Souped Up

The past fall has been all about soups for me. Somehow, I seem to have come into my own, inventing soups without looking at a cookbook and finding that I'm finally experienced enough that I can usually predict how something will taste by the ingredients I feel like putting in.

This soup is a good example, a riff on another squash soup that I made this season. I had found two of the prettiest little butternut squashes at a local market where they were also selling d'Anjou pears. The combination just sounded right to me, so I bought both.

After halving, de-seeding and roasting the butternuts in a 350 degree oven for about half an hour, I sautéed half a large onion in a combination of butter and bacon drippings, about a tablespoon of each, then added oregano from my pot garden until the aroma of onion and fresh oregano threatened to send me into ecstasy.

Added chicken stock, the flesh from the butternuts and three peeled and cored pears - and simmered until everything was soft and giving up its flavor, about 20 minutes. Puréed in the blender, topped with a dollop of creme fraîche and a sprig of the oregano, it made a lovely first course for our New Year's Eve dinner.

Kabocha vs. butternut. Thyme vs. oregano. These small changes make for quite different soups, even though all the ingredients are from similar plant families. The kabocha-pear-thyme soup was herbal and sustaining - it tasted downright healthy. The butternut-pear-oregano soup was nearly sweet and very mellow, seeming indulgent and luxurious.

Both were just what I imagined they would taste like when I started making the soups. There's something very satisfying and liberating about feeling free to throw into the pot whatever I feel might taste good together and being pretty sure it will be a hit.

Salt and Pepper Soup

Here in northern California, we usually don't see rain from late March to late October. Brides can confidently plan garden weddings and barbecues are safe from washouts. I forget the actual count, but the San Francisco Giants can count on two hands the total number of rained out home games since they moved here from New York in the 1950s. So, why am I talking about hot soup in what should rightly be our sunniest, hottest month? Well, go figure - we've had rain for the past two days.

Low pressure weather systems tend to mellow me out. I get sleepy and want to snuggle back under the covers in the morning. My afternoon naps lengthen. Energy being low, I also look for easy dinners. Rooting around in the lowest drawer of my freezer, I discovered some butternut squash soup that I squirreled away back when the rains stopped sometime in March.

It seemed a little dull all by itself, although it was layered with the flavor of leeks and corned beef stock, so I decided to add a couple of ears of fresh corn to it and, in a moment of inspired creativity, the rest of a package of spicy salami that had languished in the fridge since the pizza party last weekend. I cut the corn from the cob and made little triangles out of the salami circles and dropped both into the soup for the last five minutes of heating, ladled it into bowls and rang the dinner bell.

The corn added sweetness and a light crunch, the salami contributed both salt and peppery liveliness, plus just a little richness from the fat in the meat. My Beloved finished his bowl in a single inhale, then looked to see if there was more in the pot. There was. Almost enough to make us NOCAs look forward the rains.

Snatches Of Soup

"...and she makes hers with leeks. It's the best!"

Sometimes, I catch a snatch of conversation like that at a party; when I do, I have to search out the person who said it, and find out what they were talking about. This is the way I always found great recipes before the advent of food blogs.

This time, it was my pal Sari at a dinner with friends, describing her mother's butternut squash soup. She went on to tell me that her mother sautes the leeks in butter and roasts the squash in the oven before adding water to simmer until it's ready to puree. Sounded good and I already had leeks in the fridge, so the next time I was at the store I scored a butternut.

Having only the sketchiest idea of how Sari's Mom made her soup, I started with the part I knew - halve the butternut, place it face down on a baking sheet and bake it until soft and saute' the white and light green parts of three small washed leeks in a little butter. A few days ago, I read Cookiecrumb's March 11th piece about using cooking waters and, since I had some left over from simmering our St. Patrick's Day corned beef, I defatted and strained it, adding it in place of the water in the soup. The result was lightly salty and gently flavored with notes from all three - the corned beef, the roasted squash and the leeks. I thought it could be improved by adding yogurt so I tried that, three nice big tablespoons full of European style, and some cracked black pepper and a few crunchy garlic croutons for garnish and texture. Success!

