BBQ Chicken Pot Pie

Leftover Rescue...
(Or a way to kick it with rotisserie chicken... leftover turkey works it too.) 
Pot Pie Biscuit Starter Kit - leftover chicken and the basics for drop biscuits.

Fannie Farmer - one of the earliest compilers of 20th century American home cookery

1st thing - pot pie filling is a stew.  It just is.  The trick is making it a good stew.  No... a GREAT stew.  Cook your aromatics and hard veggies.  The onions, celery and carrots.

Add salt and pepper - bring out the flavors of the veg.  Cook them until they are softened, but way before they are mushy.
Then add in the softer veg (leaves and/or already cooked leftover veg).

I had chard and some leftover green beans.  (I am NOT a fan of peas, especially frozen, especially mushy).  So while peas are traditional, any green things you like work.  Again - check and make sure there's enough seasoning.

Go ahead and add the chopped, leftover poultry.

Now to make this a stew!  It needs the gravy that makes it into a thick, hearty stew.  And gravy is best when it starts with a roux.  Since I had just made some chicken stock, I had chicken fat - so chicken fat roux.

Melt the fat, whisk in the flour and keep it cooking until the flour smells toasty.  (I'm not making a dark roux, but want to make sure the flour doesn't taste raw).  Once the flour is cooked slowly whisk in the broth.  And THEN let make it BBQ sauce flavored!

Add some of the sauce, stir in, taste for salt and pepper (if you want it spicier - you could add tabasco, sriracha or other hotness to the gravy).  You'll have about 2 cups of gravy with this recipe.  It can be easily doubled if you have more leftovers.
Add the gravy to the chicken and veg mixture - add the gravy until you get the right consistency.  Well moistened, but not too goopy.

Now for the biscuits!
Drop biscuits - when I'm working with hard flour (pretty much all AP flour) rather than the soft flour that exists in the southern US, drop biscuits are the way to go.  That way you keep a fluffy texture, don't develop long gluten strands, and don't make a ROLL!
(You can always make a crust for your pot pie too - but biscuits are great!)  Feel free to make cut out biscuits if that's what you know and love, but for biscuit beginners - or if you're in a rush, drops are your friend.

BBQ Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:
The gravy
    2 Tbs butter (or chicken fat/any fat)
    3 Tbs flour (or 2 Tbs rice flour + 1 Tbs cornstarch)
    2 C chicken stock  
    salt, pepper, BBQ sauce - to taste
    (optional - hot sauce if it needs it)

[This amount of roux can easily absorb another cup of liquid.  But if you need a quart+ of gravy double the amount of roux]    

The filling 
    2 tsp oil
    1 medium onion - medium dice 
    2 carrots - sliced
    2 ribs celery - sliced 
    1 handful bunch chard/leafy green - roughly chopped 
    1 C or so bonus veggies - (optional)
    salt and pepper - top taste (and taste lots to check!)

    2 C (approx.) roughly chopped leftover chicken 

[If you have more chicken - add more vegetables, if you have less poultry - cut down on the veg.  You can make more gravy too.]

The biscuits (Baking Powder Biscuits from Fannie Farmer)
    1 C AP flour (or gluten free baking mix)
    2 tsp baking powder
    1/2 tsp salt
    2 tbs fat (butter, shortening, etc.)
    1/2 + milk (or buttermilk, cream etc.)
    (optional - 1/2 tsp tasty/fancy vinegar - I have beer vinegar, cider or sherry is good too)

    butter for the pan/cookie sheet

Equipment:
knife
cutting board
skillet
sauce pan
measuring cups & spoons
bowl
9x12 pan or cookie sheet
fork/pastry cutter
spoon
whisk

Prep:
Measure out the ingredients, cut up vegetables and chicken.  The vegetables should be similar sizes.  Including any leftover vegetable.  E.g. if you are using green beans, cut them into approx. 1 in. lengths.  And chop any leaves so they are no bigger than 2in x 2in.  They'll cook down to a nice bit size and not disappear.

Preheat oven to 450˚F for biscuits
Grease the pan/cookie sheet with the butter

You can make the biscuits and the stew at the same time - or the stew 1st and hold it or freeze it.  Since it's stew, it reheats really well... possibly even better.

