Recipe: Winter Squash Apple Soup

We recently bought a half-bushel of Jonathan apples from the market.  We were told that they were quite similar to the Ambrosia apples that we had been devouring the week before.  Sadly while the flavor was similar the skin and the texture of the flesh was not nearly as nice.  So we were a little unsure of what to do with them all.  

We made an always tasty apple crisp, using Oh She Glows’ Mother Nature’s Apple Crumble, as well as more Winter de Gallo Salsa, but were still searching for a good idea of what to do with them.  The search brought us to The Ontario Apple Growers website where we found the idea for a soup.

Their recipe features sweet potatoes but we decided to substitute a winter squash. *Digression*

Why does everyone share winter squash recipes in the fall?  Now is the time when we need to be eating the appropriately named winter squash!  After a nice long time sitting in the cellar or pantry the squash have increased in sweetness and flavor and their beautiful sunset colors remind us of the wonderful summer that we hope will one day return!

Our recipe ended up combining elements of that recipe with a Martha Stewart recipe (yes, for some reason Martha keeps coming through for us!).  

The final result was a soup that was both sweet and savory.  The garnish of spiced nuts (walnuts or heartnuts) and diced apples gave the soup some pizzazz and excitement while the base was pure creaminess.  

Winter Squash Apple Soup

• 1 winter squash (about 2 pounds), peeled, seeded, and chopped
• 1 tbsp. butter or oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped, plus 1 extra apple, diced and tossed in lemon juice, for a garnish
• 2 tsp. coarse salt
• 1 1/2 tsp.ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp.ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp.ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• 2 cups homemade or store-bought vegetable stock
• 2 1/2 cups water, plus more if needed

Spicy Nuts Garnish

• 1 cup walnuts or heartnuts, in large pieces, for a garnish
• 1 tbsp. butter or butter substitute
• ½ tsp. thyme
• ¼ tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. cayenne
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400F. Roast the squash for 30-45 minutes, until it is fragrant and beginning to turn brown on the edges.  

Melt the butter in a large pot or Dutch oven and add the onions.  Fry the onions for 4-5 minutes then add the roasted squash, apples, salt, cumin, coriander, ginger, pepper, vegetable stock, and water.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the apples are soft.  

Puree using an immersion blender or in batches in a food processor.  Add extra water if the soup is too thick, then serve.

While the soup is simmering make the spiced nuts.  Melt the second tablespoon of butter in a frying pan, then add the nuts, thyme, cinnamon, cayenne, salt, and pepper.  Fry, stirring frequently until very fragrant and the nuts are beginning to brown on their edges.  

Serve the soup with the spicy nuts and diced apple for garnishes.  

Black & White Bean Butternut Chili - Featuring Celeriac

Recipes abound for Black Bean Butternut Chili, but rarely do you see celeriac in chili.  Come to think of it you rarely see any recipes for celeriac.  

So I figured why not just throw my celeriac in the chili I was already planning to make?  And hey, it turned out awesome!  Turns out celeriac is pretty easy going and adapts well to new situations.  I’m going to keep on adding it to things I already make since it’s abundantly available through much of the winter here!  And the white beans in the chili?  I wanted to be able to call the chili blacKWhite chili and honour our two cities.  However, it makes for an awkward name so I just made an even more awkward long name as seen below.

Black and White Bean Butternut Chili featuring Celeriac

·        1 cup each dried black and white beans (or other), cooked until just soft (you can also use canned beans)

·        3-4 onions, diced

·        1-2 cups frozen chopped sweet/bell peppers

·        3-5 cloves garlic, minced

·        1-2 Tbs. oil

·        1 butternut or other winter squash, peeled, seeded, and diced

·        ½ large celeriac, peeled and diced

·        2 litres canned tomatoes

·        1-2 Tbs. chili powder

·        1-2 tsp. cumin

·        ½ tsp. cayenne or crushed red peppers

·        Salt and pepper

·        (optional) 1 cube vegetable bullion

Cook the beans (this may take a while…).  While the beans are cooking prepare the rest of the veggies.  Heat oil in a pan and fry the onions, peppers and garlic for 5 minutes.  Drain the beans and add everything to a slow cooker or large pot and simmer for 3-4 hours, or until the squash and celeriac are soft.  Adjust seasoning to your liking (or in my case hold back on the heat and add hot sauce to my own serving).  Top with shredded cheese and yogurt (or sour cream or La Vaquita Crema) and serve with local tortilla chips (or whatever you like!).

This makes a pretty large amount—it completely filled our large slow cooker and left our family with leftovers for lunch and the freezer. 

