Squash Soup

This is a favorite recipe around here. Liz HATES squash and sweet potatoes, but she absolutely loves this soup. She even asks to take it to school for lunch, which is the ultimate sign of acceptance for her! It's very simple to make, but there's not a firm recipe. A lot of my recipes on here won't be true recipes, because I estimate instead of measuring probably 85% of the time. The recipe I used the first time I made this soup can be found here. This is a pretty good recipe, but I've tweaked it A LOT to make it mine, and in my opinion, better.

Squash Soup

1 squash*
2 apples
6-10 cups of broth
3 stalks of celery
1/2 an onion
1-2 sweet potatoes**
2 cans of corn
Curry powder to taste

Roast the squash for about an hour at 350 degrees.

While squash is roasting, put the cored apple, celery stalks, diced onion and broth in a big pot (I use an 8 quart pot), and bring to a boil. Boil until the celery is fork tender, then remove from the heat. When squash is tender, remove from the oven and let it cool until you can touch it. Once cool, scoop the flesh out of the skins and add it to your pot of cooked vegetables and broth.

Spoon the squash vegetable mix into the blender, and blend until smooth. Dump into a big mixing bowl, and repeat until you've blended all of the soup. Return the soup to the pot and place on the stove. Add the cans of corn. If the soup looks thick, I don't drain the corn. After adding the corn, add water until the soup is the consistency you want. Sprinkle some curry powder, stir well and taste. Add more curry powder if needed. I add probably 1/4 tsp of curry powder to my soup. I don't want it spicy or overwhelming, just a hint of curry. Curry goes a long way, so be careful the first time you make it. You can always add more but you can't take it away!

Serve with a dollop of sour cream if desired.


*If I use a butternut squash, I use the whole squash. I discovered Hubbard squash last year, and they are my new favorite squash. However, Hubbard squash are enormous, and if you used a whole Hubbard squash, you would end up with at least 14 quarts of soup. I used a Hubbard squash this week, and I used about half of it, and froze the other half.

**If the squash isn't a very flavorful squash, I will boil one or two sweet potatoes, and add them in during the pureeing step.


This soup is very healthy, and oh, so good on a cold winter night. So start roasting, and happy eating!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake

My sister made this for us while we were in Maine this last summer. It is seriously so good. She got the recipe from here (one of my favorite cooking blogs).

This dessert looks impressive, and tastes impressive, but is really very easy to make. I often have a hard time making cheesecakes, but this one hasn't failed me yet. Just follow the instructions exactly and you'll have a perfect, yummy dessert.

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars


Crust
1 & 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 tablespoons butter, melted
2/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter a 9″-square baking pan (I used a 9" round pan and cut the final dessert into pie-shaped pieces). Line pan with parchment paper (I used foil), leaving enough to extend over the sides. Lightly coat the parchment paper/foil with non-stick cooking spray.

Combine graham cracker crumbs and butter until crumbs are moistened. Stir in chocolate chips. Press crust mixture into bottom of pan. Bake for 6 minutes. Set pan on wire rack to cool.

Cookie Dough
5 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (I found the cookie dough was a bit stiff with this much flour, next time I think I'll cut it down by 1/8th of a cup)
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Using an electric mixer, mix butter, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract at medium speed until smooth. Decrease mixer speed to low and add flour. Mix just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.

Filling
10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar just until smooth. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating just until blended. Pour batter into baked crust. Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls over the top of the filling.

Bake about 30-35 minutes, or until set. Transfer to wire rack.

For chocolate topping, melt 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave. (Tip: put the chocolate chips into a zipper bag and heat on 50% power for a few minutes. Cut the corner off the bag and squeeze the bag to make drizzling less messy). Use a teaspoon to drizzle chocolate over top of bars. Cool bars in pan completely, about an hour. (Stick the bars in the freezer for 5 minutes to set quickly if you're in a hurry).

Using the edges of the parchment paper/foil, remove bars from pan. Cut into bars (clean the knife after each cut) and serve.

Lettuce Wraps

I've had several people ask for the recipe I use for the lettuce wrap sauce, and how to make lettuce wraps. Here is a good recipe for the sauce. I don't measure when I make it, I just throw things in, and keep tasting, but I know not everyone cooks that way, so here is the recipe that I started with.

2/3 C. rice vinegar
1 C. soy sauce
1 t. chili oil
A splash of lime juice (if you want it)
garlic powder to taste

Just mix it all together in a bowl, and refrigerate until you need it. Most recipes call for sesame oil, but I don't like it, so I don't use it. But you can add it if you want. Start really small with the chili oil, because it's pretty potent, and adjust it to how spicy you like it.

For the filling, I just make a stir fry, but I cut all the pieces into small little squares, kind of like frozen mixed vegetables, so it will work better in the lettuce wraps. I do chicken, carrots, lots of celery, zucchini, onion, sometimes broccoli, and water chestnuts, baby corn, and bamboo shoots if I remember to buy them before hand. I also make rice with the lettuce wraps, because we eat them as a meal, not an appetizer. I sometimes cook the vegetables and chicken with some of the sauce, but that ususally makes it too spicy for our kids, so I usually just cook it plain, and we season it at the table to our own tastes.

For the lettuce wraps, a really easy way to do it is to take the lettuce out of the wrapper, and whack it stem down on the counter. Then you can just pull the heart out, and carefully peal the leaves off.

Here's the finished product. After making the post last week, and having everyone ask me for the recipe, I started craving them, so we had them for dinner tonight! The recipe does take a long time. It took me about an hour to chop all the vegetables, and then another half hour to cook everything, but it was yummy! Even Liz ate it without a bit of complaining!