Cook:
The Stew

Heat the oil in the skillet.  Add the onion and a some salt.  Stir for a minute or two, then add the carrots and celery.  Let this cook over medium high heat for 5 - 8 minutes.  Taste for salt and pepper, and find when the carrots lose their raw crunch.
Add in the leaves and any leftover veg you want to add.
Add the cut up chicken - stir to warm everything up.  Taste again for salt and pepper.  Once the seasoning is right, set the skillet aside, and leave on very, very low heat.

Make the roux.
In the sauce pan heat the fat, and use the whisk to stir in the flour.  Cook it until the flour smells toasty, and no longer tastes like raw flour.  (You can cook roux for longer to make it darker, but that's not important for this recipe.)  Then stir in the chicken broth.  It should make a cream colored, smooth gravy.  Add BBQ sauce and any hot sauce to flavor the gravy to your taste.  Adjust salt if it needs it.
Stir the gravy into the chicken and vegetable mixture - add until it's well coated, but not goopy.  A spoonful should be delicious and velvety and well seasoned.  There's still time to get the flavor right here!

When the stew is ready - you can keep it warm while you biscuit, or if you are meal-prepping, divide into the right portions for your crowd and fridge or freeze.

The Biscuits - Make These Fresh!
Put the flour, baking soda, and salt in the bowl.  Stir together.  Chop the butter into smallish chunks.  Chop that into the flour mixture with the fork or pastry cutter or your fingers.    
(Add optional vinegar to your milk) 
Stir in about 2/3 of the liquid.  Keep adding until the flour is all wet (do not stir until totally smooth).  It should still hold its shape when you drop it on the pan.  

Make about 4 large biscuits or 6 - 8 small ones.

Bake at 450˚F for 12 - 15 minutes (try 8 minutes for small biscuits)

Spoon up your chicken stew, top with a biscuit and add a little more BBQ sauce.
Alternately reheat the chicken stew in a casserole dish and top with the biscuits and server family style.


    

Back to the Keyboard

I quit there for a minute...

Built a book, played with marketing, started working for the family and learning for real about forestry, got my black-belt, got my MBA, now have a kid who drives.

But I kept cooking.
And I found the Female Farmer Project.  

But the love of trivia stays with me.  So when the mix is food and learning - it is time to dig deep and see what new things I find.

I found out that my love of knowing how things work can be applied to how our current farm system is treating a few people very well, and treating most other people very badly.  There's plenty of food, but it is not treating us very well - and treating the people who get it to us possibly worse.

We need to change that.  As part of the Female Farmer Project, I want to work on changing things for women who grow food professionally in America.  They have always been there, but they have been largely invisible and ignored.  And we are all worse off for that.

Time to make some changes that benefits farmers.  And the things that benefit farmers produces beneficial changes for us consumers down the road.

Nut Brittle - All The Ways

This year for Christmas Baking, one of the things I made was a Sesame-Cashew Brittle.

I found the recipe last year in  Food & Wine.  And I am the 1st to admit it is darn tasty.  Also fun to give to your child to break into pieces when you are done making it.  But, the directions are a bit daunting for the beginning candy maker.

This is too bad, because brittle is really easy once you get comfortable with the process.

This is what happens when a 12 yr. old gets the job.
One of the other things the "tenderizing mallet"
is useful for. (Nice work BTW)

The minimal instructions contain several "let this happen" but as an uncertain candy maker, I wanted pictures.  As a, now, much more experienced brittle maker - I have pictures... and some ways to expand your range once you have the basics.

After poking about - it becomes clear that there are clearly two kinds of brittle: with butter, and without.  The no butter sort is more notorious of sticking to the teeth, but it has the advantage of being pretty and transparent - or at least translucent.

The most difficult part of making brittle - or at least the scariest part - is working with hot sugar syrup.  I speak of this personally since I have had a brittle-boil-over disaster.  Burns and sticky spots all over my stove top and floor.
Part of my motivation for writing this post is to save you from that particular trial.
And for the record.  As cooking accidents go, it was really pretty small.  And cleaning up the brittle chunks from kitchen surfaces was much more annoying than the burns.

Below I've got the delicious recipe that was my starting point - but I'll include the original recipe (with extra instructions and pictures!), a "no-butter" version, and a !Microwave! version if you are in a hurry, feeling adventurous, or want to expand your microwave chops.

All brittle with butter recipes share 2 common problems.  One is the danger of the bubbling syrup overflowing the pan (see above).  The second is the brittle mixture seizing up when you add the nuts. Well both types have that problem.

