Everybody loves soup

Today, there are little snow flurries outside my window. It makes me feel like eating warm soup and sitting on the couch with a snuggie. That's not quite in the cards for me, but at least I can share this soup recipe with you. My family has made it for the past few years as a first course on Thanksgiving. My dad likes it, even though it has cream, cheese and butter in it (small amounts of each, don't worry).

Butternut Squash Soup adapted from Pie in the Sky

I double this recipe for Thanksgiving and other large occasions.

1 2-lb. butternut squash
1 t. olive oil
1 t. sea salt
fresh-cracked black pepper, to taste

1 large shallot, coarsely diced
2 T. plus 1 t. salted butter
1 t. chopped fresh sage leaves, plus 5-10 fresh sage leaves for garnish
1½+ cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock, if you're cooking for my parents. Safeway Select Organics is a good one and so is Kitchen Basics. Under pain of death, do not use Trader Joe's brand. I love Trader Joe's, but their vegetable stock tastes like feet)
1/2+ c. heavy cream
1/4 cup fresh-grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper, to taste

Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds. light oil cut sides of squash; sprinkle with salt and place cut-side-down on baking sheet. Bake at 370 degrees for 40-50 minutes, or until squash is very tender when pierced with a fork. Cool slightly; scoop out pulp, discarding the skin.


Mmmmm, orange squashy goodness. I could eat it now, but then there wouldn't be any soup.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a small sauté pan over medium heat. When butter begins to froth, add shallots; cook three minutes; add chopped sage. sauté for 2 more minutes, or until onions are tender and translucent.


There are few things in the world better than shallots and butter.

Melt additional butter in pan; add 1 cup stock and bring just to simmer. Remove onion mixture from heat and stir into squash pulp; puree in food processor in batches, adding more broth as necessary.

Pour pureed mixture into medium saucepan. Over low heat, stir in heavy cream, nutmeg, parmesan, and salt and pepper to taste (be sure to salt after adding cheese, which is salty itself!). Remove from heat.

I rarely do this next step because I get hungry/lazy. But you feel free! Melt remaining teaspoon salted butter in small sauté pan over medium heat; lay whole sage leaves in butter and fry until frizzled and slightly brown. transfer to paper towel to drain; garnish soup with crispy sage leaves. (Hint: frizzle ribbons of prosciutto with the sage for a special garnish!)


I could eat a lot of this soup. I like to keep it in a jar in my fridge and eat it when I'm too lazy to cook.

Back to work, guys!

No more dressing up in whimsical costumes and eating a lot of candy (or drinking a lot of booze) - it's Monday morning and you've got to get back to work. I hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween weekend. I spent mine sitting around in my pajamas, cooking and watching Sports Night on DVD. This is what happens when I work at four different places all week long. It makes me tired.

One of the best things about fall vegetables is that they are instant comfort food. Mostly they revolve around things like potatoes and squash and they delight in being warm carb-y goodness. This recipe was given to me by my friend Alex many years ago, back in the days from when she knew how to cook and I didn't at all. She made this for me once and I loved it so much, I demanded the recipe and found it again recently, scribbled on the back of an old IRS form in the midst of my bookcase that collapsed (luckily, not on me).

Alex's Butternut Squash Pasta

1 small butternut squash, peeled and cut into a large dice (or one package from Trader Joe's)
8 shallots, peeled and halved length wise (I sliced mine)
1 or 2 Tbs brown sugar
2 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 Tbs fresh sage, torn
Parmesan cheese

1 package pasta of your choice

This is super simple, even I could do it before I could cook.

Combine all the ingredients except cheese and pasta in a baking dish (the kind with raised sides - not a sheet).


Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 475 degrees. While this happens, cook your pasta. Take the squash out of the oven and combine with your cooked pasta.


Top with cheese and serve.


This is so good. If you're into the whole salty-sweet thing, this is the dish for you. It's warm and comforting and super flavorful. Thanks to Alex for teaching me how to make it! It is really delicious.

