New Blog

Hi Everyone!

I've started a new blog where I am going to be posting cooking videos!

The website is cooklikeabuddhist.com.

Please come visit.

Butternut Soup in a Pumpkin (Potage au Potiron)

The idea of serving soup in a pumpkin for the big thanksgiving meal at work popped into my mind during a meeting.

Fortunately, it made it to the menu at work, but I also wanted to try it at home.  I also had lots of left over roasted butternut squash from the last entry, butternut squash and Sage Biscuits and a whole pumpkin left over from Halloween that was originally destined to become a Jack-o-Lanturn.

http://www.thetasteofdharma.com/2013/11/butternut-squash-and-sage-biscuits.html

I made up this recipe from various ingredients and also drew inspiration from the recipe in the NYtimes by Andre Soltner

http://www.nytimes.com/recipes/1015714/pumpkin-soup-served-in-a-pumpkin-potage-au-potiron.html?src=xps

Here is my recipe:

1 medium pumpkin

The puree from 2 roasted butternut squash 

3 med. or 5 small onions 

1 bunch celery

1/2 stick of butter

1 cup cream

1/3 bottle of white wine

Salt and pepper

oil for the pumpkin

1-2 cups stock or water

Directions:

1) Heat oven to 350 degrees.

2) Cut the top of the pumpkin off.  (Like as if you were to make a Jack-o-Lantern.  Make sure to point the knife away from your self, and angle the cuts in so that the top will rest back on the pumpkin.

3) scoop out the seeds and strings from the inside.  You can keep the seeds if you wish to roast.

4) Once it's clean inside, rub some oil on the inside of pumpkin and lid.  Put in the oven with foil over the pumpkin top for 20 minutes.  Then uncover and cook another 10 minutes.  You want to make sure that the pumpkin cooks a little, but still holds up it's shape.

5) While the pumpkin is baking roughly chop onions and sauté them in soup pot with butter, a couple of teaspoons of salt and a few turns of fresh cracked pepper (2 tsp.) until the onions soften a little.  Around 10 minutes.  Add celery and sauté for another 5-10 minutes.

6) Add wine and stock or water let ingredients it simmer for around 45 minutes.  You want all the ingredients soft.

7) Add puree and let that all cook for about 10 minute.

8) Add Cream, blend with a stick blender and adjust seasoning (salt)

9) Pour into pumpkin and serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Butternut Squash and Sage Biscuits

Delicious!

My friend Trudy recommended this site:

http://kitchenvignettes.blogspot.com

and the first posting was about a recipe for Delicata Squash and Sage Biscuits:

http://kitchenvignettes.blogspot.com/2013/11/delicata-squash-and-sage-biscuits.html

So I decided to try it, but with Butternut Squash instead, because I had some around.

find the actual recipe here: http://www.pbs.org/food/kitchen-vignettes/delicata-squash-and-sage-biscuits/

This recipe had been adapted from a recipe for Sweet Potato Biscuits (pg. 109 by Austin and Ashlyn Sailsbury) from the cookbook The Kinfolk Table.

I used Aube Giroux's recipe except I exchanged butternut for delicata squash and my comments are in red.)

Ingredients

• 1 medium-small butternut squash (1/2 cup squash purée)
• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 Tbsp. cane sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, chilled
• 1 small bunch of fresh sage (1 1/2 tsp. chopped and 10 whole leaves for garnish)
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• For the egg wash:
• 1 small egg
• 1 Tbsp. milk
• 
  

Directions

Slice the butternut squash in half, lengthwise. Remove all the seeds. Place the squash halves cut-side facing down on a baking sheet.  I cooked two squashes and had way to much.  You probably only need about 1/2 a squash for this recipe, but the rest could be used for other things, or just eaten plain.

Roast in a 400F oven for about 30 minutes or until a knife pierces the flesh like soft butter.  It took about 50 minutes at 400 in my oven.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool a bit. Scoop out the roasted flesh and discard the skins. 

Mash by hand with a potato masher, or if you wish, purée with a hand blender until smooth. 

Measure out 1/2 cup of squash purée. Chill the purée in the fridge.  I did the roasting and chilling the night before.  It will take some time for the piping hot butternut squash to cool.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

Using a box grater, grate the cold butter into the flour mixture. Have someone else take the photo if possible. :)

Place this mixture in the freezer while you prepare the wet ingredients (about 5 to 10 minutes).

   In another bowl, mix the chilled cream, squash purée, and finely chopped sage. Whisk together   until smooth. 