1. To prevent overflow, work in a pot that seems too large.  
If you making more than one batch, heat the sugar syrup to temp and stir in the butter in the small pan.  Transfer to the large pot to finish cooking the sugar to the "toasty" stage, adding the baking soda, and the nuts.
When you add the baking soda - it will foam.  A large enough pot will make that no problem at all.

2. Work with warmed nuts.  
The whole reason adding the nuts makes for such a panic is room temperature nuts (65˚F - 75˚F usually) added to a syrup over 250˚F will definitely cause some havoc.
If you let your nuts sit in an oven/toaster turned to it's lowest "on" temp - around 180˚F, the nuts will be warm, but not get toastier.

When you add them to the syrup, they cool things much less, and reduce the panic.  You have all the time you need to get the brittle poured and spread. And you will no longer be subject to the phrase "once you add the nuts, work quickly, it will start to seize up."

This recipe is especially buttery and decadent.  You can pare it down to just 2 oz. (4 Tbs).  It will work, but it will be stickier, and won't be quite as rich and tastily fragile.

Sesame & Cashew Brittle

Ingredients:
1/4C black sesame seeds
2 Tbs white sesame seeds
12 oz cashews (~ 2 3/4C)

2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

355g sugar (~1 3/4C)
113g water (4oz or 1/2C)
80g light corn syrup (~1/4C)
227g unsalted butter (8oz or 2 sticks)  shut into tables spoons & at room temp.

Equipment:
4 qt sauce pan/pot - or larger (up to an 8qt pasta pot is fine - lots of room for safety)
silicone mat or parchment paper
2 baking sheets (1/2 sheet pans work the best)
whisk
sturdy silicone (soft and non-stick) spatula
butter or oil for "non-stick" baking sheet
good hot pads/baking mitts
heat proof bowl (metal or ceramic)
candy thermometer (or a small plate in the freezer)

Prep:
Measure out all the ingredients, and make sure the butter is room temp.
Mix together the salt, baking soda and nutmeg.
(If you don't have a candy thermometer, place the small ceramic plate in the freezer)

Place the seeds and nuts in a heat proof bowl, and let them warm up in an oven/toaster oven at it's lowest "ON" setting (somewhere around 180˚F - no higher than 200˚F).

Place the silicone mat or parchment paper onto one baking sheet, and liberally grease the bottom of the other one with the butter/oil mentioned in Equipment.

Don't lose track of your hand protection.

Cook:

Put the sugars and the water in your pot.  Whisk them together to combine.  Place over medium-high to high heat.  Bring the temp up to 240˚F - 250˚F.  

(If you don't have a thermometer, when the bubbles are fairly small, and foamy looking, drizzle a little syrup on your cold plate - and look for syrup that forms a firm ball, but still yielding ball "soft ball stage".)

Drop the heat to low.  Start adding the butter 1-2 Tbs at a time.  Whisk it in until you get a pale yellow, silky looking syrup.


This needs to be heated back up to lose the raw sugar flavor, by caramelizing and breaking down the sugar.  This creates the toasty brittle flavor.

If you don't wait long enough, the brittle will be pale, and the candy will not be as tasty.

The brittle on the left was my 1st batch.  I was tentative.
I let the second batch get a bit browner.
The right batch is the correct color - and the tastiest.

If you are working in a small pan for combining the sugars and butter - now is the time to transfer to the large pot.  (If you are thinking ahead, pre-warm the big pot to speed things up).

As you cook the syrup to get to the correct toasty color, it will foam some.  This  big pot gives you plenty of room.

Continue to cook the sugar-butter syrup over medium-high heat.  Watch for the golden color, and use your nose to check for the beginnings of a toasty smell.

Off to a good start.

Almost there...
but no toasty smell yet.

Get the nuts out of their warming oven.  You are almost there.

Bingo.

Quick!  Kill the heat, add the vanilla, stir.
Add the salt-baking soda-nutmeg mixture.  Stir it in quickly.  (It will likely foam up).

Add the warm seeds & nuts.  Stir in.

Pour the mixture onto the silicone mat/parchment paper.  Press the brittle down with the greased baking sheet bottom.  Keep you hot pads/mitts on.  The candy underneath is HOT!

Let the candy cool for at least 30min.  The slabs can be stored this way for awhile.  When you are ready to serve or package it, break into pieces about this size:

Sharpie for scale - of course
(Yes - this was the early, pale brittle -
go for darker.)

