Sometimes people make judgments about food when they haven’t tasted it. Like I have in some parts of the world. Like my daughter won’t eat mushrooms in any way shape or form. Sigh. And I don’t eat organ meats much anymore either (mostly because we know now how bad they are for us). But here I’m talking about the mingling of disparate foods. Like, let’s see, cheese on tapioca pudding. Or french fried broccoli on top of French fries. I’m making these up. Letting my mind drift into food oddities.

So it goes with this soup, except I learned about it at a cooking class. The bowl was put in front of me, and really I’ve rarely if ever turned down butternut squash soup. Even if it did have COOKIES on top. And it’s not as if I always like every recipe I taste at a cooking class, either. As many recipes as I’ve shared, I’ve not posted about an equal number. If this recipe had been in a magazine, I’d likely have flipped the page. I mean, honestly, I have about four good butternut squash recipes. Surely I don’t need another. Well, yes I did. This one. It is really, REALLY good. It’s different in a way – it’s a thinner style soup. More broth than thick squash, if you get my drift (and that’s because you strain out the solids). (Later note: the solids you strain out, though, are really good. Can be served as a side dish where butternut squash would be appropriate. It was really delicious.) And I thought the crumbled amaretti on top was just the icing on the cake. Well, the icing on the soup in actuality. The fillip of all. There’s not enough of the cookie to make the soup actually sweeter, even though the crumbs are sweet. You can barely see the little dollop of crème fraiche in the top right of the bowl.

The soup is not complicated – it has fresh butternut squash cubes, onion, fresh herbs, a tiny teaspoon of honey, a lot of chicken broth, and a cup of heavy cream. Oh, and some fresh squeezed orange juice. And I hope you have some rinds of Parmesan cheese stashed away in your freezer or refrigerator, right? Add one of those in the soup too (it’s discarded after cooking). The soup is only as good as the chicken stock you use, by the way. The teacher, Linda Steidel, made her own, but canned broth will work. I use Penzey’s broth (refrigerated concentrate), and have never been disappointed. I’m generous with the amount I use, which merely makes for a more flavorful base. The recipe indicates you need to whip the mascarpone. I don’t know that that step is necessary, but I’ve included it in the recipe. The squash solids are strained out of the soup, so it’s smooth. Take advantage of Costco’s big bags of cubed butternut squash – they don’t always have it. Tis’ the season for it, you know.
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One year ago: Chocolate Mousse in the Blender (easy, easy, but thinner than standard)
Two years ago: Aromatic Braised Lamb

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Does that look yummy, or what? It’s so pretty. Extra flavorful. Easy to make, although you must concoct three different mixtures – the cake batter, the pumpkin and dried cranberry middle and the nut streusel for the top. They’re layered in a springform pan and that’s all there is to it.

Reading Canela y Comino’s blog, she raved – with lots of superlatives – in the write-up about this coffeecake. Since pumpkin in just about anything is “my cup of tea,” there was no question I’d be making it. My DH was having his Bible study guys here, so it was a perfect occasion to make it. Festive for the holidays.

The cake batter is a normal type – this one contains buttermilk (I used whole-milk yogurt because that’s what I had on hand). The recipe calls for pumpkin pie spice. I don’t keep that combo in my spice pantry, so just added my own mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, in descending quantities. If you make your own as I did, do note that there is pumpkin pie spice in both the cake batter and the streusel.

The pumpkin was Libby’s canned. And I used walnuts in the streusel, just because I didn’t have any pecans on hand.  I didn’t take photos of all the different processes (but if you go to Gretchen’s blog, she has photos of every step). The pumpkin layer, although not all that much quantity, really (it starts with a cup of canned pumpkin), does give you almost a pumpkin-pie type consistency. But it’s thin as you can see in the photo above and right. You place half the cake batter on the bottom, the pumpkin in the middle, blobs of the cake batter on top of that (which must be carefully spread out to the edges) then the nut streusel generously sprinkled on top. The recipe indicated the cake should be baked for about 60-65 minutes. I did 60, poked my cake tester in it in several places. What I didn’t do was poke the tester right in the center. Once the cake cooled, I discovered it was still doughy in the middle, so it likely should have baked another 10 minutes. The other option would be to bake this in a bundt pan for about 50-55 minutes (my guess on time).

