Butternut squash and kale soup

Have barely cooked all week so I still have a fridge full of food. On Wednesday I took the time to peel and chop a butternut squash. This was a good use of time. I was able to quickly prepare one serving for lunch on Friday and two servings for dinner on Friday by microwaving for 3 minutes then mashing with cinnamon.

The whole reason I prepared the squash was to make soup with the kale.

Butternut squash and kale soup
2 large tomatoes, cut into quarters,
1 leek, sliced in half lengthwise, almost to tip, but keep intact
1/4 onion, cut in half
6 garlic cloves whole,
2 1/2 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into cubes
3 carrots, peeled and cut into 4-5 pieces
Celery root, peeled and cut into chunks
1 Yukon potato
Olive oil for roasting
6-8 cups chicken stock
3 leaves crinkle kale, cut into small pieces
1 bay leaf
3 sprigs thyme
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed
1 can kidney beans, rinsed

I brushed a jelly roll pan with olive oil, added my vegetables and then add more oil to the vegetables and stirred it around. Maybe a real roasting pan would have been a better choice... easier to stir. Stir a couple times while cooking.

Vegetables roasted at 400degrees for 30minutes, until tender.

I put 5 cups chicken broth in my Dutch oven with the thyme and bay leaf. Brought to a boil.

Picked through the roasted vegetables. Put the onion, garlic without the peel, and tomato into my blender and blended until smooth.

The rest of the vegetables I transferred to the cutting board and sliced into smaller pieces. Maybe I should have roasted them as small pieces, so I didn't have to cut them again while hot. As it was I still had big chunks of vegetables.

I put everything in with the kale and stock, then added the beans. I then added a couple turns of the salt grinders and peppercorn grinder. My stock was low sodium, so not a lot of salt except for what I added.

I simmered this for 15 minutes.

Served hot with crusty French roll. Yum!

Bert liked the soup fine. I thought it was still kind of bland. In my second helping I added some curry powder, and that helped. I like curry flavor. Also need to figure out the right size for the vegetable cut.

Stuffed winter squash

We made stuffed winter squash last night.
Recipe was provided by Stillman's Farm, but they haven't posted the recipe yet.

Yummy squash recipe (makes 4 large servings)
1 winter squash (I used carnival, provided by CSA)
1 small onion
2/3cup apple juice
1/4 cup dried currants
1 tablespoon curry
2 apples, pared, cored, diced (I used Jonamacs which I had on hand, the original recipe calls for Granny Smith).

Soften the onion in a 1 tablespoon of butter. Then add curry, stir for about a minute. Then add currants, apples, and juice. Salt to taste. Stir until liquid is absorbed.

I cut squash into quarters and cleaned out the seeds. The recipe calls for acorn squash, sliced into 1inch rounds. Slicing winter squash into that many pieces sounded dangerous, so I stuck with quarters. Placed these into a 9x13 baking pan with some water in the bottom.

Spooned the apple mixture into the quarters. Covered with foil. Baked for one hour at 350degrees.

By this time, we were starving and ate something different for dinner, so I scooped out the squash into a casserole dish and saved it for later.

When I reheated my portion the next day, I added a little more butter which helped smooth out some of the acidity. Bert added cinnamon to his quarter and really liked it that way.

I figure about 30g of carb per quarter.