Spicy Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup

We have a weekend soup habit. A late Saturday pick-me-up. A Sunday lunch. Leftovers stashed to cart to work during the week, or frozen for doling out to starving artists and graduate students. It’s a nice habit since it gives us the opportunity to improvise with whatever’s on hand and have something ready to eat when we are. During CSA season, we take the opportunity to cook down whatever doesn’t fit in our fussy fridge.  Now in early winter we are working our way through the storage vegetables, the squashes and cabbages and sweet potatoes from the fall harvest.   

Every growing season produces a surprise. You can’t be sure that the cabbages will keep, or the pumpkins and squash. There have been years when I am finally cooking up the last cheese pumpkin, a squat beige beauty that’s been adorning our counter all winter – in March!  Not so this year.  Some of our cooking pumpkins barely made it to Halloween, which was cancelled anyway because of the hurricane. Some limped along to Thanksgiving and others simply imploded. So I oven-roasted what was left and turned it into soup.

The pumpkin flesh was flaccid and mild, insipid even, not inspiring. Although it was a cooking pumpkin, its flesh resembled that of a jack-o-lantern. I therefore gave the soup some body and flavor by using equal parts of sweet potato and pumpkin. Since my liquid would be water instead of a flavorful broth or stock, I added plentiful spices: curry powder, ground cumin, cayenne pepper and salt, and smoothed it all out with a tablespoon or so of heavy cream.  Topped with pumpkin seeds and sautéed apples, this produced a delicious repast for a busy weekend preparing for the holidays.

Spicy Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tbsp butter or olive oil

2 tsp curry powder

1 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp salt

2 c roasted pumpkin flesh

2 c peeled and chopped sweet potato

2 c or more vegetable broth or water

2 tbsp heavy cream (or more to taste)

Additional salt and cayenne pepper to taste

Garnish: roasted hulled pumpkin seeds, sautéed or raw apple cubes

Slowly cook the onion in butter or oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the curry powder and cook, stirring, until well combined and aromatic.

Add the remaining ingredients, except for the cream and garnish, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium or medium low and simmer, partially covered for 30-40 minutes or until the sweet potato is thoroughly cooked.

Puree with an immersion blender or in a food processor and adjust the seasonings.

Garnish with pumpkin seeds and apple, wither raw or sautéed in a little butter.

Serves 4-6.

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Canning Soup Base and Tomato Sweet Potato Soup with Rosemary

Here we are again, cooking the last of a season and the first of the next: tomatoes out, sweet potatoes in. The fact that I had 12-15 pounds of tomatoes and 12-15 pounds of sweet potatoes in my house at the same time led me to the logical conclusion.

Today, I am determined to consume or preserve the last of the tomatoes, other than a few fresh ones that are still in good condition. I still had about 10 quarts of tomatoes to go… mostly paste tomatoes but some heirlooms and some field tomatoes and some cherry tomatoes. I’ve canned enough tomatoes and tomato-based concoction to last the year and frankly, I’m just ready to get rid of the lot.  I took the “lazy” way out (if you can call any canning venture lazy). I roasted the cherry tomatoes in abundant oil, garlic and rosemary and poured them into a large jar that will be stored in the refrigerator. I’ll be fishing them out for various uses for a month or so. Then I roasted halved plum tomatoes, skimming off the liquid and reducing them to a dry, almost leathery state. They’ll be reunited with some of the liquid and frozen in small bags.  And then there was the rest.

I made two types of soup base: one with peeled and seeded organic plum dandy paste tomatoes, and the other a mix of every type of tomato I had, chopped with skin and seeds and all. Both bases began were with chopped onion cooked slowly in a little olive oil until translucent and, once the tomatoes were added to the pot, lightly salted and boiled fast for 10 minutes to render their juice before simmering for 45 minutes. I used an immersion blender to smooth the mixture and canned it in quart jars (with 2 tbsp lemon juice added) for 30 minutes. I actually liked the mixed tomatoes better since many were riper and more flavorful than the paste tomatoes.   

I reserved about a quart of mixed tomato puree to make into two soups: cream of tomato and tomato sweet potato soup with rosemary. A sprig of rosemary gave this flavorful soup a piney inflection, cutting the natural sweetness of the vegetables.