Eat your vegetables

I wasn't going to post anything, but I was dicing up this butternut squash -


- and damn, it smells good. It's almost citrus-y and sweet and the color is so gorgeous. I've been reading Marcella Hazan's memoir (you know, the Italian cooking lady on PBS with the lame arm? Anyone?) and she talks about how Italians don't eat vegetables because they're good for you or because the government says so, but because they taste so good (the vegetables grown in Italy, not the crap you get in American supermarkets - I'm paraphrasing here, but that's the general idea).

If you're so inspired, go get a locally grown butternut squash and make this. It's delicious, I promise. And watch PBS.

Alone time

Sometimes, you just have to pamper yourself. For some, that means massages or pedicures, for me, it means cooking for three hours so that I can eat fancy food while I watch old MGM musicals by myself. Potato, potah-to.

I got this recipe from The Amateur Gourmet, who got it from Mario Batali, so you know it's good. Dad, try to avert your eyes from the pictures of meat simmering on the stove.

Braised Short Ribs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
a few beef short ribs - one big one or two small ones per person, I made extra for leftovers
Kosher Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper
2 carrots, peeled and roughly chop[ed
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 cups Barolo or other full-bodied red wine (I used Shiraz because I had it in my kitchen already)
1 28 oz can peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand, tomato juice discarded
1 cup brown chicken stock [I used boxed chicken stock and it was fine]
thyme, rosemary, oregano - You could use fresh if you have it. I didn't.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Get an oven proof skillet and heat the oil in it until it's really hot and smoking. Season the meat with salt and pepper and brown them really well in the oil. Browning the meat is super important. Mario and Adam say that you should brown it for 15 minutes on all sides. This gives it a nice crust and makes more flavor later.


3. Remove the meat to a plate and set it aside. Now, remember your vegetables?


They are very important. Add them to the pan that you cooked the meat in and soften them for a few minutes. Add some salt and pepper, the red wine, chicken stock and herbs. Bring it to a boil and add the short ribs back to the pan.



4. That was easy, right? Cover with foil, and put in the oven for two hours, or until the meat falls off the bone. Yum.


You can make some orzo now! (and by now, I mean while the meat cooks, not when it's all done like in the picture above)

Butternut Squash Orzo

1/2 lb butternut squash, seeded and peeled
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbs honey
2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1.5 cups orzo
1.5 cups brown chicken stock

Once again, I just roasted a whole squash and saved some. Did you know I love butternut squash? I may have mentioned it before.

1. Roast your squash. I chopped it into little squares, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and stuck it in the oven with the meat for about 45 minutes, or until it was tender.


2. Then I put as much squash as I thought the orzo could handle into the food processor along with honey and balsamic vinegar and some more salt and pepper. Yum! Ok, leave that alone for a while.

3. Here comes the annoying part. Bring some water to boil and add some salt. Use a big pot. You don't want to crowd the orzo. Cook the orzo for three minutes (you're "blanching" it, not cooking it. Whatever the hell that means). Strain it.

Ooh! You need to make an "ice bath." That means you get a big bowl of ice water that you could fit a strainer full of orzo in.

Okay, put the strainer in the ice water - this way the orzo will stop cooking and the orzo won't get lost in the ice water. This is confusing. It looks like this.


Now take it out of the water and spread it out on a baking sheet to dry.

3. Bring your chicken stock to boil in a saute pan. Add the squash puree and the orzo and cook until the orzo absorbs the stock.


Stir it a lot so that it doesn't stick. It'll take about 10 minutes or so.


It looks good, right? Serve it up to yourself and watch Funny Face. Meat, squash, Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire....ah, bliss.

Back to Squash

So, before all this election hooplah happened, I was really into butternut squash. Now that the election is over, I am returning, as promised, to the squash.

A little while ago, I needed a relaxing day. So, I decided to make butternut squash risotto with my friend Jaclyn. You've seen her before on this blog. You can read about it here. I realize that most people would not consider making risotto from scratch relaxing - I'm just a freak.

Butternut Squash Risotto, adapted from Ina Garten

1 smallish butternut squash
olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 cups chicken stock
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
a few strips of bacon, diced
2 large minced shallots
1 box Arborio rice (I think that's usually 17 oz)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan (at least)
fresh sage, a few leaves

1. Peel your butternut squash. I'm warning you now - it's kind of hard. I used a serrated vegetable peeler.


Then chop it into smallish pieces.


