Great Fall Warmer - Squash Peanut Soup

Continuing my transition to cool weather eating I present my first soup of the season. This time of year we can overload on squash in New England, with all the typical, and a few lesser known, varieties showing up at every farmstand you pass. Before Thanksgiving each year Margot and I typically buy the bulk bag from one of the nearby farms from which we get a mashup of squash with the price per pound for the tasty local stuff around fifty cents.

For me squash soup is just slightly less obvious of a use for the bounty than pie or straight-up baking it. I didn’t used to be a soup eater, but being a squash lover I have found my way to soup with it. Two of the ingredients that I commonly use in my squash soup or curry’s are peanut butter and curry from either powder or paste. These flavors really do work well together. I just have to watch the spice or Margot will get mad at me!

Squash Peanut Soup

1 large white onion, sliced

1 medium red pepper, chopped

2 large stalks of celery, chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp curry powder

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp kosher salt

¼ tsp black pepper

1 tbsp garlic paste

4 cups vegetable broth

1 large butternut squash, cubed

1 cup shredded carrot

6 tbsp creamy peanut butter

2 tsp cilantro paste

1 cup frozen plain green peas

1 1/2 cups cooked basmati rice, with 2 tbsp cumin seeds

Heat a large stock pot oven over medium heat. Coat the pan with cooking spray, add the olive oil and allow to heat. Add the onion, pepper, and celery, cooking until the onion is translucent. Stir in the curry powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and garlic. Cook for several minutes until the aromatics are strong, stirring constantly. Add the broth, squash, and carrot; bring to a boil.

Cover and reduce the heat. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the squash is tender. Cook the rice using your favorite method. I use a rice cooker and it takes about 15-20 minutes for this amount; so starting it here will ensure it is cooked and ready to go. Stir in the peanut butter and simmer for several additional minutes. Stir in the peas and cilantro paste.  Cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated.

Serve over the rice while still hot. Salt and season to taste.

There you have it, a great meal to warm you up after a day of yard work! I didn’t take any pictures of the dish during or after cooking on the count of the yard work and my desire to drink a bunch of beers to ward off the soreness that I could already feel coming on.

Cheers!

Jason

p.s. Marie, I'm glad you like this soup so much. I've got more all vegetable dishes that I bet you will like just as much. We'll have to conspire on some wine pairings for vegetarian delights. 

Vegetarian Red Beans & Rice

I’m not sure what prompted it but last week my wife said she wanted Red Beans & Rice. We’ve only eaten it a couple of times in 15 years so it was a pretty obscure request. No worries though, it sounds good and I can definitely pull that off.

I went looking for recipes to get some inspiration and quickly found a great vegetarian (eating lighter these days) red beans & recipe from the Sortachef blog. I adapted the recipe in three ways. I used chipotle and chili powder instead of straight up cayenne. Margot seems to be more sensitive to cayenne and I wanted her to be able to eat the dish at will. I added 1 tsp of liquid smoke to help offset the missing flavors that you would get in the traditional dish from sausage and/or other meats. I then added the juice of ½ of a lime. I am finding that a slight hit of acid in some dishes helps flavors express themselves.

Vegetarian Red Beans & Rice

2 cups dry Small Red Beans, soaked overnight
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 sticks celery with leaves, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
4 Tbsp olive oil
6 cups water
3 teaspoons of salt (reserve 1 tsp)
½ tsp of freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ tsp of dry thyme
1 ½ tsp of oregano
½ tsp chipotle powder
½ tsp chili powder
1 tsp liquid smoke
Juice of ½ a lime
3 cloves garlic, pressed or finely chopped
8 ounces of tomato sauce
Cooked rice

Soak the beans overnight covered by 2 inches of water. Drain, rinse and pick out any stones, stems or rotted beans.

Heat the 4 Tbsp oil in a large dutch oven. Sauté the onion, celery and green pepper over medium-high, turning occasionally with a spatula. When the pepper has lightened in color and the onions are translucent remove the vegetables from the heat and drain off the excess oil. Wipe out the dutch oven and return the vegetables to it.

Add the beans and 6 cups of cold water to the sautéed veggies. Now add the salt (2 tsp), black pepper, oregano, thyme, chipotle, chili powder, liquid smoke, lime juice and garlic. Mix well.

Bake in the oven at 325°. Put bean pot on the center rack and bake for 2 ½ hours covered, stirring every half hour or so. After 2 ½ hours, add the tomato sauce and last 1 tsp of salt. Remove the lid from the bean pot. Increase the heat to 375° and cook for 2-3 hours, until beans are tender and the cooking liquid has thickened.

( All done and ready to eat! )

Make a pile of cooked rice. Place 2/3 to 1 cup of the red beans mixture on top of the rice. Enjoy with hot sauce if you like some heat!

( Slightly out of focus. Sorry. It was good nonetheless! )

We enjoyed this hearty, but lighter than the classic, dish with a homemade Belgian White beer and the newest episode of the FX cartoon series Archer. The beer has coriander and bitter orange peel in it. Those flavors together with the creamy wheat body of the beer really worked well with the beans and rice. The pairing with Archer is a different sort of pairing all together. Off-color jokes and sexual innuendo are always good for a laugh and made for great atmosphere to enjoy dinner and a beer to on a Friday night.

Cheers!

Jason