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Tag: winter squash

Bits & Bobs – Beans and Rice, Coconut Chutney Butternut Squash Soup

Okay, so if you’ll remember from the last soup, I had leftover the liquid drained from a can of tomatoes.

Well, at that enchilada dinner, one of the participants made a pot of rice (with a seasoning packet) and heated up some kidney beans. Her rice came out perfectly, and I took home what leftovers there were.

And reheated them. All classy-like. But I’m telling you about it anyway because I’m proud of having essentially made dinner for free.

Leftover Beans & Rice

First, I wanted to soften the beans a bit more, so I put them in a small pot with just enough tomato liquid to cover, and cooked that for five or so minutes.

And then I went to look around for other flavors to jazz things up.

Oh, yeah, I have a jar of pipian, so I melted about half a teaspoon into the liquid.

And I have some Lime Cilantro salad dressing, which is more like a pesto than a salad dressing, from a local restaurant – so I added a dollop of that, too.

And then I added the rice.

And as everything came to temperature, I crumbled some dried oregano in it as well.

End result – delicious and filling dinner

I also still had about a third of the roasted butternut squash lingering in my fridge. What was I going to do?

So, again, I went poking for inspiration in the other bits and bobs in there. Aha! I had a small container of coconut chutney from take out dosas a friend had brought to my house. I can play with those flavors.

Coconut Chutney Butternut Squash Soup

I diced a yellow onion fairly small, and I cooked it in coconut milk (6.5oz).

I added some asafoetida and a fairly large amount of garam masala – somewhere around a rounded teaspoon. Oh, and 3 cloves of roasted garlic because it was there.

Once everything was aromatic, I added the butternut squash. I also put a Tablespoon of mustard seeds in a dry skillet to heat.

And about a quarter cup of finely shredded, unsweetened coconut.

Like the previous soup, this one also needed some kick, so I added some cayenne pepper. And some black pepper. And a little bit of cilantro. And adding about a teaspoon of brown sugar really made it sing.

Then I thinned the soup out with some vegetable stock.

Once the mustard seeds started to pop, stirred them into the soup as well.

Done! Rich, tasty, and a bit out of the ordinary.

Mexican Butternut Squash Soup

Would this soup be made in Mexico? I have no idea. No people or cookbooks provided any support for this claim. But its seasonings and flavor went well with the enchiladas my friends made.

So there I was at my farmers’ market this weekend near the end of the market – and one of the farmers had a box of butternut squash seconds for $1/lb. The tops were going mushy. And I asked the guy how many he thought I could get for $5… and walked away with 6 decent sized squash.

I scrubbed the outsides, trimmed the tops as necessary, split them in half lengthwise with my big knife, scooped out the seeds, and set them to roasting cut side down. It took 2 half sheet pans to roast them all.

Once they were tender, I let them cool a little, and then I peeled them and put the flesh all together in a container in the fridge – purpose to come soon.

Then this week I had 1 friend request vegetarian soups and another invite me over for enchilada dinner. Woo!

Mexican Butternut Squash Soup

Start off with about 4-5 cups of roasted butternut squash and a roasted head of garlic.

I began building the soup with a roux base, so I poured… oh, about 2 Tablespoons… olive oil into my soup pot and heated that up.

Since I wasn’t sure whether I would want to blend the soup smooth, I diced the (1 medium) onion fairly small. Toss that in and cook until translucent.

Once the onions were soft, I sprinkled flour on top until the onions were coated with flour, but none was still dry in the pan (about 2 Tablespoons – if it’s too dry, add more oil)

Then I opened up a jar of vegetable stock and added until everything went smooth and liquid (it took about 1 cup, but I’d been expecting to use more stock).

I added the roasted squash (2/3 of my total… somewhere around 4-6 cups) and I poured in the liquid the squash had released overnight in the fridge.

Cook that a bit until everything is hot and the squash is starting to break down. Meanwhile – drain a 24oz can of diced tomatoes (and reserve the liquid to use either if the soup becomes too dry during cooking or to use in making rice later in the week) and grind 1 tsp cumin, 2 tsp coriander, and 2 tsp ground oregano (or use ground herbs and spices).