For Serious - Fruitcake

Many years ago, when email didn't have pictures - 2005 to be exact, a recipe for fruitcake scrolled past my eyes that intrigued me.  It came from an older incarnation of World Wide Recipes (thanks for your great work Joe Barkson).  The original recipe is from a woman name Shava from Massachusetts who'd written it down after 30 years of tweaking by food co-ops.  And apparently the parent recipe was another century old.  Anyway - this recipe has a long history of getting altered to the current reality, and passed on.

Fruitcake has long fascinated me - but candied fruit had long disgusted me.  (Who decided bright green cherries were a good idea - I ask you?)  After all, with something that tasted so awful, but had such a persistent existence had to have a decent origin story.

It does.  It goes back to lack of refrigeration and other modern food preservation techniques - along with a need for travel-stable, calorie dense foods.  So we are talking the middle ages, when travel really started to become a thing.  (See the Good Eats episode "It's a Wonderful Cake" for more on this story.)   His recipe is an improvement, but I am certain mine is better.

The only draw back - this one takes some time and attention.  But I swear, once you get around to it, it is worth it.

A quick note - this recipe makes an ENORMOUS amount of fruitcake.  Like, for a commune, enormous.  I made a half recipe, and still had a ton.  So I'll give you amounts for 1/4 of the original.  But if you want to go big.... go real big.  I've also given volume and mass amounts -for the non liquids.  Using an electronic gram scale really speeds things up.

Fruitcake You Will Want to Eat

Start the fruit the night before!
Cooking Temp: 275˚F  

Ingredients:
     Fruit Mixture:
120g (3/4C) raisins
227g (8oz) plump dried apricots
227g (8oz) dried berries (a mix of cranberries, cherries & blueberries are suggested)
140g (5oz) dried candied pineapple (not the "wet candied" look in the dried fruit section)
40g (1/4C) candied orange and/or lemon peel
100g (3.5oz) crystallized ginger
115g (4oz) walnuts (raw)
115g (4oz) almonds - sliced (raw)
1 bottle peach schnapps (any peach liquor between 36-48 proof or 18% - 24% alcohol)

    Flour Mixture:
195g (1 1/4C) flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

    Fats, Sugar and Spice:
115g (4oz) shortening - this really does need shortening, if you must butter - do ghee)
155g (3/4 C) sugar
2 Tbs molasses
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp mace
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t cardamom
1/4 t black pepper

  Eggs:
3 eggs


Equipment:
knife
cutting board
large bowl
your very largest bowl
mixer with the standard or paddle attachment (or large bowl w/ a strong spatula)
measuring cups and spoons
scale that measures in grams
parchment paper (or very greased brown paper)
2 standard (10in. x 4in. +/-) loaf pans (9x9 brownie pans will do in a pinch)
medium bowl
(spray bottle - optional, but AWESOME)
cheese cloth
cake tin or large tupperware

Prep:
    Fruit Mixture:
Cut all the fruit, ginger and any whole walnuts into pieces no larger than the end joint of your pinky (small dice).   Place in your large bowl. Add about 1C peach schnapps.  Let it sit, covered, overnight.  Stir when you think of it.  If there is no schnapps at the bottom, add a bit more.  (Original recipe comment, "C'mon, it'll bake off.")

    The next day:
Measure out the flour mixture.  Set aside.
In a mixer bowl, add shortening.  Mix the shortening until it's fluffy.  Add all the sugar, molasses and spices.  Mix until uniform.
Add 1 egg, mix in, add 1/3 of the flour mixture.  Mix in.
Add the the next egg, mix, the next 1/3 of the flour.  Mix in.
Do the same with the last egg and last portion of the flour.

Preheat the oven to 275˚F.  Line the loaf pans with parchment paper.

Turn the mixture of flour, fats, sugars, spice and eggs into your biggest bowl.  With a spatula or clean hands, stir in the fruit mixture.  You should have a mixture of fruits and nuts barely held together with batter.

Cook:
Fill each loaf pan 3/4 full (or less).  If you have extra, make "fruitcake muffins", using paper liners.

Bake for 2.5 - 3 hours.  (If you are using a 9x9 pan, check at 1.5 hours.  If you made muffins, check at 45 min.)
There are lots or variables here.  Your local humidity, the moistness of the fruit... etc.  So don't be afraid to check early.  Use a toothpick to check the center.  When it comes out clean - and/or you see the edges starting to brown, the cake is done.

