Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

We spent Thanksgiving with J's family.  Instead of coming back home with Thanksgiving leftovers, we came home with a fresh butternut squash from J's mom's garden. Which, in my opinion, is something to be thankful for.

After my acorn squash fiasco, I had no interest in peeling a butternut squash.  Unfortunately most of the recipes I found called for peeling and cubing the squash, so I had to use the roasting method from this recipe, but followed the rest of the basic method from this recipe.  And then I added spices to meet my fancy. 

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

1 butternut squash

1 carrot (or about 4-5 baby carrots), chopped

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

1/2 yellow bell pepper, chopped (I added this on a whim because I didn't have celery)

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2  Tbs and 1/4 tsp olive oil, divided

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

Spices (adjust according to taste):

2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp all spice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp brown sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Prick butternut squash with a fork all over.  (Using a sharp knife would probably be easier, but stabbing a squash with a fork is so much more fun). Roast in the oven for about 1 hour. Allow to cool.  When cool enough to touch, cut in half lengthwise, and scoop out seeds and fibers.  Scoop out the pulp into a bowl and set aside. 

Heat 2 Tbs olive oil in a large pot.  Cook carrots, onion, and bell pepper for about 8-10 minutes, or until the onions are soft and translucent. Push vegetables to the sides of the pot. Add garlic and and remaining 1/4 tsp of olive oil. Saute for about 30 seconds and then incorporate with the rest of the vegetables. Add chicken broth and squash pulp.  Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add spices according to taste. (I added about 1/2 tsp of each until it met my liking). 

Allow to cool a bit and then puree in batches in the blender. (Or use an immersion blender.) Taste and adjust seasonings again. 

Spicy black bean and orzo soup

Unlike last year, I will not be hosting Thanksgiving dinner. And while it was fun, I am more than happy to return the torch back to my sister this year. But as is what happens before any long weekend in which I am going to be away, I am on a mission to finish any perishables in my fridge. Which usually involves a little creativity and making use of some staples from the pantry, since I hate to buy more groceries just before a long weekend. So what does one do with a handful of baby carrots, a few stalks of limp celery and an onion? Make soup, of course!

Since I wanted to do something different than the classic chicken noodle soup (and since I hadn't had the foresight to defrost any chicken), I decided to add a can of black beans. When I tasted the soup, I felt it needed something more to jazz it up - so I added some cumin to bring out the smokiness of the beans, and a few dashes of chipotle tabasco sauce. I'm quite pleased with the end result, and even more pleased I didn't need to make a trip to the grocery store to buy any of the ingredients!

Spicy black bean and orzo soup

Ingredients:

About 1 cup baby carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
A couple tablespoons of olive oil
1 quart low-sodium chicken broth
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1/2 tsp dried basil, crushed
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper (to taste)
a few dashes of chipotle tabasco sauce
2/3 cup orzo

Method:
Start boiling the pasta water with a generous pinch of salt. Add orzo when it comes to a boil. Cook for about a minute or two less than the time indicated on the instructions. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, chop the vegetables. Add oil to another pot and heat on medium-high heat. Add vegetables, stirring frequently for about 7 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. Add chicken broth, beans, bay leaf and spices and tabasco. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Allow it to simmer, covered, for about twenty minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings to taste.

I like to keep the orzo separate from the soup, until just before serving, since I am one person, and can't eat it all right away. My concern is that if there are leftovers the pasta will absorb all the liquid and get mushy. But go ahead and toss it in if you plan on eating it all right away.

Thanksgiving Recap

So this is my first turkey! I have to give special thanks to my sister, who is the turkey expert in my family. In fact, she came over the night before Thanksgiving to prep and supervise the turkey cooking process. Thanks, sis!

I am quite proud of my turkey, even if it came out a bit salty. Lesson learned: Read the label more carefully in the future. It turns out I purchased a turkey that was a "basting" turkey, meaning it already had brine in it. And since we had already made the brine, we decided to brine it anyway.

Brining, in a nutshell, is essentially marinating your bird in a salt solution and seasonings, and any other flavor you want to add (we used apple cider). I had the Food Network on on T-Day while I was preparing other food, and nearly every chef sang the praises of brining.

We brined the turkey overnight in a large dishpan in my refrigerator, breast-side down. In the morning, I flipped it over, for even brining. Then around 2 pm, I prepped the turkey for baking. This entails three tasks: (1) spreading herb butter under the skin of the turkey (yes, under the skin - it fees a bit slimy, but a necessary step for crispy skin) (2) sprinkling seasoned salt over the outside of the bird and inside the cavity, and (3) dressing the turkey with the aromatics that we prepared the night before and stored in this ziploc bag:

In here, we have celery, lemon, fresh parsley, fresh poultry herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage), onion, and several cloves of garlic. Now, "dressing" is really a delicate way of shoving vegetables into both cavities of the bird. (yes, "cavities" - you can probably figure out what I mean by that). This is what the bird looked like before it went in the oven.

I then made a turkey breast "shield" out of aluminum foil, by pressing a double layer of foil over the breast. This is to keep the breast moist during cooking. It gets placed on the bird after it has a chance to brown, 30 minutes into cooking time. We make the shield now, though, while the turkey is still cold. I poured a can of chicken broth into the bottom of the pan, to keep the drippings from burning. I then stuck in the probe thermometer in the breast, and then into the oven it went! To get a nice golden brown skin, the turkey roasted at 450 degrees for the first thirty minutes. Then I dropped the temperature to 300, and placed the breast "shield' and just let the turkey slow cook until the alarm on the thermometer went off when the inside of the breast reached 161 degrees! (This took about four hours).

This is what the turkey looked like, straight from the oven.

Here is the method in a nutshell, courtesy of my sister:

The night before, brine the bird overnight

season the bird w/ salt/pepper/herbs on all surfaces, in and out

spread herb butter under the skinfill the cavity w/ aromatics (onion, celery, garlic, lemon, herbs)stick probe thermometer in breast

Add a can of broth to the pan - may help it smoke less during the initial roastroast at 450-500 for 30 min to brown it (open windows and blow out any smoke)

put foil over the breast onlyroast at 300 for the remainder of the time until temp reaches 161

pull out, set aside to rest for 15-20 minutes minimum (carry over will bring temp to 165)

Make gravy while bird is resting

For a 13 lb bird, you'll need roughly 3 -3.5 hrs of roasting time, so if dinner is at 7, you'll want the bird in the oven around 2:30-3pm

My First Turkey

Food Judicata is back just in time for Thanksgiving! Changes are coming to the website, mainly the layout and design. I decided to go with seasonal colors and tweaked the layout to make it more palatable.

In other news, this year, I will be hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner with my family. My sister and I have agreed that she will be preparing side dishes, but I will be in charge of the turkey! (with her guidance, of course). Behold, my very first turkey that I just purchased from the supermarket. At 13 lbs, it was the smallest Shady Brook Farms turkey that I could find. I chose this turkey because (1) it was on sale at 47 cents per pound and (2) after a frantic cell phone call to my sister, I learned that Butterball pre-brines their turkeys, which I had no idea.

So into the freezer the bird goes, where it will live until next Saturday, when it will be moved to the fridge to start thawing. (Another little surprise that I had learned from my sister - frozen turkeys need to start thawing five days in advance!)