Spicy Acorn Squash Soup

I swear this is not baby food.  This was supposed to be pumpkin soup.  But apparently, I don't know my squashes, and bought an acorn squash by mistake.  Don't make this with acorn squash.  Not just because it will make it this funky color, but because acorn squash, with its ridges, is a pain to peel.

I should have stopped after I first attempted to peel the squash with the vegetable peeler.  Or even after I broke out the very sharp paring knife to carve the skin out of the ridges.  But instead twenty-five minutes and two band-aids later, I had a peeled acorn squash, which I cut up into chunks and dropped into the slow cooker.

The flavor of this is soup is actually not bad.  I added extra spice and used fresh grated ginger to make it extra spicy.  The dollop of sour cream at the end was cooling and creamy.  I would make this again, except with a nice, smooth, ridgeless pumpkin.  And save the acorn squash for roasting and eating with butter and brown sugar.

Spicy Acorn Squash Soup
Adapted from Best Ever Recipes for Your Slow Cooker

1 acorn squash, peeled and cut into chunks (but really, you shouldn't make this with an acorn squash, unless you want to risk the bloody fingers)
1 leek, cut into chunks
2 cloves garlic, crushed through a garlic press
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp fresh grated ginger, and 1 tsp ground ginger
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 Tbs olive oil
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of nutmeg
1 tsp chili powder
2 teaspoons brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream as garnish

Place squash chunks into stoneware insert of the slow cooker. Over the stovetop, heat oil in a large pan.  Add leeks and garlic and cook until they start soften, about two minutes or so.  Then add fresh grated ginger and cumin and cook for another minute or so.  Transfer to stoneware and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. Add chicken broth.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or until the squash is soft and tender.

Ladle soup in batches to blender and puree until smooth.  (Or if you have an immersion blender, good for you!) Transfer soup back to the stoneware.  This is where I tasted and found the soup kind of bland, so I added ground ginger, chili powder, more cumin, and more cayenne pepper.  You could probably do this before cooking the squash.  I don't think it makes a difference. Cook on high for 1 hour.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with sour cream.

Loli's Gazpacho

This summer has presented many opportunities to make a cold soup.

The first time I had gazpacho andaluz was when I was studying abroad in Seville, Spain, when temperatures would easily reach over 100 in the summer. My host mother, or my "senora," Loli once said that her past American boarders either go crazy for her gazpacho or they hate it. This was probably because there was so much raw garlic in it, that it had a kick to it after eating it. To me, it was delicious, even though I would be tasting the garlic for days in a way that no amount of teethbrushing or mouthwash gargling could extinguish. But as a garlic-lover, it was worth it, and I couldn't wait for Loli to make more.

I made this soup yesterday with my boyfriend, using his fancy $40.00 blender. I made a mistake when I was taste-testing the soup, that I only skimmed a spoonful off the top. So when I tasted it, I didn't get the same garlic "kick" that I had at Loli's house and kept adding more garlic. So I put seven (yes, seven!) cloves of garlic in it. It turns out that the garlic sunk to the bottom of the blender; the soup was plenty potent.

So today I made it again (the soup is that good), using my $13.99 blender from Target. I learned that the difference in price of the blenders DOES make a difference. I had to cut the vegetables into much smaller pieces and I still ended up with small chunks at the bottom. I also dialed back the garlic, to provide just enough garlic "kick."

Loli's Gazpacho (gazpacho andaluz)

1.5 lbs tomatoes
1 green pepper
1/4 c olive oil
3/4 c water
2 cloves garlic
salt to taste

Roughly chop the vegetables and drop into the blender in batches with water and oil. Puree until smooth. Add salt to taste. Chill for at least 30 minutes in the fridge or if you are short on time, add a few ice cubes. Garnish with parmesan cheese. Serves 4-6.

Easy Mexican-inspired Breakfast

I wasn't sure what to call this dish. It was inspired by this post from Not Eating Out in New York, after I had thrown a small party several months ago and had leftover tortilla chips. And since Cathy called them Chilaquiles, I figured then that's what I would call them. But this morning, I did a thorough study on Wikipedia, and found that chilaquiles are frequently confused for Tex-Mex migas. After after reading this recipe on chilaquiles, and this one on migas, I concluded that my version is most like chilaquiles, which what I will call them. But really what I have is nachos with eggs. But they're tasty. And an easy, unfussy breakfast to make when you haven't your morning coffee yet.

