Butternut Squash Soup

In addition to cooking a lot more in the new year, we've also been reading more and more. A couple of weeks ago, on a flight to Maryland, we picked up Food & Wine, Gourmet, and Saveur (featuring the much-discussed Saveur 100).

Anyhow, in F&W, there was one article about locavores (folks who eat local food as exclusively as possible). I didn't know there was a name for that. Jenny and I pretty much always try to eat locally grown foods, and when that isn't possible we buy as much organic as possible (the one place we get tripped up is wine; Illinois wine is simply undrinkable). In the locavore article, there were a few recipes from a guy in Vermont, including one for butternut squash soup that sounded simple and delicious. And, really, it's just about the simplest soup I've made in a long time.

Just onions sautéed until soft and brown, then cubed squash simmered in stock for about 40 minutes (until soft). Then you blend the soup, whisk in a little heavy cream, and that's it. I sprinkled a little salt and freshly cracked pepper over top just before we served it.

The original recipe called for smoked cheddar and cooked apples over the soup, but we sliced them up on the side instead. I liked the snap of the fresh apple, and the soup had enough flavor that it didn't really need the added ingredients.

For dessert, we had a bread & chocolate 3400 Phinney bar from Theo Chocolate (a States-based organic and fair trade chocolate company). It had a wonderful blend of saltiness and creaminess and would nicely balance out the rosa pfeffer bar we ate last month.

Spicy Udon Noodles with Tofu

It started getting a little cold in Chicago this weekend, so we decided to make a batch of spicy Asian noodles to get us through the weekend. We made a fairly basic udon noodle dish out of Cooking Light with some tofu, snow peas, and mushrooms.

In general, I thought the recipe came out pretty well, but there were a few things that I would do differently next time (and there will be a next time; we love our udon around here). The recipe called for me to add chili pepper, garlic, and ginger at the same time that I added the broth. Instead, I'll probably sauté them for a little while first, so they release their oils and flavors and make a richer broth. I think we'll also make a little less broth (we used 3 cups, but 2 would have done it for the full recipe).

Overall the dish was very tasty. And we used the extra spot on our bowls to keep a blob of chili paste handy to spice up our noodles.

Avgolemono & Greek Salad

After receiving the America's Test Kitchen big book of chicken and poultry recipes, I was looking forward to making a true chicken stock from scratch, something I've never tried before. When Jennifer requested her favorite soup, avgolemono, I thought that would be a perfect place to start for a rainy, windy winter's day. I decided to pair it with a simple Greek salad, once again dipping into Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

First, the avgolemono. Made of about 4 pounds of whole legs, one diced onion, two bay leaves, and 12 cups of water, the stock simmered uncovered for three hours. I only poked at it every once in a while to skim off the foam and fat that settled on top.

According to America's Test Kitchen, you can simmer up to five hours to get a fuller chicken flavor, but we were getting hungry. So, I strained the solids and discarded them (the chicken at this point had really good texture but hardly any taste; we might have been able to save it by turning it into chicken salad, but neither one of us thought it would be worth it). Then I added a cup of arborio rice, which simmered for about 20 minutes while I prepped the rest of the ingredients: 1 cup of fresh lemon juice, 1/4 cup chopped parsley, and four eggs whisked together. When the rice was tender and plump, I whisked the juice/parsley/egg combo into the soup. I whisked as quickly as I could to keep the eggs from cooking into egg-drop strands. There were still some slight bits of white, but overall the soup was thick and creamy.

The salad was really basic, and I stuck to Bittman's recipe word for word, mostly to see how it would come out. He uses all the usual suspects (lettuce, olives, feta, mint) and one unexpected (radish). A little olive oil and fresh lemon juice on top finished it off.

Black Bean Soup

Here in Chicago, the weather feels more like autumn than winter, but we've been craving winter foods just the same. Taking my cue from a recently acquired Williams-Sonoma cookbook, I made a fragrant, simple black bean soup for dinner tonight.

After soaking about two cups of black beans overnight, I made the dish on the stovetop. I chopped the vegetables (two onions, one red bell pepper, one seeded jalapeno, two cloves of garlic) in the food processor, then sauteed them in a stock pot with some cumin and oregano. I used just a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

Once the veggies were soft and the spices fragrant, I added the beans, one hamhock, and enough water to cover everything. The soup simmered on the stovetop for about two hours, until the beans were cooked through. I drained out some of the water and reserved it, then started processing the soup until it had the desired texture. I was going for a thick base, with a few whole black beans mixed in.

We then topped the whole thing off with a wonderful salsa crema - a fresh tomato salsa mixed with sour cream and lime juice. A little dollop of the crema with a sprig of fresh cilantro rounded out the meal very nicely.

The soup turned out well, although next time I would skip the hamhock in favor of two or three slices of well-chosen bacon. I think this dish could easily be adapted to the crock pot - just saute your vegetables first. In fact, I would guess that the soup would benefit from the longer cooking time of the crock pot. The flavor certainly matured by the time we reheated the soup for lunch the next day.