Sometimes, I think I’m almost predictable to a fault. I know what I like. I know my routine and I like to stick to it. Call me boring, but it’s what works for me.

So it should surprise no one that the first cold weekend I was ready to make soup. Soup with squashes. A perfect side to a good loaf of french bread!

Soup, football, friends…fall is here!

Please forgive the shortness of this post–I’m 100 pages from the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and I NEED to finish!! Don’t let the length of the post deter you from this soup though–it’s delicious! Even Noel liked it! In fact he liked it so much, he wants to make it again–next time with crab!

Winter Squash Soup
Adapted from Epicurious

1/4 cup ( 1/2 stick) butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
3 14 1/2-ounce cans low-salt chicken broth
4 cups 1-inch pieces peeled butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)
4 cups 1-inch pieces peeled acorn squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)

Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté until tender, about 10 minutes. Add broth, all squash and herbs; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until squash is very tender, about 20 minutes.

Working in batches, puree soup in blender or use an immersion blender to blend it in the pot. Return soup to same pot. Stir in cream; bring to simmer. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Chill. Rewarm over medium heat before serving.)

This whole week I’ve been in a major funk. I started off the week with a major migraine/24 hour bug, and well, I’ll admit it, I’ve just been in a pretty bad mood ever since. Maybe it’s because I’m tapering for my half marathon on Sunday, and going from 25 miles last week to a mere 10 this week has me feeling like a pretty lazy lump.

Maybe it’s because I have a bit of shower hangover. I had so much fun prepping and planning the shower, and now it’s over. Major bummer. Guess it’s time to start planning that killer Fourth of July Party we’re having at the beach house! (Who is coming to the beach house for the fourth? Lovely cottage in a charming island community with it’s own Fourth of July parade and fireworks! Camping spots still available!!)

Or maybe it’s because things in my other life–you know the one that pays me–have been a bit slow, and when things are slow I have a tendency to let my mind wander. I’ve been following along as a certain famous blogger and her husband open their bakery, and I’m a bit wistful. A bakery is sort of a dream of mine…but yet I digress.

One thing that is always certain to pull me out of a funk is food. Really good homemade food. Preferably made with some of the fantastic local ingredients that are just coming into season. Like this asparagus soup, which uses fantastic early season produce to give a taste of spring, and the summer to come!

Creamy Asparagus Soup
Adapted from Dishing Up Maryland

This is another winning recipe from the Dishing Up Maryland cookbook. If you don’t have it yet, go and get yourself a copy!

Ingredients:

2 pounds asparagus
2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshing ground pepper
1/3 cup white rice
2 cups milk

Directions:

Rinse and dry the asparagus. Trim the ends, then snap the asparagus into three pieces. Place a dozen tips in a bowl and set aside.

Melt the butter in a stockpot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the asparagus pieces and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the stock, salt, pepper and rice; cover, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Steam the asparagus tips in a steamer for 3 minutes while the soup is cooking.

After 30 minutes, puree the soup with an immersion blender. Gradually add the milk. Once the soup is pureed, reheat. Serve hot, garnishing each serving with the reserved asparagus tips.

Around here, the second key element of successful snow food is something hot and filling.

I’m a big soup lover all the time, and I knew I wanted some last Wednesday while I was waiting for the snow to come down. But sadly, I was fairly limited in the soup fixins I had in the house. All that was in the pantry was some onions and sweet potatoes. Can those make soup?

After some quick internet searching, I discovered that yes, I could make soup out of sweet potatoes–score! I set off chopping and the rest is soup making history.

Spicy Sweet Potato Soup
Adapted from Joy the Baker

I’m proud to report that this is a soup that even Noel (the sweet soup hater) loved because of the balance between the sweet potatoes and the spicy. This soup has a bit of kick, which we tamed with a healthy stir in of greek yogurt.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup coarsely chopped onions (about 2 medium onions)
1 large clove garlic, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick
6 cups chicken broth, or slightly more as needed
1/4 cup half and half
greek yogurt, for topping

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until the onions begin to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and saute, stirring for 30 seconds. Add the ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric and red pepper flakes. Add the sweet potatoes and broth and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer until the sweet potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes.