Tomato Sweet Potato Soup with Rosemary

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tsp olive oil or a combination of olive oil and butter

1 lb (2 medium) sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1½ -2 c chicken stock or vegetable broth

2–2½ c tomato soup base (or canned tomatoes, chopped, or fresh tomatoes)

Sprig of rosemary

Salt

Optional: a pinch of red pepper flakes, paprika or pimenton (smoked paprika)

Garnish: cream, rosemary croutons

In a saucepan over medium low heat, slowly sauté the onion in olive oil and/or butter until translucent. Increase the heat slightly, add the cubed sweet potatoes and stir them to cook and slightly brown. Add the liquid and bring the mixture to a boil. Add the tomatoes, rosemary and a little salt (unless you’re using canned tomatoes), and look slowly until the sweet potatoes are very tender, 30-40 minutes. Remove the sprig of rosemary and puree the soup using a food processor or immersion blender. Serve hot with rosemary croutons and a little cream, if desired.

Serves 4.

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Impromptu: Curried Sweet Potato, Chickpeas and Spinach

It was just one of those days. I came home late and my husband came home early. While the refrigerator was burgeoning with produce from the weekend’s opening of our CSA season, not to mention leftovers from last season (hard to believe, but true) and previous meals, I had no idea what to cook. I had had a time-consuming meal in mind but now I had to act fast. What tasty supper could I get on the table in 30 minutes or less? What would satisfy us on a rainy day in mid-spring?

How about a vegetable curry? Normally I would not post something that I just dashed off, but this turned out to be an amazing supper, a lucky accident of what was in my refrigerator and on my counter and in my pantry. I just connected the dots and cooked for a hungry audience. In addition to being fast, this turned out to be the ultimate crossover-season dish: fresh and home-canned produce from last fall combined with just picked produce from this spring. A little of this and that, Indian style, with contrast of colors, textures, and taste. The proportions are flexible of course.  While I used chickpeas that I’d previously cooked from dried beans, you could use canned. You could also use canned diced tomatoes instead of homemade tomato puree. You could probably even use frozen spinach.

Curried Sweet Potato, Chickpeas and Spinach

2 medium sweet potatoes

1 spring onion or ½ small yellow onion, diced

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2-3 tsp curry powder

1 tsp ground cumin

½ small dried chili pepper

¾ c tomato puree (or fresh or canned tomatoes and juice)

Approximately ¼ c water (omit if using canned tomatoes)

½ c cooked chickpeas

About ¾ lb uncooked spinach leaves or 1 c cooked spinach

2 tbsp cilantro leaves

Peel the sweet potato and cut it into ¾-inch chunks, yielding about 2 cups. Steam for about 10 minutes or until tender nut not mushy. Set aside.

Warm the oil in a large sauté pan and add the onion, cooking until translucent. Add the curry powder, cumin and dried pepper, stirring to combine. Add the tomato puree and water and cook for a few minutes. Add the chickpeas and cook for a few more minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and the spinach. If using fresh spinach, add in batches to allow the leaves to wilt.  Remove the chili pepper and add the cilantro, reserving a few leaves for garnish.

Serve over rice. Makes about 4 servings.

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Curried Mussel Chowder

Spices create warm depth of flavor and comfort that are welcome in winter. With plentiful potatoes, sweet potatoes and onions in the cellar, and homemade bacon, I was ready to make chowder this weekend when I came across great mussels in the market and rescued an organic, though not local, red pepper from the 69-cents-per-pound soup bin. Curry spices and ginger seemed like the right wrap-around flavor for this combination of ingredients.  And it definitely can qualify as chowder. 

I am a great fan of Jasper White’s 50 Chowders cookbook. I haven’t cooked my way through all 50 but I have availed myself of many techniques. This is my go-to book when I have fish frames to turn into stock. He includes a recipe entitled “Lightly Curried Mussel Chowder” that was my jumping-off point for this meal. His chowder had way too much cream for my taste (he used up to 2 cups of heavy cream and I used ½ cup light cream but could have used half-n-half or whole milk satisfactorily). He also had a greater proportion of mussels to vegetables than mine. This was a great, flavorful, slightly spicy and fairly hearty Sunday supper, accompanied by a little salad and some crunchy bread.