So, if you’ve still got some pumpkin lurking in your pantry, this is a winner. Try it! Gretchen says the recipe came from a cookbook (magazine maybe?), Holiday Baking, 2009.
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A year ago: Panettone bread
Two years ago: Salmon with Maple Syrup and Thyme

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Last week we made a purchase . . . of a Brinkman electric smoker (at Home Depot, for about $70). I’ve wanted one for a long time, but it meant just one more “appliance,” and this one with storage issues. But with only one kitchen oven at our house at the desert, initially I thought we’d smoke the turkey. But we ended up not doing so – we baked the turkey and all the sides were able to go in the heated oven once the turkey was removed, and the turkey rested (foil tented). It worked out just fine. But in the interim, we did buy a smoker anyway. We bought an electric one because I figured my DH would not really want to tend to the briquettes over many, long hours of slow cooking. That was probably a good decision, although you can’t control the temperature much with an electric smoker.

First, I wanted to give the smoker a test run, so I bought a beef brisket. I dutifully read the brochure that came with the smoker. It indicated about 25-30 minutes per pound of brisket. Having had no experience with a smoker I assumed it was correct. I also went online to read some of the smoker websites to get another opinion. They all said about the same thing. Well, no the time was wrong, maybe because of the small size. I really don’t know. After 2+ hours the meat had only gotten to about 110 degrees which made no sense at all. The smoker was at about 250. Finally, after another 30 minutes and hardly any increase in temp, we brought it in the house, I wrapped it in foil and put it in the oven for about another 1 1/2 hours. THEN it was cooked through and tender as could be. Everybody enjoyed the meat, once it was cooked enough. Uhm. Shall I tell you what time we ate? Probably about 8:30 pm. Not one of my finer moments!

So I should have learned that the smoking meat seems to take longer than you might think. So a few days later I bought two 7-pound pork shoulder roasts. We were having a big dinner party for 18 people (well, 15 adults, 2 youngsters and a 2-year old baby). First I brined the roasts in a store-bought brining mix. I started this a day before, and they brined overnight. Then I dried off the roasts with copious sheets of paper towels, then patted the roasts all over with a store-bought rub for pork. Then they went into the preheated smoker. For hours and hours. With some mesquite wood chips and a pan of water in the bottom. The roasts smoked for about 6 hours. Not long enough. But at least they were cooked. I ended up having to slice the meat rather than pulling it apart, as was my plan. The flavor was stupendous, though. And we can’t wait to try it again. I now have a smoker cookbook in hand, and will use some of its sage advice before we try the next smoked meat. I made a Kansas City-style cole slaw (not memorable, no mayo, slightly sweet), some of the delicious garbanzo bean salad with Feta, green onions and cilantro, a friend brought a green salad, and I served the pork for soft sandwiches. I also made a new batch of the red peppers for meat, which went well with the pork sandwiches. And I had a generous bottle of barbecue sauce for those who wanted it that way. We ate one whole roast and part of the second one. Hungry crowd. I’ll let you know how the next one turns out.

Two years ago: Free-form turkey tortilla soup (from leftover Thanksgiving turkey)

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I know, I can hear it – garlic and cranberries? They don’t seem to have any affinity for one another, do they? Well, it may not sound like it, but it works. That’s all I can tell you. It works. This was the vegetable I served on Thanksgiving Day, and it was enjoyed by all. Mostly nobody knew there was garlic in it – you’ll notice in the recipe that there are 6 cloves, which is a lot – and I didn’t tell, either. The dried cranberries added a really nice touch to the veggie. It came from that Thanksgiving cooking class I took a few weeks ago with Phillis Carey. The photo above I took at the class – I was so busy on Thanksgiving Day getting all the dinner last-minute things done that I didn’t even take a single photo. This would make a really nice side veggie with any festive holiday meal. It’s dried cranberries, so you could make it any time of year, really, but it was just perfect with the turkey and dressing.
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Two years ago: Bishop’s Bread (my favorite Christmas bread)

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Turkey day has long passed, and I should be moving on with holiday cooking, but I just have to share this recipe with you. Because this is the turkey I’ll be making next year. And the year after, and the year after that. My friend Cherrie and I went to a cooking class about 10 days before Thanksgiving, and were blown away by how delicious this turkey tasted. It did require some advance work. Actually I bought a Kosher turkey, which is already brined, but if you didn’t have a Kosher bird, you’d want to brine it for a day or two before starting this process.