Trader Joe's sells peeled, cut butternut squash in packages. It's good, but not as good as my farm fresh squash. It's a lot easier though.

2. Preheat you oven to 400 degrees. Put your cut squash on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt, pepper and some olive oil. Toss them around to coat them. Roast for 25-30 minutes or until tender. While that happens, you can start the other part of your recipe.

3. Dice your shallots and bacon. Oh bacon. You are so delicious. I did not eat you for so long. What was I thinking? Crazy Jewish vegetarian parents, steering me in the wrong direction.


In a large pan, melt the butter over medium low heat. Saute your shallots and bacon until the shallots are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes. It's gonna smell really good.


4. Add the rice and stir so that it gets all coated in buttery goodness.


5. Oh yeah! You should have your chicken stock heated at this point - just simmer it over low heat while you cook. I forgot to tell you.

Add the wine to your rice. I don't measure. I just pour it in. Yum. Stir and cook it for a few more minutes.


6. It's a good thing you heated your chicken stock. We're going to start adding it to the rice, one ladle full at a time. Just pour a little bit in and stir until it's evaporated into the rice. By cooking it slowly this way, the rice is releasing starches that makes it amazing. Add a pinch of salt with the stock.


Once each ladle full (or large spoonful, whatever) is absorbed, add another ladle full of stock. See how the rice expands as you go on?


Keep adding until the stock is gone. The rice should be cooked, but have a bite to it. It'll take a while, maybe 20-30 minutes.

7. Check your squash! It looks yummy. I love the bright orange color.


Take the risotto off the heat and add the squash. I had some leftover squash that I got to keep and eat. It was so good. Add the cheese too and rip up some sage leaves and throw those in as well.


Mix it really well! See my awesome stirring action?


8. Serve it with a nice salad so that you can pretend that you're healthy.


Yay! It was really good. Since taking these pictures, I actually made it again and it was just as good. My friend Jaclyn really liked it too. Thanks for your help!

Finally, time for some squash

I found my camera cord! Thank goodness. I tried cleaning the house and when that didn't work, I just randomly started poking around in the few boxes that I have yet to unpack and lo and behold, there it was.

The next few posts will be about the glory that is the butternut squash. I'm totally enamored of it lately. I keep getting them in my CSA each week, and the more of them I get, the more I love them. Here's my first venture into butternut squash land - in true Lena fashion - pie.

I got this recipe from The Dinner Diaries: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World by Betsy Block. Zack made fun of me for reading a book about raising kids, but I prefer to think of it as a book about cooking healthy. There are recipes in it! And I'm trying to be healthy. Don't mock.

1 pie crust
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1 small butternut squash (about 2 pounds)
1/2 cup cream
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice (a personal note - I just shook in a bunch of "pumpkin pie spice." I figured that was the same.
1/8 tsp salt
3 large eggs, room temperature

I had pie dough leftover from my apple tart from Rosh Hashanah (yeah, this was a while ago). I guess technically it was tart dough, but whatever. It's what I had. You can read about it here.

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Halve your squash and scoop out the seeds and stringy bits. Line a baking pan with foil and put the squash in the pan, cut side up. Rub with oil and bake until it's soft, about an hour.


2. Prebake your pie crust - for about 5-8 minutes. You can do it while you bake your squash. I didn't weight mine down and it went all crazy. So, line your crust with foil and weight it down with dried beans or pie weights or something.

3. Turn your oven down to 375. Cool your squash a bit and scoop out the flesh into a food processor or blender or just a big bowl if you want. Add the cream (I accidentally added 3/4 of a cup instead of 1/2. It tasted good to me in the end, so yay!), sugar, spices and eggs. Pulse it in your food processor or just mash it a lot until it's all smooth.

4. Pour it into the pie shell (take out the foil/weights first) and bake until the filling is set, about 40-45 minutes. I made a few little squash custards too - I just poured some filling into little ramekins and baked them along side the pie.


Aren't they cute? Here's one up close.


The pie was good too. I served it with whipped cream and everybody liked it. It's kind of like pumpkin pie. Just tell people that it is if they don't like the sound of squash pie.