In another smaller bowl, make the egg wash by beating the egg and 1 Tbsp. of milk together.

Remove the dry ingredients from the freezer. With a pastry cutter or your hands, make sure the grated butter is fully incorporated into the flour (it should look like bread crumbs).  Below is a picture of the dry ingredients with butter, the squash/cream/sage mixture and the egg wash.

Gently add the squash and cream mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring just until the dough starts to come together. It looked very flaky at first, but came together with some kneading.

Using your hands, lightly knead the dough in the bowl, until uniform, but avoiding over-handling it.

Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and either roll or simply press the dough out to 3/4 inch thickness. I didn't have a rolling pin which would have been really helpful.  Try not to touch the dough too much as it is good to keep the dough cold.

Using a 2 1/2 inch round or square cookie cutter, cut out the biscuits. I used cups.  The smaller white one worked better.  I also think that I could have let my dough be thicker.  I think mine was about a 1/2 inch rather then 3/4 inch.

Brush the tops with egg wash and gently press a whole sage leaf on top of each biscuit. I couldn't find a brush, so I just spooned egg wash unto each biscuit.  

Place on a lightly buttered baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in a 400F oven, until golden on top. Transfer the biscuits to a cooling rack and serve warm.

YUM!

Risotto Cakes!

A co-worker had made some Risotto and I decided to make some Risotto Cakes!

Here are the ingredients:  

1) Left Over Risotto

2) 2 eggs

3) Panko (bread crumbs)

Usually one might make an egg wash from just egg whites, but I decided to do the whole eggs.

I made the risotto into patties.

And then dipped them into the eggs.

And then into the panko.

And onto the frying pan.  I used a little bit of Grapeseed oil, but any high heat oil would work.

I mashed the patties down a bit with my spatula.

And here is the completed product.  Enjoy!

Honey-Pepper Vinaigrette

This recipe comes from a book called Vinaigrettes by Michele Anna Jordan.
Here is the Amazon Link.

I like that it is sweet and peppery all at once.
I made it with White Balsamic vinegar.
The shallot seems to stand up a lot, so I would recommend using 1/2 or a 1/4 of a shallot-depending on the size.  The one that I used (in picture) was pretty overpowering.

Makes about 1 and 1/4 cups.

Ingredients:

1 shallot (or less as I mentioned in the intro)

4 garlic cloves, minced

salt to taste (1 tsp suggested, but I think I used more)

1/4 cup sherry, balsamic or white balsamic vinegar

1 TBSP freshly cracked peppercorns-or more to taste-the pepper should be bold

1/4 cup honey, warmed

2/3 cups Olive Oil

Directions:

Put the shallot, garlic and salt in a small bowl with the vinegar.

Let it sit for 15-30 minutes to mellow.

Stir in black pepper, honey.

I'm not sure you need to warm the honey, but it makes it helps increase viscosity.

(I put this mixture into my blender and then drizzled in the olive oil while the blender was on high speed to help emulsify the dressing.)

The author says that the dressing will last 2 days in the refrigerator, but I've had mine over a week and it's still delicious.

Piquant Radish Soup with Creme Fraiche

I found this article in the May issue of Vegetarian Times.
I loved the pink color and also the flexibility of using a radish for something different than just raw on my salad!

1) The Recipe:

2) The Ingredients:

Notes: 

1) I ended up buying 5 bunches of easter egg radishes because they were on sale at the local health food market.  I wonder if I had just purchased red or watermelon radishes if the soup would have been pinker.

2) I also ended up purchasing Creme Fraiche which is simular to sour cream.  You can easily make your own with cream and buttermilk.  Sour cream would probably work fine, or just cream.

Creme Fraiche:  2 cups cream, 1- 2 Tbls. Buttermilk.  Mix and leave at room temperature for 8-24 hours or until thickened.  Stir and refrigerate for up to two weeks.

Here are the radishes after being washed:

After cooking the onions in butter or oil (if you want it to be vegan), I then added the potatoes and radish and simmered them in onions and water (but stock is also great) for around 30 minutes.  (until they became soft.)  Notice the how in the second photo the water has turned pink.

I then blended the soup and added horseradish and creme fraiche.  Some creme fraiche can also be saved for the side.  You can serve either hot or chilled.

Final notes:  I would double the amount of white pepper, and horseradish (try to purchase horseradish without lots of preservatives and additives).  I would also add the horseradish and creme fraiche right at the end.  Salt to taste.