Brined birds are soaked, obviously, so a day before baking, you’ll want to remove it from the brine and allow it to dry off. A spatchcocked bird is merely one that’s had the backbone removed. So instead of a round mound, you have a flat turkey. So much easier to handle, and faster to cook too. Phillis Carey recommended that we buy a pair of Joyce Chen scissors (I did). They’re quite small – amazingly small – scissors, but they have a lot of strength. I did have trouble cutting the neck off – at the neck. Finally had to enlist my hubby to help. He used another pair of kitchen shears to pry, but I finally was able to cut the last connection with the other scissors. We had a 16-pound turkey, and she had a really strong neck! But once that was removed, it wasn’t difficult from there.

You splay the turkey and then you have to break the breastbone. I don’t know that I did such a great job of that – once I saw the finished turkey, I think maybe I hadn’t flattened it enough. I pressed and pressed on the bone and it finally gave a crack, so I assumed it was done. If you look at the photo below, you’d think it was flattened, right? It was, but I’d try harder next time!

You prepare a paste of fresh herbs, mustard, lemon juice and olive oil, which gets pressed underneath the skin (breast and legs). To give it added flavor and moisture. Then the whole bird is turned over, skin side up and I spread the remaining herbs all over the outside.

Then the flattened bird is placed in a large roasting pan – on a rack – along with a chopped onion and some celery leaves in the bottom of the pan, and roasted in the oven for just a couple of hours. The recipe indicated 2 1/4 to 2 3/4 hours. Mine, at 16 pounds, larger than Phillis’ recipe indicated, took just a hair over 2 hours. So next time I might reduce the temp by 15 degrees.

Once out of the oven, you salvage the drippings. And you add the fat-skimmed mixture to the turkey stock you’ve made (from the neck, backbone, gizzard and heart – NOT the liver), with a moderate amount of shiitake mushrooms. This was, by far, the BEST turkey gravy I’ve ever made, and we even forgot to add the heavy cream. We still have a bit left over and I’ll be hoarding it for leftover dinners.

So, I know this recipe is tediously long. Get someone else to help you with some of the steps, perhaps. But you’ll find that it’s mighty fine food when all is said and done!
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A year ago: Banana Bread
Two years ago: Cranberry Vinaigrette (hmmm, sounded better than it turned out, but it was festive)

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A week or so ago I was trying to find yet another pudding that my friend Norma could eat. Since I’ve made so many, I’m having some difficulty trying to do something different. I’ve done some twice, but my eye scanned over a lemon pudding cake and this one I found in several places on the internet had different proportions than the recipe I’ve always used. How odd, I thought. You’d think a pudding cake would require almost identical quantities of liquid to flour to eggs. But, with this recipe, I’ve now learned that it does not. This one has more eggs, less milk, more flour and more sugar. Very odd altogether. But it worked. This one is less lemon-forward, if you will. But it was tender and unctuous. I made one big bowl and poured just a tad of batter into these teensy-tiny little bowls I have (above) which provided about 6 bites for each of us. The bowls are hardly larger than the bowl of a spoon, as you can see. The sliced almonds are placed in the bottom of the buttered dish. And you do have to put this in a water bath – although my water bath wasn’t big enough for both of these little puds, so the one above actually sat out on the oven shelf. It was fine! A little more done than the other one, but still very moist and tender. So if you don’t feel like doing the water bath, I’m not sure it’s necessary!

Here the progression:

There’s the buttered bowl with the sliced almonds sprinkled all over.

The egg whites were whipped up and sweetened. The egg-lemon cake batter was mixed, then the two were gently combined. The mixture was poured into the prepared dish (and the two little ones I did on the side).

There it is just out of the oven, still sitting in the water bath. You let it sit for about 15 minutes to cool enough so you can pick up the bowl. Ideally you should let it cool completely, then, and chill before serving. Sometimes I serve pudding cake with a dollop of whipped cream, but my favorite is a little bit of half and half. This was good. I suppose I’d have to taste my other recipe side by side with this one to determine whether I like one better than the other. This one, however, is fairly low-fat. That’s always a good thing!
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A year ago: White Turkey Chili
Two years ago: Apple Parsnip Soup

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