Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Squashed for Time

This is gonna be quick coz it's a work day and I busted this recipe out spontaneously

MUSIC: You Ain't Good For Nuthin - mixtape created by David Wyckoof esq of Nashville TN

If you follow my FB page you'll have noted that we've got a wealth of huge butternut squashes growing out of a vine that sprouted out of our compost pile. And the pile keeps growing despite giving these away to various folks at a decent rate. And there's one that's been sitting and getting funky looking on the outside so I've been thinking about taking it on for a couple days now, to use it before it goes bad.

So I started by peeling it (a mistake as there're lovely enzymes in the peel and flesh that basically acts like a chemical peel on your skin - nothing painful or especially unsightly, but WEIRD), cutting it into 3/4 inch slices, laying them out on a lightly oiled pan and baking at 350* F for 45 minutes (in several batches in this case). Amy likes to just cut the squash in half and baking it with the skin on, and then scooping the flesh out which is cool, but I pointedly wanted to scorch it a bit.

Next I pureed the cooked squash (adding vegetable broth to help it mash up nice and smooth), adding two fresh jalapeno (picked off a plant we rescued from my mother-in-law's backyard), and then dumped it all into a pot of vegetable broth (in this case I prepped that -- as per a previous installment of Garbage Gourmet -- and had a fresh batch to work with.

Then I chopped and browned some onions (to carmelize a bit and bolster the carmelization on the squash) and added that.

Chopped and added a stalk of celery (just because)

added 2 Tablespoons of salt

a Tablespoon of nutmeg

a Tablespoon of allspice

AND THEN -- I had a creamless cream soup in mind and this was looking a little thin, so I grabbed some french fries left over from a weekend dinner out, pureed them (adding some soup to add in the process) and added that to the pot.

VOILA - it's very hearty, has a slight sweetness, the kinda earthy spiciness of the nutmeg and allspice

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