Chilaquiles (or nachos with eggs, if you are a purist)

Ingredients
One handful of broken tortilla chips
1 egg
Black beans
Salsa
Shredded cheddar cheese
Sour cream
Fresh herbs for garnish, such as parsley, cilantro, green onions or chives

Other recommended garnishes (not pictured here)
Guacamole
Chopped onions
Corn
A few drops of hot sauce

Method
Pre-heat oven at 375 degrees. Sprinkle a layer of chips in a small baking dish. Cook the egg, how ever you like to make them. I made scrambled, but you could make a fried egg over easy, medium, or hard, or even a poached egg would work. Lay the egg on top of the chips. Sprinkle salsa, black beans, and top with cheddar cheese. Bake in the oven for about 6-8 minutes, until the cheese is melted. Carefully remove the dish out of the oven and garnish with fresh herbs (I used parsley), a dollop of sour cream, and any other garnishes you like. Makes one serving.

Clean Out the Fridge/ Snowstorm Soup

Last night, a snowstorm hit the East Coast, keeping many Greater New York area residents indoors. As such, I felt that this soup was appropriate as it uses ingredients I had in my fridge/pantry. Even though technically, I made this soup before the snowstorm. Hours before I left my apartment to go home for the holidays, I found myself with nearly three pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes, about half a bunch each of carrots and celery. The potatoes were already growing eyes, and the carrots and celery were from when I made this soup. So I was worried these otherwise sturdy vegetables would not make it over the long weekend. So what do with vegetables before they go bad? Make soup!

I found my inspiration from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, an early Christmas gift, using the recipe for Simple Potato and Carrot Soup and the springboard for this soup. When the soup was done, I poured some into jars to bring home to share with my parents, and left some behind in the fridge. After driving in the aftermath of the snowstorm back to my apartment today, I was glad to have this soup waiting for me at home to simply re-heat and eat.

Clean Out the Fridge/ Snowstorm Soup

Adapted from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything

Ingredients
(I am leaving out the quantities, because really they are quite fluid and depend on what you have in the fridge)
Potatoes
Carrots
Celery
Onion
Pat of butter
Olive oil
Chicken broth
Water
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried herbs (I used basil, oregano, and thyme)

Method:
Chop up all the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Heat butter and olive oil in a large stockpot. When the butter melts and gets foamy add vegetables. Cook vegetables until the onion becomes translucent (About 5-7 minutes), stirring occasionally so that the vegetables do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the vegetables. Add chicken broth (If you don't have enough broth to cover the veggies like I did, then add some water). Bring to a boil, and then let simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Add dried herbs and season with salt and pepper to taste.

White Beans and Vegetable Soup

My first job out of law school was at a civil litigation firm in the Ironbound district of Newark. Now, the Ironbound has a myriad of places for lunch, but one of my favorites was soup from Spain Restaurant. The restaurant has a different soup, for each day of the week. My personal favorite was on Fridays, when they would serve white bean and vegetable soup. I have moved on to a different law firm, but I will always remember this soup.

I found this soup to be very similar to the “Greens and Beans” soup in Rachael Ray’s 30-Minute Meals, but Spain put in more vegetables, so I added carrots, onions, and celery. I also added some chicken to make it a heartier meal.

White Bean and Vegetable Soup
Adapted from Rachael Ray, 30 Minute Meals

Ingredients:
2 carrots, chopped
1-2 stalks celery, chopped
½ yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces (optional)
5 cups of low-sodium chicken broth (can substitute vegetable broth)
1 can (15 oz.) cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
1 head escarole, roughly chopped
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
nutmeg

Method:
Heat a couple tablespoons oil in a large stockpot. Saute chicken until lightly brown on all sides.* Remove and set aside. Add carrots, celery, and onion and sauté for about 5-7 minutes, until the onions are translucent. (You may need to add more oil to prevent burning). Push the vegetables to the sides of the pot, creating a space at the center of the pot. Drizzle about a teaspoon of oil into the center and add garlic to that space. Cook for about thirty seconds before stirring it into the rest of the vegetables.** Add escarole with salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg. Cook until the escarole wilts. Add beans and broth. Bring to a boil, and then simmer for about 15 minutes. When there is about 2 minutes left in the cooking time, add chicken. Serves 4-6.