And dices tomatoes to the squash. Stir. Break up the squash more every time you stir.

Sift the ground spices into the soup (because whole coriander is ornery in a mortar & pestle YMMV). Add salt and pepper. I added some ground savory, too. If the color isn’t pleasing, you could go for some paprika, but I was pleased with things without.

I added about half of the cloves from the roasted garlic.

Stir, mash, stir.

This soup really came together quickly – about 20 minutes – so I also added the juice of half a lime to encourage it to stay the pretty color it had hit. And I was pleased with the amount the squash had broken down (mostly smooth, with some chunks, no pieces larger than half a teaspoon), so I left it chunky.

What this soup was really missing was spice, but that was a deliberate choice based on its audience, so I took a chipotle hot sauce with me instead.

Leftover Soup

So I came home from work, and I heated up some leftover soup.

And then I had amazing garlic bread on the side – this morning, I had mixed together some black garlic and softened butter. But – I’d been reading cookbooks at work, and I forget which one had it – but I just passed right by a mention of tomato toast (which looked like bread with some tomato sauce spread over before toasting). I don’t even know if that recipe involved toasting because it didn’t register consciously, but I have this jar of salsa with a smooth texture that’s not all that pleasing for chips so I’ve been looking for ways to cook with it… and that, drizzled on top before the buttered bread went under the broiler, made delicious toast.

But then I was looking at the dregs of the jar of salsa, and I figured out a soup that would use up a bunch of odds and ends around the refrigerator. Only, people – I have already had dinner, but I can’t stop sipping this soup in progress. It’s really good so far, and I’m hoping I don’t fuck it up.

Mexican-y leftover soup

So I started off with slightly less than two teaspoons of whole wheat flour, and I toasted it in the bottom of a dry saucepan.

Once it had turned a rich dark brown, I added a finely diced medium/large onion. And I let that cook for a few minutes without adding any oil so that the onions would have a chance to soften and get coated with the flour.

Then I added a teaspoon of bacon fat and two teaspoons of olive oil, and stirred it together thoroughly, until the flour was all gooey.

I added three large minced garlic cloves while there still was some dry-ish cooking to be had.

Then I slowly incorporated 1 pint of turkey stock and 1/2 a pint of vegetable stock (because that’s what I had hanging around).

And I added the last of the cubed and roasted squash out of which I had made the last two soups – umm… about a pint’s worth.

At this point, I pulled out the badly aging remnants of my last trip to the farmers market (which I think was before Thanksgiving) – a carrot and a parsnip. Peeled them. Sliced the parsnip thinly on the bias and diced the carrot, not that the shape is likely to matter, as I’m thinking of pureeing it. Added it to the soup.

I minced some ginger and added it.

I added the remains of the jar of salsa (about an eighth of a cup, but I can’t see significantly more being a bad thing) and a can of diced tomatoes.

And then for the removable ingredients – I cleaned a stalk of celery and added it whole and I tossed in a bay leaf.

And some seasonings – two cloves (pinch off the caps, powder them in your fingers, then keep the stem for when you want to stud something with cloves), a dash of oregano, a tiny amount of dried chipotle (just a little because I don’t yet know how much the heat will increase during cooking), and some ground pepper.

And then I looked in the fridge and saw that I still had a leftover baked sweet potato from Thanksgiving, so that went in, too.

Now I have a lot of liquid – so it’s on a slow simmer, cooking down.

But it’s delicious. It’s delicious in a spoon, and it’s delicious with a piece of bread surreptitiously dunked in it. Mmmmm!

The working plan is to puree it once it has cooked down and then add cubed leftover turkey (currently in the freezer, not the fridge), but I’m thinking it might be too tasty to tinker with.

ETA: I never did add the meat. It was just too tasty as it was.

Soup, second try – Turkey Lentil Squash soup

Okay, so the second try was also a big shameful and full of weird miscellaneous condiment selections. And yet also tasty.

