Week 2 (Mel): Tortilla and Butternut Squash Soup

I SO happily received a copy of New England Soup Factory's cookbook for Christmas last year but (probably because I have too many cookbooks) hadn't made anything from it until this week. Scott and I both thought this particular recipe looked delicious so I gave it a try.

I had some time Monday morning so I decided to go all out, Rachael Ray style. I bought my groceries AND prepped the vegetables when I got home from the market. When I got home from work, I opened the fridge, grabbed everything I needed in one trip without dropping anything (just kidding), and started cooking it up. It smelled *really* good. I loved that there was cheese, cilantro, and lime juice in the soup. And scallions!!! Mmmm!!! In the end, I liked it, and even had two bowls. There's so much left over though and it was also just so different that it's not something I'm craving more of. Scott didn't like it at all, so now neither of us are going to eat the left-overs. I'm still glad I tried it. As you'll see below, it calls for 8oz of tortilla chips. I bought baked tortilla chips, feeling guilty about the calories, and 7oz ended up being a whole bag! I guess I wasn't expecting that. So maybe if I had used a better-tasting chip the overall soup would've been better, but I still don't know. Also, I don't think the flavor of the butternut squash was at pungent as I thought it would be, given it's in the title and all. Maybe make half the recipe yourself if you want to give it a try (though you probably don't if you're reading any of this!) because I'd be interesting in getting someone else's opinion on it. It stinks though, because it's a recipe from one of my favorite restaurants. Their soups never disappoint me! Eh, anyway, here you go:

Tortilla and Butternut Squash Soup
Makes 12 to 14 servings

3 Tbs. salted butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups diced onion
3 carrots, sliced
3 ribs celery, sliced
1 lb butternut squash, peeled and diced
12 cups chicken stock (I used veg. of course)
1 cup sherry
8 oz. salted tortilla chips
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
2 cups shredded Montery Jack cheese
1 can (4oz) diced green chilies
1 bunch scallions, sliced
2 Tbs. freshly squeezed lime juice
8 dashes green Tabasco sauce (I used red)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

In a large stockpot melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onions, carrots, celery, and butternut squash. Saute for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the stock and sherry. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the squash is soft and tender, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the tortilla chips until wilted. Add the cilantro and cheese and let the cheese melt into the soup. Puree the soup in the pot using a hand blender or working in batches with a regular blender until completely smooth. Add the chilies and scallions. Stir to combine. Season with lime juice, Tabasco sauce, and black pepper. Return to the stove and summer an additional 5 minutes.

The I-have-no-food-but-I-want-soup Soup

Let me first apologize on behalf of ALL of us for being completely MIA for what, a month and a half now? That's just awful! It's time to get back into the swing of things.

You know when you need to eat, have no food, and don't want to go get groceries? I'm guessing this happens to all three of us here at BIFL (that's funny) and maybe to some of you readers -- all two of you. Here's what I came up with for dinner tonight. . .

I knew I wanted soup, but I didn't have much around the house. I had two medium tomatoes from a neighbor's garden that were getting a little soft, so putting them in a salad wasn't really going to happen. They had to be used, so here's what I did. I heated a little olive oil in a frying pan, cut the tomatoes up, and sauted them with salt and pepper. I let them go for maybe five or ten minutes, then started to crush the tomatoes with the back of my wooden spoon. I then added a big clove of chopped garlic and let it cook for a couple more minutes. At this point, it was more of a simmer because of all the tomato juice. I then pureed it in my mini food processor. (You could just use this as a delicious pasta sauce and maybe just add some basil and/or oregano!)

In a medium-large-ish saucepan (I started with a 3-quart but then it wasn't big enough and I had to transfer) I sauteed half of a large red onion in some olive oil. I let it go for five minutes or so, then added two cloves of chopped garlic. I then added about eight cups of hot water, the tomato mixture, and brought it to a boil. While waiting for it to boil, I added six teaspoons of Better Than Bullion vegetable paste (and two teaspoons of BTB mushroom paste because I ran out of the vegetable) and a bunch of dried basil. Looking at the onions float around, I decided they were lonely and needed another vegetable to keep them company. So I added some frozen peas to the now boiling soup, because you know I have tons of those in my freezer. That brought the temperature of the soup down for a bit, so when it came back to a boil again, I added some of that tiny star-shaped pasta. (I bought that as a mistake because someone decided to put it right behind a crumbled box of orzo at Shaws). I cooked the soup for another five minutes, and it was good. . . but a little salty. I luckily had some milk in the fridge, so I added a bunch of that, and the problem was seemingly fixed. So there you go.

I heart soup.

Updatey

1) Cardamom in my coffee is where it's at, hot or cold. I loooooooooove the flavor!

2) Something else I tried recently is cold-brewed coffee. Have you ever tried this? You've got to, especially if you're interested in making your own iced coffee. Even if you don't like iced coffee, you can still use the cold-brew method. You can look for the article in the NYTimes that was published last year, but the premise is to brew the coffee overnight, or 12 hours, in cold water, at double the strength. I love the coffee brewed this way, it just has a different taste than the traditional hot water method; and again, I tried it with the cardamom and the flavor is even more pronounced (but still subtle, if you can believe it). I LOVE IT. It's not Morocco, but it'll do for now.

3) I made a curried spinach and pea soup with the pound of peas that was dying a slow death in my freezer. I love me a good curry, but this soup was disappointingly disgusting for too many reasons to list here. It's not really soup season anyway, but that doesn't matter; I wouldn't have liked this soup in the dead of winter, either. I will not be buying peas again in the foreseeable future.