* If making a vegetarian version, skip this step.
** I learned this trick from Cook’s Illustrated – it helps to prevent burnt garlic.

Homemade Pizza

I just ate a lot of pizza.

But at least it was homemade, so that make it okay right?

It all started with a cucumber. Yes, believe it or not, this story can be traced back to a cucumber. Much of my cooking is a vicious cycle of trying to use up ingredients. I end up with leftovers of one perishable ingredient, usually a vegetable. So then I buy other ingredients from the grocery store in order to go with said leftover ingredient, only to end up with leftovers of the newly purchased ingredients. And so the cycle continues.

Anyway, so I had a leftover cucumber that never quite made it to a salad. And since I was tired of lettuce, I bought a tomato and block of feta cheese, and made a nice Greek-style salad.

But then I had half a block of feta cheese left.

So then I had this idea of making Greek pizza. When I lived in Philadelphia, there was a pizzeria, that had two versions of “Greek” pizza, known as “Greek I” and “Greek II.” My preference was Greek II, but apparently my memory led me astray, and I ended up making something more akin to “Greek I” (Basically the same ingredients – feta cheese, kalamata olives, mozzarella, only the Greek I has fresh tomatoes, no sauce, while the Greek II, has tomato sauce). What you see pictured above is how it looked before it went into the oven.

But instead of using store-bought pizza dough, I wanted to experiment with making my own dough. I had read in a number of food blogs on how to make homemade pizza dough, all of them proclaiming it to be just so easy, I wanted to give it a try. And I had never worked with yeast before, so I thought making pizza dough would be a good start.

It all seemed like a good idea in theory. Never mind that I don’t own a stand mixer, a pizza peel, or a pizza stone.

So last night, I tried my first hand of making pizza dough using this method. I don’t know where exactly I went wrong, but the yeast simply did not rise. Or maybe I was just too impatient. But it just didn’t work for me.

But I would not be discouraged. I was determined to use up that block of feta!

So today, I tried this method, only I divided the recipe in half and had to mix and knead the dough by hand.

Even though I used the more, shall I say, old-fashioned way, I could tell this method was working much better. The dough was stretchy and bounced in my hands as I kneaded it. And when I set it in a slightly warmed oven to rise, it actually rose and doubled in size!


This is what it looked like after three hours.

I ended up making two smaller pizzas, since I wanted to them to be more personal sized. In the name of variety, I made one Greek, and one plain pizza. I also raised the temperature of my oven to 475 degrees, in the hope this would give me a nice golden brown crust.

So I put the Greek pizza in the oven first. (My oven is small, I can only fit one cookie sheet at a time). After ten minutes, I checked on it, but the crust wasn’t quite golden brown as I had hoped, so I let it stay in for another three minutes.

Looks pretty right? But those extra three minutes in the oven were actually, its downfall. The crust was hard and cracker-like. But the toppings were tasty, so I ate it all. (Except for the crust – it was much too hard!)

So then I put the plain pizza in, and baked it for exactly ten minutes.

Perhaps it was the ten minutes, perhaps it was because it was the second pizza so the dough had more time to rest, but this pizza was perfect. Chewy and soft on the inside, with just enough crunch. I was quite pleased with this pizza. So I ate all of it.

At least there are no leftovers use up!

Spicy Tomato Soup

I could tell you a story about how this meal brought back cherished childhood memories of coming home from a blustery winter day from school, and how this soup would be waiting for me to warm me up.

But that never happened.

Growing up in an Asian household, tomato soup was never really in my repertoire. My mom's idea of making soup usually involved boiling unidentified meat bones and adding chinese radishes, cabbage and/or scallions into the broth. My only childhood encounters with tomato soup would be Campbell's from a can, which always tasted like tomato juice warmed over to me. And after this disappointment, I was hesitant to make tomato soup again.

But then I read this post on Cathy Erway's Not Eating Out in New York and I felt inspired again. I used the same basic method with some deviations. But am I glad I didn't give up on making tomato soup. This soup is awesome - spicy, tangy, and perfect for winter.