Puree the soup, in batches in a blender or food processor or using a stick blender. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Top with greek yogurt to serve.

After I came down from my 5K high last week, I needed a break. So I won’t lie, I took a nap. Yeah, I know you’re not supposed to need a nap after a 5K, but I’m a girl that likes to sleep!

And then I woke up. And I was STARVING. I knew we had a date with our good friends later that night after Noel’s inaugural Mount Vernon ghost tour (have I ever told you that Noel is a tour guide with Baltimore Ghost Tours? Well he is) and we would be going out to eat. So the question was, what to eat to tie me over until a late dinner?

I suddenly had a bug in my brain to make something pumpkin–and somehow I settled on pumpkin soup. Because soup can be the ultimate holdover snack. It’s not quite enough to be a meal, but it’s just substantial enough to hold you over until the next meal.

And this is a soup that’s so chock full of fruits and veggies, it feels like a healthy snack even though it’s creamy and thick. The secret ingredients? Apples and onions, which when pureed give the soup a nice thickness without too much richness. A perfect afternoon snack. Even Ariadne was impressed.

Curried Pumpkin Apple Soup
Adapted from Family Fun Magazine

This soup screams fall, with it’s pumpkin and apple, but it’s a nice change on the pumpkin theme. Instead of the traditional fall spices, the curry powder in this recipe gives the soup a little bit of heat, which balances the bit of sweetness in the apples and the honey. This would make a delicious main or a side, and I think it’s going to make an appearance on my Thanksgiving table as an appetizer. The best thing? Because you’re using canned pumpkin, it comes together in record time.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 large apple, cored, and chopped
2 teaspoons mild curry powder
3 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups solidly packed pumpkin mash or canned pumpkin
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/2 cup milk
2 to 3 tablespoons honey (to taste)
Sour cream and chives, for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Melt the butter in a soup pot. Stir in the onion and apple. Sauté the ingredients over medium-high heat until the onion is clear, about 5 minutes. Stir in the curry powder and sauté the mixture for another minute. Stir in 1 cup of chicken broth and cook it for 1 minute more.

Add the pumpkin and stir, then add the other 2 cups of chicken stock. Using a stick blender, puree the soup until it’s smooth.

Add the salt (to taste) then set the soup over medium-high heat and bring it to a simmer, stirring occasionally.

After 5 minutes, stir in the milk and 2 tablespoons of honey. Taste the soup, adding more salt or honey and pepper to get the desired balance of sweet and savory. Simmer it for 2 minutes more, remove the soup from the heat, and serve it hot. Garnish with sour cream or greek yogurt and enjoy!

If you’ve ever had the torture joy of listening to public radio during a fund drive, you’ll know they like to talk about *driveway moments.* You know, when you’ve reached your driveway but you’re just so wrapped up in the story that you can’t pull yourself away to go into the house. Those radio folks seem to think they happen like DAILY for listeners, but I’m not so convinced–in all of my time listening to public radio I think I’ve had exactly one–for this story in 2005. And I didn’t just stay in my driveway for that one. No, I sat in a parking garage, crying, and missing my grad class. Okay, I’m getting a little teared up now thinking about it.

But now, I can add a second to my list. It was a few Sundays ago and Noel and I were driving home from the gym. It was lunchtime. The Splendid Table was on. Noel and I were both slipping into that post-workout, low blood sugar haze when suddenly, something pulled us out. Lynne Rosetta Casper was going on about a woman who writes for the New York Times and her lusty tastes.

They were chatting, about thrifty mothers and using shrimp shells to make stock. But something about the way they described the process and the final product pulled Noel and I in. We reached our street and parked the car, but neither one of us jumped out to head into the house.

As we listened to Melissa and Lynne–somehow I realized the woman’s name was Melissa–I became totally consumed with the idea of this bisque. They described it as creamy but light, because there was no actual cream in the recipe. And I didn’t even know you could make seafood stock. Then I remembered–I had seen shrimp on sale at the store the day before. I turned to Noel and said “I think I know what we’re having for dinner.” Noel agreed without any discussion–he was under the spell too.

