OMGSNAX!

i ♥ squash. srsly. my mom always tells me that, as a baby, my nose was a subtle hue of orange b/c of all the squash i ate. & then, for years? nothing. wouldn’t touch the stuff. stopped eating meat. still turned up my nose at squash recipes. & then i’m not exactly sure how this happened, but i accidentally tried some butternut squash ravioli. my mom probably brought it home from Big Sky Cafe & i, being moochy, snagged them & LOVED THEM. (& i’ll go ahead & plug putney pasta’s butternut squash & maple syrup ravioli, too, which i once ate for a record five meals in three days. don’t even.) so what i’m saying is, squash soup? MAIS OUI.

i guess i was talking to my grandma one day about how much i love squash, squashy squash squash, & she busted out this recipe she’d seen in Cooking Light for butternut squash soup & i took it & carried it with me for three months — THREE DAMN MONTHS in the front zippered pocket of my messenger bag — until wednesday night, when brian & i went to the grocery store & i bought everything i needed to finally bring the recipe to fruition. including an extra squash, b/c the one i’d been eyeing longingly on my counter since october (when i first thought i was gonna do this thing, HA) wasn’t big enough.

& so here it is — squash soup:

INGREDIENTS
8 cups 1-inch cubed peeled butternut squash (about 2 1/4 lbs)
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
cooking spray
4 cups warm 2% milk, divided
1 14-oz can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth, divided
1/4 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

METHOD
preheat oven to 400. combine squash, oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, & 1/4 teaspoon pepper on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray. bake at 400 for 45 minutes or until tender. place half of squash, half of milk, & half of broth in a blender; process until smooth. pour puréed mixture into a large saucepan. repeat procedure with remaining squash, milk, & broth. cook over medium heat 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated (do not bring to a boil). stir in remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt & remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper. ladle 1 cup soup into each of 8 bowls, sprinkle each serving with 1 1/2 teaspoons nuts.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
let me tell you something: i hate Cooking Light. with the fire of a thousand suns, i hate it. i always forget that i hate Cooking Light, but i do. 2% milk? bitch, please.

quibbling about the fat content of ingredients aside, though, this looked like a pretty damn easy recipe. cook squash, add milk & stock, blend. right? well, not quite.

i mean, the A#1 problem here was how, exactly, to cube the squash. b/c i don’t know if you’ve heard, but butternut squash? kind of a pain in the ass to cut. usually when caroline & i make our squash/sweet potato/bell pepper medley (which, i know, is SO WEIRD that those are the theme ingredients of my first three OMGSNAX posts, & i’m not even being coy, it’s really freakin weird), i make caroline cut the squash b/c i don’t want to lose a finger. (is that mean? that i’m ok with the one of us who’s a guitar player possibly losing a finger? or does that just show that i have more confidence in her knife-wielding abilities than i do my own? let’s go with option B, shall we?) so i googled “tips on peeling butternut squash” (i’m nothing if not resourceful!) & i came up with this site, which said, basically, that you can cook a whole squash in the oven if you poke a few holes in it to vent, i guess.

(& YES, before you even get on my case, i verified that this was an ok method by checking out a few of the other sites returned in the google search, so SHUT UP.)

portrait of the squash as a young man
the one on the right is definitely butternut; the other? not so sure

so i thought, ok, & i stabbed a few holes in my two squashes & stuck them in a 350 oven for 45 minutes. after looking at all the squash photos on the aforementioned site, i felt a little alarmed that one of my squashes looked more like a banana squash than a butternut squash, but SURELY the grocery store wouldn’t mislabel, right?

the thing is that i got the squashes out of the oven & seeded the one that was DEFINITELY a butternut squash & then peeled it by cutting it into manageable slices & using a paring knife to remove the skin, & then the other squash? i cut it in half & it smelled really weird. now, maybe this was b/c it was a banana squash, or maybe this was b/c i had the squash almost as long as i had the recipe, & as i said, i got the recipe from my grandma in october. OC. TOBER.

halved butternut squash

so i thought, the hell with it, & i threw the weird-smelling one out & decided to halve the recipe. i certainly didn’t need any kind of 8 servings, anyway, what with the fact that it was just me eating & all (daniel hates squash & caroline was on a date), so i wasn’t too perturbed.

i will say that seeding, peeling, & cutting the squash took a pretty long ass time. maybe close to half an hour. & i burned myself a little, but i guess that’s sort of par for the course.

