Soup season is almost upon us! Chances are it will be upon you much sooner than it is upon me. It stays hot here in California’s Central Valley through October. But I try not to think about it.
The point is I want you to be prepared. I’ve made a lot of soup recipes over the years. So many that I thought I’d pull some of my favorites together so that you can easily access them.
Continue Reading…This is the absolute simplest way to make butternut squash soup if you want a version that is full of slow-roasted flavor and more savory than sweet.
I thought I was tired of butternut squash soups. Maybe you are, too. I’ve had quite a few winter squash soups on the blog. But I needed something really simple for lunch. I felt a little bad that the season for the soup had just begun and I’d already hit my limit. I thought I should give it another try.
The catch was that I didn’t want to do any chopping or dicing. I also didn’t want to pour one out of a tetra pak and heat it up. And it couldn’t be too sweet. I think that is sort of the turn-off with squash soups. When other ingredients like apple, onion, and dairy are added, they tend to end up super sweet. It has its place, but I wasn’t in the mood for it.
So I came up with this version. No frills. It uses slow-roasted squash (see the easy instructions below), and it is creamy, savory and a touch spicy versus sweet. It’s the soup to add as a starter course for a holiday day dinner because it’s so hands off and easy to make.
I wasn’t lying when I said I was in a soup mood. This particular soup resulted from an experiment. I had four fairly large red potatoes on the counter for a few days and I kept thinking – I bet I could make that into a soup in the Instant Pot.
I finally jumped in and took a chance. With great results, I might add. I wanted a creamy soup, pureed. But I didn’t want to add any cream or milk to it. Immersion blender to the rescue.
This black bean bison chili is made in the Instant Pot with layers of several seasonings for a rich flavor. It’s served with a garnish of crumbled aged white cheddar.
It wasn’t my intention to post three soups in a row, but it looks like that is how it’s going to turn out. I don’t know why this soup mood has suddenly come over me.
But I do know that every first pot of chili for the season is a bit of a celebration around here. At least in my kitchen, and well, in my head.
I present this year’s, compiled of black beans that had been sitting in the pantry and needed to be used up, and ground bison that I had in the freezer, leftover from a client shoot a few months ago.
Fall starts on September 1 for me. I’m not at all concerned about what a calendar developed years ago tells me. I’m not waiting several more weeks to embrace the season.
I know you are saying – I’m not ready, I love summer, it’s still hot. Believe me, it’s not lost on me. It’s 99 here.
Fall is a state of mind. And if you are a fall baby, like I am, you are enjoying fall in your head weeks before everyone else catches up.
Another factor is that all the delicious fall things have started to show up around here. Namely, winter squash.
I’m headed back to Indiana soon to visit family and that always brings one vegetable to mind…corn.
Fresh sweet corn is my second favorite summer vegetable after heirloom tomatoes. I’ll admit I have pretty high standards for it, too. We grew up eating it straight from the garden so I know a good ear of corn. The kernels burst in your mouth with each bite. If there is even the slightest hint of chewiness, it’s past its prime.
Since one can only eat so many ears of corn on the cob this time of year, I’ve come up with many recipes that use fresh corn cut off the cob. These are a few of my favorites to enjoy every summer from soups to salads to relishes!
A simple meal, this spinach garlic, and tahini soup is pureed in a blender before being simmered, then served.
I was checking out at the supermarket the other day when the conversation turned to the food I was buying. This happens all the time. It usually starts with a comment about me cooking or eating healthy foods.
Comments like these don’t make me proud of myself or happy. As a former health professional, they always sadden me a bit. That’s because they mean that the foods in my cart stand out to the cashier as being very different from the foods the majority of other people are buying.
But this conversation went a step further to a comment I had yet to hear.
We have lemons this year!
It’s been a while. The dwarf Meyer lemon tree I bought at the farmers market in the Bay almost 5 years ago has been through a lot. Pots on a balcony then in a backyard, mild Bay temps, hot Central Valley temps…
But it’s been in the ground for at least a year now, and it seems happy. If you can define happy by about 40 lemons.
I always pass those multi-bean mixes when I’m perusing the bulk bin section at the supermarket. I’m tempted to buy them, but then I wonder how all those different varieties will cook together. I make enough beans and lentils to know that cooking times and textures vary.
Honestly, it’s taken me a long time to figure it all out and keep track of what results in the perfect bean in my book. No reason to ruin the good thing I’ve got going.
But last week, there I was again, staring at the mother of all bean mixes – 13 bean and lentil mix.
I know what you might be thinking. Another butternut squash soup recipe? Aren’t there enough of those?
Honestly, I was thinking the same then when I started making this.
I love winter squash soup this time of year, but I’ll be the first to admit that I get bored of the flavor. I stepped it up by adding scotch bonnet pepper a long while back, but I wasn’t in the mood for that. I also didn’t want it to become sweet. Savory butternut squash soups are the best, in my opinion.
I finally settled on brown butter.
