction) and I saw the beautiful bin full of demerara sugar and I couldn't resist. It was just so pretty! Demerara sugar is less refined than regular sugar and is a little bit coarser with a lovely golden color. You could almost taste the grains of sugar in the biscuit part of the cobbler when it was done cooking. By all means use your regular sugar.

Half and half ... this recipe is not scoring any points in the low calorie column - thanks in part due to my use of the half and half. I had way more half and half on hand than I did milk and, not wanting to hit the supermarket on a school night, I opted to use the half and half and leave the milk for the kiddos. Use whatever you have!