Let the cakes cool completely.  Cover with a kitchen towel and leave overnight if you need to.

Post Cook:
Lift the cakes out of the pans using the parchment.
Choose the "easy way" or the "real way"  (You can do both).

Easy Way:
Cut into 1/2" to 1" slices.  Use the spray bottle to thoroughly soak the outside of the slices with the schnapps, or use a spoon to sprinkle the schnapps over the slices.
Serve with strong coffee or English breakfast tea.

The Bid'ness:
Bake the cakes on Thanksgiving weekend.
Cut into 2" slices.  Wrap each slice in cheese cloth.
Pour peach schnapps into a bowl.  Submerge each slice in the schnapps.  When the cheese cloth is thoroughly wet, place the wrapped piece of cake into your aging container - a cake tin or a large tupperware.
Close the cake tin, or for the tupperware place the lid on, but do not press it on.
When the slices dry out, and then every day or two going forward, spray thoroughly, or sprinkle with spoonfulls of peach schnapps.
The cakes may get a bit soggy, but let them harden up and repeat.
Hand out to deserving souls Christmas week, and eat some yourself.
Again - a great pairing is strong coffee or English breakfast tea.
Possibly Port.




Your life will never be the same again.

Roasted Toasted Besan

Awhile ago a friend gave me THE BOOK of Persian Cooking - _Food of Life_ by Najmieh Batmanglij.  And it has all the Persian food you might ever and never want.

One unique category it contains is traditional pastry items with no wheat flour.  And as I am negotiating the world of no-wheat/no-grain eaters, the fact that many of these recipes never mention "wheat flour" cannot be missed.  As a food explorer (my question at a restaurant is usually, "what's new?") I can't help but be attracted to a different look at dessert.

However.  While a few of the desserts include besan or chickpea flour - it is roasted/toasted chickpea flour.

All the besan I can fine is "raw".  And all the recipes I can find call for roasting a cup or two at a time.  The recipe I'm looking at calls for 3.5 cups, minimum.  And I'm looking at multiplying the recipe.  No skillet is big enough for that.

So I call out the big pans.


2 pans.... 4 lbs of flour.



This will take more time to do all 4 lbs.
I put about 1lb (500g) in each pan.

Popped it in the oven at 425˚F (220˚C) for 8 minutes.
Then stir thoroughly.


Continue to rotate it in the oven - 8 minutes (the 1st time) then 5 minutes - stir, then 3 minutes - stir, then 2 minutes with stirring until it is evenly roasted/toasted.

Oh, and keep your nose alive.  It may happen that you (cough) forget to start the timer... and things get a bit browner.

As long as it is just dark brown - and only on the surface, you are OK. (If you have any black spots, scoop them out and move on).
Stir it in thoroughly and move on.

When it is all done, the transformation should look like this.

Toasted on the top - ready for baking
Raw on the bottom - good for binding and thickening

The recipe in the end:

Roasted Besan

Ingredients:

Besan/Chickpea Flour - more than 1 or 2 cups

Equipment:

half sheet pans (rimmed baking sheets)

excellent hard spatula or large fork

pastry brush

large bin/tupperware

Prep:

preheat oven to 425F

Divide your flour into 1 lb/500g batches on half sheet pans.

Cook:

Roast the flour for 8 minutes.

Stir thoroughly.

Roast for 5 minutes.

Stir thoroughly.

Roast for 3 minutes.

Stir thoroughly.

Continue to roast for 2 minute intervals until you get the color/toastiness you want.

Pro Tip:  Before doing the 2nd set of flour, brush off your pans of all roasted flour before starting with the second set.  This will keep you from getting burned, bitter bits in your flour.

No Onions? No Garlic? Asafetida is the Answer

As someone known to strangers as a "Vegetable Cooking Person"  I occasionally get the question, "What do I do if I'm allergic to onions?"

I admit, my first reaction was, "Really? That's terrible!"
And after getting over the fact that my tiny little life would be so much the poorer with out French Onion Soup

Fine Cooking is a great place for a classic
FOS Recipe

and Onion Rings,

it really comes down to looking at the staggering number recipes that begin with something along the lines of massacring 2 cups of onions and then cooking them down to some darker, sweeter, pulpier version of themselves.
What does one do if eating onions isn't on?
Not at all.
Not even a little bit.