Creamy (But Cream Free!) Shrimp Bisque
Adapted from Melissa Clark, via the Splendid Table

I thought about calling this post Amazing Creamy (But Cream Free!) Shrimp Bisque. Why? Because between the rice and all of the veggies that you add to this soup, it’s amazingly creamy and hearty without giving you that too heavy feeling that you get with a lot of bisques. The shrimp stock and the butter give this soup a rich taste without overwhelming it, and the fennel lends a nice undertone to the flavor. We loved this, and had a big bowl of it for dinner with a generous hunk of whole grain crusty bread.

Ingredients:
1 lb medium or large shrimp, shelled, shells reserved (this is slightly annoying, but worth it in the end)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, more to taste
2/3 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons brandy
3 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
2 celery ribs, chopped
2 large leeks, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 fennel bulb, chopped, fronds reserved for garnish
1/4 cup long-grain rice (I used basmati)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Pinch cayenne
Freshly squeezed lemon juice to taste.

In a stock pot over high heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter then add shrimp shells and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until lightly browned in spots, about 3 minutes. Add wine and brandy and cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid is evaporated. Add 6 cups of water and the thyme and bay leaf and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, strain the liquid into a bowl into a bowl, pressing on the shells before discarding them.

In the same pot, melt another 2 tablespoons butter with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add the peeled shrimp and sauté until they are pink, 2 to 4 minutes depending on size. Transfer the shrimp to a bowl, leaving as much of the cooking butter in the pot as possible.

Add remaining 3 tablespoons of the butter to the pot with the celery, leeks, garlic, and fennel and saute until softened but not yet beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice, tomato paste, cayenne, and remaining salt and sauté for 2 minutes. Add shrimp stock and simmer, covered, until rice is tender, about 20 minutes.

Set aside 4 to 6 nice shrimp and add the remainder into bisque; cook for 2 minutes. Using an immersion blender (or a regular blender if you don’t have a magic stick!) puree soup until it is nice and creamy, or leave it a little chunky if you’d rather. We made our silky smooth. Stir in the fresh squeezed lemon juice and additional salt and pepper to taste. Garnish each bowl with a couple of shrimp and a piece of fennel frond.

And dig in, because at this point you’ve been smelling cooking shrimp for about an hour, so you’re probably craving shrimp like a mad person. This recipe won’t disappoint!

One of the things I like best about food blogging is that it encourages me to try new things. I’ve always loved to cook, but I may not have always been the most adventuresome cook recipe-wise. I tended to find something that worked and then make it over and over and over again until Noel was ready to shout “enough I’m done!”*

But now, I find I’m always looking for a new recipe to try, and to share with you all. But sometimes, I remember something that I used to love and I remember the taste, and I just have to make it again. And that’s the story with this stew.

For a while there, we ate this A LOT. But this year, not so much. Last week though, I just couldn’t get it out of my head. And so I picked up butternut squash at the store, and pulled a can of chickpeas out of the pantry. But then Noel surprised me by picking up saffron threads at the store, an ingredient we had never seen fit to splurge on for all of the previous incarnations of this recipe. They did kick it up just a bit. Everything old is new again!

Chickpea and Butternut Squash Stew
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Although I love Deb and the Smitten Kitchen, there were some things in this recipe that I did not love. Particularly the olives. I really HATE olives. Always have, always will. Still have memories of picking them off of things in my youth, when we would have big old fancy family dinner at Pizza Hut. Yeah, the town I’m from used to be so small that Pizza Hut was considered fine dining. But now they’ve gone all upscale and have a Bob Evans and sushi and stuff. But I diverge. I also have never used the preserved lemons the recipe calls for, mostly because I’ve never tracked them down. If you’re interested in these things, hop on over to SK and check them out!