Spicy Tomato Soup
Adaped from Not Eating Out in New York

Ingredients:
2 carrots, diced (if you buy the bunched carrots, like I did, chop up some of the tops too!)
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
About 1 cup canned diced tomatoes
About 2 cups chicken broth
1 small can (8 oz) plain tomato sauce (I used Hunt's)
1 crushed dried chile pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
10-15 fresh basil leaves, torn
Olive oil

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil with a crushed dried chile pepper to infuse the oil in a large pot. Saute carrots, celery, and onion, for about five minutes. Add garlic and chopped carrot tops (adding the garlic later prevents burning), and cook for another 2-3 minutes or until all the vegetables are lightly browned. Remove heat. Stir in diced tomatoes and chicken broth.

Transfer the mixture into a blender, and pulse until desired consistency. If it doesn't look thin enough, add more broth or water. Transfer back to the pot and simmer on low heat. At this point, I tasted it and felt the soup wasn't tomato-y enough so I stirred in a can of tomato sauce. But I see no problem in added the sauce before blending it. Add cayenne pepper and adjust seasonings to taste. Allow the soup to simmer on low heat for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in basil leaves. Garnish with olive oil and a sprig of carrot leaves, if desired.

For the ultimate comfort food meal, serve with a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.

Zesty Tomato Orzo

This dish has an identity crisis. It can't decide whether it is a pasta dish, soup, or a stew. I came home from work today, craving soup, now that the weather is getting cold. I originally planned on making a chicken and orzo soup, to use up the carton of chicken broth and aromatics I had left over from Thanksgiving. But then a recipe for "Roasted Tomato-Garlic Soup" on the back of the box of orzo caught my eye. It seemed simple enough, combine tomato sauce, chicken broth and fresh herbs in a pot, bring to a boil, and 1/2 cup of orzo, and cook until the orzo is tender. It also provided a simple recipe for homemade pesto sauce, to garnish at the end.

But of course, I am not one to follow directions.

To start, I wanted to use the celery, onion, and carrot that were taking up space in my vegetable crisper. So I chopped them up and sauteed the vegetables and two minced cloves of garlic in olive oil. I had infused the olive oil with some red pepper flakes to give the soup some spiciness. This is a method that I use for making almost all my soups. I then added two cups of tomato sauce, and about two cups of chicken broth and brought the mixture to a boil. So far so good. I haven't diverged from the recipe too far yet.

Then it came time to add the orzo. I first stirred 1/2 cup of orzo as the recipe called for. But then that didn't seem like enough pasta, so I added another half cup. Then I didn't stir the bottom of the pot very well while the orzo was cooking, so much of it stuck to the bottom and burned. About seven minutes later, I stirred in chopped fresh thyme, oregano, and sage. I ended up with the thick, not very soupy mixture, very much like you see above. I spooned some into a bowl, and added a dollop of pesto that I already made weeks ago, and kept frozen in the freezer. That's what that greenish blob is on top.

All things considered, it didn't come out bad, in fact it was suprisingly tasty. But it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. The next time I attempt this, I will stick to the 1/2 cup of orzo, which seems to be my downfall in this recipe since the orzo absorbed most of the liquid. And use more cooking liquid so it will be more soup like. The way it is now would probably make a good side dish, and its vegetarian adaptable if you substitute to the chicken broth with vegetable broth.

Zesty Tomato Orzo

1 small onion, chopped
3 carrots, sliced into coins
4 stalks of celery. chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbs olive oil
pinch of red pepper flakes
2 cups prepared tomato sauce
1 cup orzo
1 teaspoon fresh herbs
1 teaspoon oregano
1 stem of sage*
1 Tbs prepared pesto sauce

Heat olive oil over medium-high heat with a sprinkling of red pepper flakes. Add onions, carrots, and celery and cook until the onion becomes translucent. (Probably about five minutes). Stir in garlic and cook for another minute or so. (Adding the garlic later prevents it from burning). Stir in sauce and chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Stir in orzo and cook according to package directions. Be sure to stir frequently and scrape the bottom of the pot, or it will stick. When there are about two minutes left in the cooking time, stir in chopped fresh herbs. Garnish with a dollop of pesto sauce and grated parmesan cheese.

*Another thing I learned about sage. While it is delicious in turkey, it is a very strong flavored-herb. Chopping it up and stirring into soup, results in biting down on a very overpowering herb flavor. Next time, I would leave the stem whole while cooking, and remove at the end, like a bay leaf. Or just leave it out.