Turkey Squash Lentil Soup

Okay, so roast squash and have some sitting around in your refrigerator all cooled and diced.

Also, leftover turkey, cut into chunks.

And this time, I’m trying it without soaking the lentils first. Rinse/wash them in three vigorous changes of water before using.

Oh, and I’ve made both turkey stock and vegetable stock. You can go with all of one or the other or just water – but they shouldn’t be at least warmed up to room temperature.

So brown 2 teaspoons of flour in a pan. Dice an onion pretty finely and stir that into the browning flour. Once the onions are limp and the flour is getting toasty, add a teaspoon or so of butter (or lipid of choice).

Now add some turkey stock and stir it all together until you have a gravy base. Add a teaspoon of red wine, a shake of Worcestershire sauce, and a little bit of browning sauce.

Add lentils and minced garlic with some vegetable stock. Once it reaches a simmer, add the cubed winter squash. And then a couple minutes later, the turkey leftovers.

Season with ground black pepper, ground ginger (I was bizarrely generous with this, but luckily the soup absorbed it well), a sprinkling of cinnamon, and some hot pepper.

Because these are all leftovers that have been sitting in the fridge, you really should have the soup boil for about 20 minutes, but my lentils were already pretty mushy by the end of that.

Soup of Shame

So here I am with my 5 pounds of turkey leftovers, and I have visions of a soup I think I’ve had somewhere before – a lovely, brown broth with lentils and pieces of winter squash and turkey. The soup in my head is delicious.

Because I soak legumes, and can not help myself from soaking lentils as well, I started 1 cup of lentils soaking the night before.

The next day, I melted a little butter and a little bacon fat (about 1 teaspoon of each), and once the onions softened I sauteed an onion, some garlic (3 cloves, minced), and some ginger (1 skinny inch, minced). Oh, and I added some asaphoetida – about half a teaspoon.

And then I added turmeric because I’d just been having a conversation with my ex about a bland soup that had been resurrected with turmeric and because the last batch I bought was surprisingly strong scented, so I’m hoping surprisingly flavorful, too.

So cooked that together for about 30 second to a minute, and then I added a scoop of the turkey stock (which had set up all nice and gelatinous) and let that melt in.

And then I added the winter squash. I have no idea what kind of squash this was. It was labeled at the farmers’ market as a sweet roasting squash, was about 5 pounds, and had a blue/green skin that was not as blue as a Hubbard squash. It did not roast up sweet at all. Instead, it had a bit of a sovory poultry-ish flavor, so I figured it’d be perfect for soup. So I rough diced it and dropped it in. Not all of the squash fit because I’ve found that I really can’t go much larger than a 2 quart pot, if I’m still going to like the soup by the last serving (and I only wanted the squash to be a third of the soup).

And then I added the soaked lentils and some more liquid (a mixture of turkey stock, vegetable stock, and water I’d used to cook chicken and onions the day before).

And I added some flavor elements – a whole stalk of celery and a bay leaf (both to be removed after cooking), the last of my buckwheat honey (1 1/2 teaspoon?), thyme, oregano, cinnamon, and freshly ground pepper.

And I let it cook… and it turned to mush, as you’d expect. And adding turkey to it at that point, would have been just gross. So despite having been fairly generous with the seasonings, I had 2 quarts of fairly flavorless mush.

I let the soup sit for a day while I pondered. And I figured that it might lend itself to something spicy/sweet/tangy.

So I came back and started looking through my random condiments. I decided against the tamarind chutney, even though it had a lot of what I was looking for. And I went, instead, with the bottle of Caribbean Savory Sauce that I had been having trouble finding a use for. And a little was good, so I went with a lot. Probably a quarter of a cup would have been the right measurement, but I went ahead and finished off the bottle – and it was not too much.

I also added some paprika (1 teaspoon?) and a lot of cayenne powder (possibly as much as 2 teaspoons, but you might prefer a lot less). And two capfuls of cider vinegar.

So it ended up tasty, but not at all what I’d been aiming for, and it didn’t use up any of my turkey.