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, small dice
• 4 medium cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound butternut squash, large dice
• 3/4 pound red potatoes, large dice
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
• 2 cups (1 can) cooked chickpeas, drained
• 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with juices
• Pinch saffron threads (optional–but they are very tasty!)
• Steamed couscous, for serving (directions here and elsewhere on the web)

Directions:

Heat butter and olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. When oil shimmers, add onion, garlic, cumin, and cinnamon, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until spices are aromatic and onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add squash and potatoes, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, stir to coat, and cook until just tender, about 3 minutes. Add broth, chickpeas, tomatoes and their juices, and saffron, if using. Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer until squash is fork tender, about 10 minutes. It won’t seem like everything can cook this fast, but the steam produced with the lid on does wonders to cook the potatoes and squash–so no peaking!

Serve over couscous. Add a bit of hot sauce if you’re feeling adventuresome!

*for anyone else who has Disney show tunes in their head–I do not sing Noel off to sleep as he digests after he shouts “enough I’m done!”

So, is it cold enough out there for you? If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, chances are your answer to that question is yes! Because here we are, a week and a half into the year, and it’s freezing! Literally. I’m not sure we’ve really made it above freezing so far this year. Our cats are looking for warm places to hide (like on top of laptops) and we’re looking for indoor fun to keep warm (thus the reason I’ve been to the movies twice, TWICE! already this year).

Luckily, cold weather calls for warm comfort foods, and they just happen to be some of my favorites. Soups, stews, chillis–they’re all my friends, especially when the mercury can’t make it out of the 20s and the wind just makes it worse. So last weekend, as we were looking for a dinner to warm us up while keeping with our resolution to eat slightly better now that we’re past the holidays, we decided to try out a chicken and wild rice soup recipe that was loaded with veggies and winter warmth. And it went into the crockpot–so it would cook for us while we settled up on another of those resolutions, re-engaging our gym routine!

The recipe called for all of the traditional trimmings of chicken noodle soup–carrots, celery, onions–but added a bit of a twist with the addition of mushrooms and wild rice. The mushrooms allow you to use just a little bit of chicken, but still get a fantastic satisfying meal. You could also leave the chicken out and use veggie stock to easily get a good vegetarian meal. Perfect for a cold night in.

Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Adapted from Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever

If this recipe isn’t comfort food in a crock pot, I don’t know what is. This soup is fantastic the day it is made, and good for several days after. If you reheat it on the stove you may want to add some additional water as you reheat, since the rice will continue to soak it up. We found that some fantastic homemade Parker House rolls were the perfect compliment to this meal!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 medium carrots, chopped
• 4 medium stalks of celery, with leaves, chopped
• 1 pound cremini mushrooms, cut into slices
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried sage, crushed in your hand
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 8 cups chicken broth
• 3 cups cooked chicken
• 2 cups wild rice
• 1 cup cream or milk (we used skim)

Directions:

Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Add the onion, carrots, and celery and saute until the veggies are softened, about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms, thyme, and sage to the pan and season with salt and pepper.

Transfer the contents of the skillet to the insert of a slow cooker. Stir in the chicken broth, chicken, and wild rice.

Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours, until the wild rice is tender and the soup is thickened.

Stir in the cream or milk, and serve the soup.

A big of bowl of comfort, to help you get through this deep winter freeze!

Noel and I have a running disagreement about winter squash. I love it. I think its gentle sweetness is comforting as the days get cooler, and it hits my need to satisfy my sweet tooth without added sugar. Noel, on the other hand, does not enjoy the sweet. He prefers his vegetables savory, and his sweet with dessert.

But when the fall rolls around, neither one of us can resist the piles of winter squash at the farmer’s market. Especially when they reach their peak and the ridiculous deals abound–6 acorn squash for $5?–we are all OVER that.

What to do with all that squash though? Well, it seemed like a good project for some internet research–finding savory winter squash recipes without sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, or anything else that could give a hint of added sweetness. After some patient searching and many, many websites, I found what I thought was the solution–a soup that was savory with caramelized squash and brown butter but came with a (optional) sweet topping that could be loaded with fall spice. Dinner where both Noel and I are satisfied–score!