pan-roasting squash

i decided that maybe the squash was a little underdone as it was baked whole, so i tossed the cubed pieces with the olive oil & stuck them back in the oven for maybe 10 minutes while i measured out the milk & the stock. of course i substituted whole milk for 2% (& actually finished up the last 1/2 cup of the half & half from last week’s recipe), &, duh, as a vegetarian, i used organic vegetable stock (from a carton, not homemade as i sometimes do) instead of chicken stock, but it’s basically the same recipe.

my favorite kitchen appliance

i pretty much followed the directions from there on out — combined, blended, heated — & i did actually garnish with toasted walnuts, & you know what? apparently i hate walnuts. like almost to the point of gagging. who knew?

soup & walnut garnish

so, you know. there you have it. love squash, love things made with squash, dug the squash soup ok, hated the walnuts. the soup clearly needed to be made with half & half b/c it was a little thin with the milk (even whole milk, omg!), & i don’t know, i puréed the damn thing but it was still a little grainy. or gritty. not quite the right texture. & the texture of squash is one of the things i love best, so that was a bummer. i mean, the taste of the soup was good — it had the right amount of salt & you could definitely taste the sweetness of the squash (i mean, hell, what was gonna overpower it?), but the texture? MEH.

the aftermath

 

 

“Butternut Squash Soup with Toasted Walnuts” from Cooking Light (October 2005) c/o my grandma

ever since i made Moosewood’s totally sick Sweet Pepper Soup (sour cream? dill? what were they thinking??), i’ve been questing for a good bell pepper soup recipe that matches the taste i have in my mind — sweet, yes, & creamy, too, but also spicy. i browsed epicurious & allrecipes at work & finally came up with something that seemed promising, so i gave it a try today:

INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 pounds red bell peppers
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped shallots
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
3 cups (or more) vegetable broth
1/2 cup half & half
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoons cayenne pepper
sliced fresh basil
salt & ground black pepper to taste

METHOD
char peppers over gas flame or in broiler until blackened on all sides. enclose in paper bag & let stand 10 minutes. peel, seed, & slice peppers. heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. add shallots, garlic, & thyme & sauté 3 minutes. add 3 cups broth & all but 4 slices of roasted pepper. simmer uncovered until peppers are very soft (about 20 minutes). working in batches, purée soup in blender until smooth. return to same pot. add half & half, vinegar, & cayenne pepper. rewarm soup, thinning with additional broth if desired. season to taste with salt & pepper. ladle soup into bowls. garnish with reserved pepper strips & basil.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
ok, (a)? i have an electric oven. so i almost skipped this whole “charring peppers” thing till i decided to google roasting peppers in an electric oven & realized that it wasn’t anything special. i basically washed the peppers, drizzled them with olive oil, & stuck them in a 9×13 baking pan on the top rack of the oven (set at broil so that the top coil would come on) for 20 minutes, turning them once.

peppers broiling

semi-charred pepper

they charred just fine, for the most part, although the oil spattered & i probably would’ve set off my smoke detector if it actually worked, which i’m kind of thinking it doesn’t. anyway, after 20 minutes of broiling, i dropped the peppers in a paper grocery bag & folded it over & let it stand the recommended 10 minutes, i guess so that the peppers could steam or something. it was pretty effective.

while the peppers were in the oven, i chopped the shallots.

shallots

having never seen shallots before, this was quite an adventure. basically, they look like giant cloves of garlic but smell (& act) like onions. not sure what the taste difference is, but they were definitely strong enough to make me cry. (which, ps, i learned by watching “unwrapped” on the food network a few months ago is due to inhaling the fumes & NOT from it actually bothering your eyes.)

peeling the peppers was kind of tricky at first, but i think that if the peppers had been charred more evenly, it would’ve been easier. i did burn my fingers innumerable times, but i guess that’s just one of the hazards of the job, right?

peeling the peppers; real steam!

sliced roasted peppers

soups are usually pretty easy for me (apart from the disgusting Moosewood bell pepper soup of doom) & this one was no exception. i doubt i’ll make it again — it’s not BAD but it really didn’t have the kick to it that i was hoping for (i’m thinking that i need to find a recipe that has tomatoes in it, too) — but i WILL use my newfound pepper-roasting technique for other purposes. way easier than i’d initially thought it’d be.

the finished soup — i didn’t bother with garnish since it’s just me

due to bad timing, i ended up eating by myself, which is always depressing, but since i wasn’t totally wowed by the soup, i guess that was probably for the best. ok, till next time, hearts & flowers & rainbows & unicorns!

 

 

“Cream of Red Bell Pepper Soup” from Bon Appétit (May 1999) off www.epicurious.com