Since June, I have been referring to my garden as the "little squash of horrors." I planted 6 squash plants (4 butternut and 2 acorn), not expecting that they would all survive. The hubby has been even slicing and dicing the vines with the lawn tractor and the weed whacker. They survived and took over my backyard, defying all odds.
For the last two weeks, I had 4 butternut squash sitting on my kitchen counter that I had harvested from my garden. Suckers needed to be cooked before they went bad. In addition to this, my rutabagas were ready to be picked and my fridge is overflowing with tomatoes. I made a risotto with the last round that I harvested. What is a chick to do? Soup!
I searched the web, but couldn't find anything that knocked my hair back. So, I decided to free ball it. Broke out the dutch oven and the immersion blender. This is what I came up with:
3 lbs butternut squash, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 rutabaga, cut into into 1-inch cubes
Olive Oil
Pepper and salt
Garlic powder
2 carrots, roughly diced
3 celery stalks, roughly diced
1 large red onion, roughly diced
4 garlic cloves
2 lbs heirloom cherry tomatoes, whole
1 32 oz can/box chicken broth
2 bay leaves
2 tsp fresh sage
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. On a foil-lined cookie sheet, arrange the squash and rutabaga. Drizzle olive oil over the top, roughly 2 tablespoons, and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and salt. With your hands, mix the olive oil, pepper, and salt to evenly distribute. Bake for about 40 minutes or until cooked through.
While the butternut squash and rutabaga are roasting, in a large pot or dutch oven, heat a good glug of olive oil over medium heat. Saute the garlic and onion until soft, about 2-3 minutes. Add the carrots and celery, stirring frequently. Once the carrots and celery have softened, 8-10 minutes add the cherry tomatoes and season with freshly ground pepper. As the tomatoes cook, they will split. Keep moving the tomatoes around in the pot until all of the tomatoes have split open and incorporated with the other vegetables.
After the tomatoes are cooked down, add about half of the container of chicken broth and toss in the bay leaves, sage, and dust with a little garlic powder. Reduce the heat to low.
Once the squash and rutabaga are cooked through, stir them into the soup. Add about a 1/2 cup of broth. When the soup begins to boil, remove the bay leaves and turn off the heat.
With an immersion blender or in small batches with a blender, blend the soup until smooth and enjoy.
This recipe could easily be made vegetarian by substituting the chicken broth with vegetable stock. Other additions to soup could include ginger, red pepper, potatoes, sausage, chorizo, and etc...
Allo! This is my second attempt blogging. My first blog, Ghetto Truffle, was a rambling site of my musings, observations, and rants that I have not updated in 2 years or so. In a nutshell, it was a mess. This time around, I decided to focus on one thing instead of many. The "thing" of focus is baking, well, cooking in general. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen. It is my sanctuary, stress reliever, and center of creativity.
I enjoy making things from scratch and I am a cookbook whore. The most frequented sites on my PC are Martha Stewart, Epicurious, AllRecipes, Food Network, and Cookstr. My favorite chefs/cooks include Julia Child, Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver, Tyler Florence, and Paula Deen. I even maintain my own garden. However I'm not one of those folks that turn their noses at prepackaged food. Case in point, I took a cheese-making class earlier this year and the discussion turned to pizza. The instructor criticized those that didn't make all the ingredients for a pizza themselves. From start to finish, it takes her 3 hours to make a pizza. That's just nuts. I'm a working mom. I don't have 3 hours to make the sauce, mozzarella, dough, slaughter the pig for bacon, and etc... (mmm...bacon...) It takes less than 5 minutes to consume a slice of pizza. Three hours. Screw that. It's just easier to throw in a frozen pizza in the oven.
There is no fear in the kitchen. Any recipe will be tried. The hubby every once in a while will throw me for a loop and ask for something I have never attempted. Heck, why not? He's asked for bagels, tortillas, and etc... Variety is the spice of life and all types of cuisines are cooked from American to Mexican to Thai. I have had my mishaps in the kitchen, but those are few and far between.
All this time spent in the kitchen is also quality time spent with my daughter. She is my little sous chef. My little tot loves to stir, crack eggs, roll dough, and cut shapes with cookie cutters. The look in her eyes when the cookies are removed from the oven or when she hovers over the ice cream maker are simply priceless.
Hopefully, you will enjoy these kitchen musings of my culinary adventures.