Acorn Squash Soup With Brown Butter and Maple Yogurt
Inspired by Serious Eats

When I first found this recipe at Serious Eats, I loved the idea of using brown butter to draw out the flavor of squash roasted in the oven. But as I got into the middle of this recipe, I realized it was not going to make the type of soup I wanted (creamy, smooth, but not super thick) without some serious alterations, because if I followed the directions, I was going to end up with something like squash-mash. So some quick thinking led to the addition of 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock to the original ingredients list. The extra liquid, along with some extra puree action, made this into the soup I was dreaming of. I also changed around the milk products a bit, using only 1/2 cup of heavy cream and 1 cup of skim milk. Don’t skip the yogurt topping, because it’s what really makes this soup pop.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium acorn squash, halved, seeds removed
• vegetable oil
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup skim milk
• 1 1/2 cup chicken stock
• Salt and Pepper
• 1/2 cup thick (Greek-style) yogurt or creme fraiche
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• Allspice

Directions:

1. Rub the squash with a bit of vegetable oil and bake on a sheetpan at 400°F until fully tender and the flesh is quite browned and caramelized. Scoop out the flesh and discard the skin.
2. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt the butter over very low heat. Allow to cook slowly, stirring occasionally, until the butter starts to brown and has a delicious, nutty smell. Allow to cool.
3. In a blender or food processor or using an immersion blender (this is what I did), puree the squash with the brown butter, cream, milk, chicken stock, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Blend until the soup is really smooth
4. Taste and adjust, adding salt and pepper as needed. I also added a few shakes of allspice at this point.
5. Combine the yogurt and maple syrup along with 1/8 teaspoon of allspice.
6. Serve in cups or bowls, garnished with a dollop of the maple yogurt.

Like I said, we all really enjoyed this soup. The brown butter gives the squash a distinctive savory taste in this creamy soup, but the maple yogurt gives it just a touch of sweet. The sweet and the savory tooth are both happy. And it’s a nice change up on your traditional preparations of winter squash.

Now that we are officially in fall–both on the calendar and by the weather–it’s time to break out the fall and winter foods. And what’s my favorite fall/winter food? Soup. Okay, maybe “break out” and “favorite fall/winter food” aren’t fair terms, since I’m really a person who loves soup and eats it all year round. Maybe it’s really “resume making it at home” once it’s no longer ridiculously hot and humid, instead of buying those tasty little containers of soup at Whole Foods.

As soon as the leeks started showing up at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago, I started bugging Noel about making soup. He held me off for a week or so–I mean he did have a point about it still being 80+ degrees and all–but soon he relented. The leeks were just too perfect to pass up. And we had all of those potatoes from our CSA to use.

There was only one choice and we were ready to pull out the potato peeler and the immersion blender and get to work!

Potato Leek Soup
Adapted from Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food

Being a soup lover, I’ve made a lot of soup in my days. But potato leek is the one I always come back to–it was the first soup Noel and I ever made together, from scratch, and there is something about it that just fills me up like no other soup I’ve found. It’s satisfying but simple, and oh so easy for a soup beginner to start on. You can easily adapt this recipe to make it heartier (try using chicken stock instead of water) or to add meat (bacon is delicious). I feel like this is the soup that launched a thousand soups–at least in our house.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds leeks, trimmed, cut in half lengthwise, and sliced thin
• 3 tablespoons butter
• salt and pepper
• 1 pound yellow potatoes, peeled, halved, and quartered
• 6 cups water
• 1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions:

Thoroughly rinse the leeks in cold water. Melt the butter in a large stockpot over medium heat. Once the butter is melted, add leeks, salt, and pepper. Cook until leeks are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the prepared potatoes. Cook for 4 minutes. Then add 6 cups of water and bring to boil. After the mixture begins to boil, reduce to a simmer.

Cook until vegetables are tender, but not falling apart, about 30 minutes. When done allow soup mixture to cool slightly before using an immersion blender or food processor to puree potatoes and leeks. After mixture is smooth, add 1/3 cup cream and heat soup until it reaches the desired serving temperature. Garnish with salt and pepper before serving. Make sure you have plenty of crusty bread on hand to soak up the goodness.

Even there are only two of us, we always make a whole pot of this and save the leftovers for subsequent dinners. It always brightens my day to know that a bowl of this soup is waiting for me after work.