Guest Recipe Post by Jon Spee

The Local Kitchener

Pumpkin Sweet Potato Swirl Bread

Dough:

• 1 cup sweet potato puree
• 1 cup pumpkin or winter squash puree
• 2-6 Tbs. butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups whole grain flour
• 1 ½ - 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. instant yeast*
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• ½ tsp. nutmeg
• ½ tsp. allspice
• ½ tsp. ground cloves

Swirl:

• ¼ - ½ cup sugar
• 2-4 Tbs. cinnamon
• Raisins or dried cranberries (optional) – OR – cranberry sauce, about ½ cup

This makes great use of leftover pureed squash and sweet potatoes, but if you don’t have those you need to cook them.  It’s easy to microwave one sweet potato, which should be sufficient for this recipe.  Poke holes all over the sweet potato with a fork, microwave for 4 minutes, check for softness, cook longer if needed, cool, and scoop out the insides with a spoon and mash with a fork.  For the pumpkin or squash, chop in half, scoop out seeds and strings, flip each side over on an oiled baking sheet, bake at 400 until soft, about 45 minutes (this varies quite a bit depending on your choice of squash/pumpkin.  Allow to cool, scoop out flesh with a spoon, and mash with a fork. 

Combine the pumpkin and sweet potato with the wet ingredients, followed by the whole wheat flour.  Stir for 1 minute, making sure everything is well combined.  Add the yeast and add the all-purpose flour in small amounts until the dough becomes difficult to stir but is still sticky (you may not use all the flour).  Add the salt and spices and stir to incorporate.  Allow the dough to sit for 5 minutes.  Using wet hands knead the dough.  If it is still very sticky you can add more flour (but it’s okay to have a wet sticky dough because the moisture will help give the dough a better spring in the oven).  Allow the dough to sit for about 30 minutes, then, using wet hands, stretch the dough by grabbing under one side of the dough and pulling it up and over the dough.  This is called a “stretch and fold.”  Do this 4 times, once for each side of the dough, always folding it back over itself.  Wet your hands again and form the dough into a ball (as best as you can).  Cover, and allow to rise until roughly doubled in size, 1-2 hours (depending on house temperature and amount of yeast used).  If using raisins/cranberries, soak them in a cup of water so they don’t dry out when baked.

Lightly flour a counter and roll or stretch the dough out until it is about 6 inches wide and 12-18 inches long (longer stretch = more swirl).  Spread the cranberry sauce on the dough if you’re using it, and mix together the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle generously on top of the dough.  Add the wet raisins/cranberries if you’re using them.  Roll the dough tightly (I like to mist the dough with a spray bottle of water as I do this to help the cinnamon sugar stick to the dough).  Place the dough in a greased bread loaf pan (or cut it into two halves and place in two small bread pans).  Dust the top with more cinnamon sugar if you like.  Cover and allow to rise until doubled again in size, 1-2 hours.  Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes (it will cook a little faster in smaller loaf pans).  If you’re unsure about when a bread is done you can check with a thermometer, which should read above 200 F when the bread is finished and should come out without any sticky dough stuck to it.  Allow the bread to cool fully before slicing.  Enjoy.

PS.  This bread makes amazing egg-in-the-whole as well as grilled cheese.  

*If using dry active yeast follow instructions given on package.  You can up the yeast to 2 tsp. for a faster rise.  I find that the smaller quantity of yeast allows for more flavour development but it also means a slower rise. 

 Guest Recipe Post by Jon Spee

The Local Kitchener

This recipe is a very loose adaptation of the 2:2:2 Bread.

For the love of Squash

I am a huge fan of Pumpkin seeds.  So much so that this evening I roasted my first squash of the year. It was a squash called "A Heart of Gold" grown at Lena and Ervin Horst's farm.  I was delicious roasted with some butter, maple syrup, salt and pepper.

Photo Courtesy of mnlocavore.com 

I saw the seeds and couldn't resist.  I rinsed them off and spread them on the baking sheet sprinkled some salt and was eating roasted squash seeds with in 20 mins.  

Kingwood farms has three new organic squash harvested this week:

Kakai Hulless Pumpkin

Photo Courtesy of: highmowingseeds.com

Hulless seeds for snacking! Endearing Japanese pumpkin with orange and green striped markings and large raised ribs. Creates a beautiful display, but is most valued for hull-less seeds which make a scrumptious snack. Kakai seeds are highly nutritious and yield a valuable oil that is used to promote prostate health in men.

Long Pie Pumpkin

Photo Courtesy of: highmowingseeds.com

If you are looking for a standard round pumpkin, then Long Pie is not for you. But if you want the best pie pumpkin for cooking, then put down your food mill and get ready to scoop out virtually stringless, smooth and brilliant orange meat! Long Pie averages 5-8 lbs. In storage it will ripen further and turn completely orange outside and get even better inside. Great keeper. Also known as Nantucket Pie

Pink Heritage Pie Pumpkin
Unfortunately the true name of this pumpkin is unknown.  

Here is the note Debbie gave us:

This seed was given to me several years ago from a friend who only used this variety of pumpkin for her pies.  We have been enjoying it since, lots of meat in the pumpkin, unfortunately I don’t know the correct name, maybe someone recognizes it and would let me know.

I can't wait to try some of these.  I hope you do too.

Maryrose