There is the "just use garlic" approach, tedious, and some people with onion problems can't do garlic, or much garlic.  And it's just not the same.

There is the "I'll just do without" approach.  But that makes me sad.

Then there is the "ask around" approach.  Is there any culture where onions and garlic are a "no-no"?  The answer (as it almost always is with ANY food restriction), is yes.  The Jain religion/community in India is built around the idea of not-harming.  Beyond vegetarianism, this leads to filtering water, not eating any food that shows evidence of spoilage and not drinking fermented beverages, all in the name impacting the fewest living organisms possible.
This also means root vegetables - anything that could be sprouted to start another plant is generally avoided.

Yet the flavor or onion/garlic is still to be found in Jain cooking.  The answer is hing - better known as asafetida.  Hing/asafetida is the dried resin from the stalk of a member of the carrot family.

No allium sp. in sight.  Perfectly fine for the 

"No Onion" crew.

A warning though.  I won't lie - if there were ever a substance that lived up to its name - it is this stuff.  Fetid is RIGHT!  In its ground, uncooked form, it smells like dirty socks steeped in onion juice.  I keep the closed container in sealed glass jar in my pantry.
It's one other benefit that makes it worth the trouble?  It is an anti-flatulant.  That is, you will frequently find it in bean/legume based Indian dishes, as it helps with the digestion of the long-chain starches that otherwise feed our micro-fauna.  Those tiny buggers digest what we don't, and send the gas bubbles along the way as a "thank-you".

So, I use it.  Admittedly, in Indian cooking, almost exclusively.

More recently - I have ventured beyond that - I have finally tried it as a way to give that needed oniony-garlicky hit to foods that were being fed to members of the "no onions" crowd.
I finally got around to trying asafetida as an onion substitute.

The first thing the consider is that asafetida is STRONG.  A little goes a long way.  Where a recipe might call for 1 small onion + 4 cloves of garlic, a similar "no onion/no garlic" recipe would use 1/4 to 1/2 tsp asafetida.   As a new user - I'd start small, and add more the next time.

Despite the smell at the start, it has a wonderful, mellow flavor once cooked and incorporated.

Also, this is not a "just sprinkle it on at the end" spice.  It MUST be cooked.  Heated in hot oil for 5 - 10 seconds and then simmered with the food.  This makes it a perfect onion substitute for soups, stews, and spaghetti sauces.

In sautes - quick cooking things, add it to the oil before you add anything else (or add it with the dry spices) to give it a chance for a quick, up front flash cook, and then time to mellow out in the end of the cooking.

Good Luck!

And two recipes to get started in your asafetida journey.  The first is typically Indian -
Hing Jerra Aloo - a tasty potato side dish

The second - and just in time for the fall, is a version of my Winter Squash Soup - but with asafetida in place of the onions.
Be bold - be adventurous - but stay away from the onions.

Winter Squash Soup

No onions - Yes asafetida

Many kinds of squash work well here - butternut, kabocha, delicata, kuru, turban, hubbard, ballet - anything with a dense, "sweet potato" type texture.  

Squash with a stringy texture - acorn, speghetti, dumpling, pie pumpkin, carnival - will give a watery soup with an odd texture.  

Not sure what I'm talking about?  Check out the Guide to Winter Squash at Epicurious.

Ingredients:

winter squash - about 2.5 - 3 lbs (or 2 lbs pumpkin/squash puree)

1 Tbs oil + enough to finish roasting the squash

4 C broth (chicken or vegetable)

3 Tbs minced fresh ginger

1/2 tsp asafetida

2 tsp salt + more to taste

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp cardomom

1 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbs honey

 2 C milk/dairy alt./more broth

Equipment:

hot pads/oven mitts

soup pot (8 qt/2 gallon/8 liters)

knife

cutting board

large metal spoon

baking sheet

blender/immersion blender or food mill or potato masher

long (wooden) spoon

ladle & bowls for serving

Prep:

Preheat the oven to 425˚F.  Rinse your whole squash

With a small knife/steak knife, stab each squash about 8 times around the stem to allow steam to escape.  Bake the whole squash for about 30 minutes.

Remove the squash from the oven, place on the cutting board, and let it cool for about 5 minutes.  When it is cool enough to handle, use your large knife to cut it in half.  This is be much easier than trying to cut open a raw winter squash.

Mine ended up in thirds.

Use the metal spoon to scoop our the seeds and stringy stuff from the center (Compost!)