Experiencing a brief return to chilly winter weather last Sunday, it was the perfect entree. My Beloved and I sat down to a steaming bowl of Snatched Soup and toasted Sari's Mom with our first spoonful.

Inspired Addition

After an emotionally draining morning closing My Beloved's mother's apartment, he treated me to lunch in tiny Chester, CT at the River Tavern. Chester has changed from the blue collar mill town of my girlhood, where the now-defunct Otto's was the local eatery serving plate-sized, thin-cut steaks for a song, to a weekend getaway town for New York celebs such as Morely Safer. The food at the River Tavern is far more sophisticated than Otto's was, but I enjoyed each in its own way.

As it was a cold, cloudy, raw winter day, I ordered the butternut squash soup as soon as we arrived and was agreeably surprised when it arrived at the table almost immediately.

The soup was lovely. There was a little spicy heat to the mellowness of the squash - I don't know what the chef added but it was perfect - and it was garnished with one-inch squares of bacon (we've already established that bacon improves everything), a sprinkling of cilantro and a drizzle of truffle oil, all laudable additions, but what really set it apart was the grating of Grand Padano cheese in the center of the bowl.

Grand Padano is similar to Parmesan cheese, but a little rounder and richer. It's savoriness added an unexpected note in a familiar dish and raised it above the ordinary. I would not have thought to add cheese to butternut squash soup, but I'm glad the chef did. A great warmer for a cold, sad day.

Happy New Year! Aren't you glad 2008 is gone? I am!

I Made a Hash of It

Home from Boston and Connecticut after a seemingly endless flight, a smooth connection to BART and the world's gentlest taxi driver, I peeked into the fridge to find out what, if anything, had survived our ten-day absence. The cold cuts - definitely not! Into the trash! We did have three shallots, half a red onion, garlic and the stub of a butternut squash, plus whole wheat bread and eggs so I decided to play around with those and the Swiss chard leaves I found still thriving in the garden.

I made a hash of it.

I chopped the red onion coarsely, peeled and halved the shallots, minced the garlic and cooked those in a combination of olive oil and butter, adding the diced squash and cooking the whole mess for about 20 minutes, until the squash softened and browned a little. When the squash was just tender, I added the chard leaves, leaving the small ones whole and coarsely chopping the larger ones, popped on a lid and steamed the chard while the eggs were poaching and the toast was toasting.

The result was one of the best dinners I have made, the sweet onions and squash complementing the slightly bitter greens with the eggs adding their richness to the whole dish. I'm making it again tonight and this time I'll add some fresh thyme* from the garden and some black pepper but even plain it made a great accompaniment to hashing over our East Coast visit.

*Note: the thyme made all the difference - it lifted the dish from yummy to eye-rolling delicious. Don't forget the thyme!

Autumn Colors

I do wish that the colors of these shallots and butternut wedges would survive the roasting! What a glorious fall palette they make before the oven turns them both to a nutty golden brown. Not that I don't like golden brown, you understand, but just look at this riot of purple and orange! Fantastic!

The dish I made with these was delicious but not nearly as pretty as the originals. I added to the stuff in this picture a light glaze of olive oil, a sprinkling of dried thyme, a generous grind of fresh pepper, a glug of apple cider and a handful or two of mixed nuts.

Mixed nuts?

Yes, each time My Beloved goes down to Fres-yes on business, he stops at Pistachio Heaven and picks us up some locally grown nuts. We started this tradition in our early days together when we drove down to Fresno in the heat of the summer to see an exhibit of Russian art treasures in the local museum and were amused by the Burma-Shave style billboards that lured us in. The show was terrific and so were the nuts, despite the 100+ degree heat. We love these valley towns.

In addition to the pistachios, he also brings bags of mixed nuts and, somehow, they seemed just right for the dish. In retrospect, I'd have used salted nuts or added more salt to the pan, but all in all I was pleased with the result. I didn't even peel the butternut - a trick I learned from Jamie Oliver - and there was no need to, roasting turns the skin soft and barely chewy. Roasted in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes, everything came together in a sweet-savory side dish for our pork chops.

It was all shades of golden and dark brown; luckily, brown tastes better than orange-and-purple. Pretty is as pretty does when it comes to autumn colors.