Summer squash is every where this time of year. While it’s an easy addition to any meal, I’m always looking for new ways to serve it to avoid everyone groaning at the answer of “squash, that’s what’s for dinner”. Inspired in equal parts by a summer squash recipe someone gave me years ago cut out of a magazine as well as one of my favorite lentil soup recipes, I whipped this up for dinner the other night. It turned out so well that I grabbed the camera for a quick shot to share with you all. We will definitely be eating this for dinner again soon and so should you.
Category: local food
Homegrown, in jars.
It was hard to capture exactly how loaded our cherry tree was this spring with cherries. Last year, being the first year we harvested any fruit from that tree – a banner two pounds! – I was hoping to get as lucky, if not luckier this year. Continue reading
This week’s go-to potluck item.
We spent Memorial Day weekend mostly around the homestead in a blur of outdoor band concerts, impromptu potluck dinners with neighbors and a float down the river. There was an attempt to make home made ice cream that failed spectacularly when I realized way too far into the process that our ice cream maker was no longer of this world. I tried googling how to make ice cream without a maker but I didn’t realize until a few hours later it was probably too far along to really salvage. We now have a big plastic tub of frozen creamy strawberry mix in the freezer that is quite lovely with warmed pound cake or lemon cake fresh out of the oven at a potluck.
The front yard in a jar.
Easter Sunday evening, Kitchen Intern & husband had popped by for a drink. Sitting under the gloriously blooming pink dogwood, they couldn’t help but notice our yard was a carpet of violets in bloom. They inquired if I was going to do anything with them – like make violet jelly. The idea had not occurred to me, but later in the week, Pat mentioned he needed to mow soon, so if I was going to pick those violets, I needed to get on it. Continue reading
Food Preservation Success. And Tofu.
I’d read in one of my food preservation books that I could freeze eggplant. I was slightly curious while worried it would turn mushy in the freezer. I do make a few batches of eggplant parmesan every summer, popping leftovers in the freezer for winter consumption, but I had never put up plain eggplant. I decided to try it with one – if it didn’t work, no biggie. Continue reading
Garden thoughts in January.
I like to plant tomatillos in my garden every summer for a variety of reasons. For starters, I love salsa verde, which is made of tomatillos. They are also a wickedly cool looking plant to have in the garden, because of their dramatically hanging fruit which look like little lanterns.
I just spent a few hours over several days looking for a good shot of a tomatillo plant, combing through the last four years of summer garden shots and that is the best shot I had. And it’s not even mine, it’s Leni’s (from summer 2012). Continue reading
Of Pigs and Rice.
In last year’s quest to perfect biscuits, I discovered how baking with lard was key to not just them, but flaky pie crusts. Lard is rendered pork fat and in order to get the best, unadulterated lard, you need to obtain your own pig fat. Thanks to friends who raise pigs, I was able to obtain a 3+ pound frozen hunk of fat. Continue reading
Honey Nut!
Have you ever heard of Honey Nut Squash? I had not when I walked past them at market Saturday morning. They appeared to be a smaller, darker version of butternut squash and I was told the flavor was similar as well, if not a bit more concentrated. I grabbed a small handful and brought them home to experiment with.
Each squash was about the size of my hand. I sliced them in half, scooped out the seeds and roasted them, flesh side down, in a baking pan with about a half inch of water.
One of my favorite combinations is butternut squash and parsnips. I figured honey nut squash would pair nicely with them as well and as I just so happened to be harvesting my not-entirely-bumper crop of parsnips, I roasted some of them in the oven while it was on. Roasted squash and parsnips are the start of many a meal in this house this time of year – on their own with some butter they are a nice side dish, add some broth or milk or both and create a soup, add an egg and some flour and make a squash ‘pancake’ (think potato pancakes). I had a hankering for something with a little kick to it, to balance out the sweetness. This time of year also makes me crave curries, so I decided to get jiggy with some curry powder and make a curried cream of squash soup. Served on the side was some roasted okra, which at first was seen as a slightly interesting combination, but you know what? It turned out to be quite lovely. Okra season is definitely winding down, which is a bummer, because roasted okra may actually be better than fried – and we love fried okra.
To answer the question, no roasted okra is not slimy (no properly cooked okra is slimy). Toss it with olive oil, salt & pepper and roast at 450 for about 15 minutes. Serve. That easy.
As for the soup, if you can’t find honey nut squash, you can easily substitute butternut squash. While the flavor in the honey nut squash was a little sweeter than butternut squash, there was not much yield from 4 of them, which made just enough soup for the 3 of us for dinner with no leftovers for lunches. I don’t have a pretty shot of the finished soup either – as I was making dinner, I was of course doing numerous other things while attempting to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour on a school night with my kitchen looking something like this:
That’s right, every square inch of my counter top was being used by something. I absolutely will share with you the other projects I had going on (rending pork fat into lard & rice bread), but for now you are only getting my Curried Squash & Parsnip soup recipe.
As per my usual, I’m guesstimating amounts here, as the only time I ever bother to properly measure anything is when I’m baking. Take away the curry powder and you have my recipe for creamy squash & parsnip soup. Cut the amount of liquid and you have my basic recipe for mashed roasted squash and parsnips. This is the first year we haven’t had a bumper crop of volunteer butternut squash in the garden and I’m finding I miss having a pile of them to use up. I guess I’ll actually have to plant some next year – and I’m definitely planting those honey nut squash. I’ve got a nice handful of seeds drying out right now that I saved from the chicken scrap bowl for next year’s garden.
Enough babble. Onto the recipe.
Curried Roasted Squash & Parsnip Soup.
Slice squash in half, scooping out seeds and placing flesh side down in a baking pan with about an inch or so of water. Bake at 350 until squash is soft and the flesh is easily scooped out. Set aside. Toss parsnips with olive oil and roast until soft.
Saute chopped onion in oil (or butter) until translucent. Add a few cloves of minced garlic and freshly grated ginger. (I used about 4 cloves of garlic and about an inch of ginger). Stir in, then add a teaspoon of curry powder. Cook for 2 minutes or until wonderfully fragrant, add about a teaspoon of flour, cook another minute, stirring. Add the roasted vegetables and a cup or so of broth. (I used vegetable, but chicken is nice too). Add salt – about a teaspoon – and pepper to taste and bring to a simmer. Puree soup, leaving no chunks, then add about a cup of milk or more (or cream. Or both. I like to use half heavy cream, half skim milk) until you reach desired consistency. Bring the soup to not quite a simmer and serve.
I imagine this soup would be even better if made ahead of time, then left alone for a few hours for the flavors to meld more. It might also be nice with coconut milk. It could also be made without any milk, just broth.
Weekend Tomatoes
I got two great big beautiful boxes of tomatoes this weekend from my tomato guy.
Recent Experiments.
In my quest to make the perfect dill cucumber pickle, I’ve tried my hand at fermenting them this season. Amanda made it look easy, so I followed her directions, gathering cherry & oak leaves from trees around our yard, as well as a basket full of dill heads from the garden. I got two pounds of the most beautifully adorable cucs from Whisper Hill Farm and went at it.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 