Cut into wedges that are about 1/6 or 1/8 of the squash.  Rub the surfaces with a little oil, place on your baking sheet and return to the oven until the flesh can be mash with a fork.  About 35 - 40 minutes.  (If you are using delicata squash, it is possible it will be done after the 1st baking.)

Go ahead and mix together all your spices in a small bowl (ginger, salt, asafetida, cayenne, cardamom, and cinnamon) while waiting for the squash to finish baking.

I lined my baking sheet with parchment paper because
I am lazy and hate scrubbing pans.

When the squash is cooked, remove it from the oven and let it cool.  Scoop the flesh from the skin, and mash it roughly with a fork.  (If you were working with too much squash, set aside the extra for later, and stick with your ~2lbs).  For extra squash ideas check out Pumpkin Food - Breakfast and Lunch.

Cook:

Heat the soup pot with the 1 Tbs of oil over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes.  Place a small piece of ginger in the oil.  When it is sizzling and fragrant, add all the spices and stir vigorously for 5-10 seconds.  Your kitchen should be fragrant.

Add all 2C of broth to cool the spices and keep them from burning.  Add the roughly mashed squash.  Stir and smash the squash and broth together to combine it.  Keep adding broth as it incorporates, and the honey.  When all the broth is in, and everything is roughly combined and warm, blend the soup to make it smooth.  Use your blender - in batches, or a stick blender, food mill or potato masher.  Use the last 2C of liquid to help make everything smooth.

Return the blended soul to the pot, bring it up to a simmer for 15 minutes, to let the flavors mellow and combine.

Taste your soup.  Adjust the amounts of salt, cayenne and honey to your liking.  (Don't add any more asafetida at this point, it won't mellow and will take over!)

When it tastes good to you - serve it up!   Finish with a stir of sour cream or a drizzle of a fruity olive oil.  Top with some roasted pumpkin seeds if you are feeling adventurous.

Cooking Days & Eating Days

...or how we got suckered in to (thinking we should be) cooking every day.

I am the first to admit that this post sort of fits in with the Tweets of Middle-Class problems. But it doesn't change the fact that some days after baking my eyes on my over-bright iPad, I simply cannot figure out what to make for dinner, a.k.a. crap - What Time is IT!?   Those days that simply end on me, and I have no clue what to do.

Except for when I am in one of my "super cooking phases" or have been away from home and good food for too long, I do have the, "Oh just order something!" moments.

Gramma's house contains
some lovely trashy treasures.

As a child and a mere eater of food, and a survivor of the age of all-beige cuisine, leftovers were real.  And often really scary.

But many of us have fond memories of a few things that did "left-over" well.  It might be meat-loaf sandwiches, black-bean soup that's better after a few days in the fridge, pot-roast that makes amazing enchiladas, the turkey soup that emerges from what was a dry Thanksgiving meal...

The current love-affair our pop-food-culture is having with the fresh and obscure has caused many of us to lose sight of the the best of the left-overs.

Certainly - a delicious, fresh cooked meal - where the hot side's hot, and the cool side's cool, the crispy is crunchy and the soft is fluffy and light - this is wonderful.  But often lots of work, but fun and luscious when you can have it.

And then, there is food that takes a long time to cook, but you can cook LOTS of it.  Often, it simmers in the background, needing little attention.  Even often-er letting it sit, and reheating makes it better.

These trends are jumping out at me as I delve into the world of cooking meat.  A few cuts of meat are quick to cook, and are awesome-est straight off the burner.  But a large number of cuts, and most of the best deals, require some serious prep to be their best.  And the thought of putting all that time and energy, and then even more time in to something that is only one single meal can get frustrating.

Nailing down the "cook once, eat several times" approach (or that will also feed a crowd) is an important part of what I want to create.  There's the cook part, but then there's the storage part, and the making sure the reheat instructions are excellent - and don't ruin beautiful food.

RR - you are a fount of ideas.
 But not all days are cooking days.
Some days just need to be eating days.

That means I have to start with two things:
1) Research

and

2) Emptying the Freezer


So, watch out for the piles of books, a few mix and match meals as I clear out the Korean spiced potato turnip soup, the saag (needs paneer), and the crab cakes will just keep on coming.

(Did I mention we caught 70 crabs this year?)

And watch this space for the good and the bad.  (e.g. No - do not pan sear a cutlet cut from Chuck.  You will still be chewing it next week.)