Curried Mussel Chowder adapted from Jasper White

2 lbs PEI mussels

Water

1 oz salt pork (I used homemade un-smoked bacon)

1 tsp butter or vegetable oil

1 small onion, chopped into ½-inch pieces

½ small red pepper, chopped into ½-inch pieces

1 tsp finely chopped ginger

1 large clove garlic, finely chopped (about 2 tsp)

2 tsp curry powder

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

1 medium-large yellow potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes

1/3-½ c light cream, half-and-half, or whole milk

Salt and pepper

Optional garnish: additional chopped red and green peppers, sliced scallions, cilantro leaves

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Dark Days 10 One-Pot Challenge: Sunday Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables and Cider

A continuing series on weekly meals that use sustainable, organic, local and ethical food during the challenging winter months. For more information, go here to the DDC section of Not Dabbling in Normal’s website: Dark Days Challenge.

… In which I improve my roasting skills and create a Sunday meal that will give us inspired ingredients all week.

This week’s Dark Days challenge is to make a one-pot meal – for me, another one-pot meal since this has been a recent theme around here. Soups and stews, especially during the dark days, abound in our household. It’s not unusual to have made three or four in any given week. However, what we’ve been missing since the holidays is the traditional Sunday roast: meat or poultry leisurely prepared on the weekend for a communal feast, and then divvied up for small suppers all week long. A beautiful chicken from Griggstown Quail Farm would fill the bill, roasted with local organic root vegetables infused with Terhune Orchards cider.

 I’ve prepared this dish in past years, several times, and with only semi-satisfying results, so this gave me another chance for improvement. I actually didn’t have a finite plan when I started. However, while I was driving to Griggstown along snow-covered roads hugging the canal, and listening to NPR’s “A Splendid Table” on the radio, Lynne Rosetto Kaspar interviewed Molly Stevens about her new cookbook on roasting, and I said, “Ah ha!” Stevens described a daylong salt-curing process for roasting chicken, and I realized that this might be the trick that would keep my chicken from being braised or poached in the presence of so much liquid.  I wanted a crisp-skinned, flavorful bird sitting atop a rich medley of roots, and that’s what we got.

The “trick” was to rub salt all over the bird (a scant teaspoon per pound) and let it air-dry in the refrigerator for a day. The bird sweats initially, but then absorbs the salt to infuse the meat. This eventually will allow the skin to crisp around a moist interior. I also started cooking the bird in a 400-degree oven for 15 minutes before adding the cut-up veggies and the cider. The result was a chicken with crispy skin and succulent meat. The local organic vegetables – carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, yellow turnip, rutabaga and onion – were accompanied by a Granny Smith apple and cider, and a sprinkling of dried winter savory and thyme from our CSA. The only non-local ingredient was the salt.  This went from one pan to one communal platter to one plate each. 

 Writing this up after the fact, I am in the midst of experiencing the most aromatic chicken stock made of the bones and meat juice, and separately a vegetable broth from the peelings. We also have plenty of other “leftovers” from our lovely and generous Sunday Roast. This is a generous one-pot meal that keeps on giving, perfect for the Dark Days.

Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables and Cider

1 3½-4 lb chicken

2½ tsp salt

2 tbsp vegetable oil or butter (I used organic ghee)

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and cubed

1 onion, roughly chopped

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

1 medium or 2 small parsnips, peeled and sliced or cubed

1 yellow turnip, peeled and cubed

1 very small rutabaga, peeled and cubed

1 tsp dried winter savory or thyme or a combination

1 c cider

1 small handful chard or kale leaves

The day before you plan on roasting the chicken, clean and dry it and rub salt all over. Place on a rack in a pan in the refrigerator overnight (or for at least 8 hours if you do this in the morning).

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Coat the chicken with oil or butter and place in a shallow roasting pan. Roast for 15 minutes.

Add the apple and vegetables to the roasting pan, sprinkle the chicken and vegetables with the herbs and pour the cider on top of the vegetables.  Roast for an hour or until the thigh juices run clear. Remove the chicken and vegetables and let them sit for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, add the green to the liquid in the pan and wilt them, arranging the greens with the root vegetables.

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Oven-Roasted Garnet Yams with Cinnamon and Garlic

The organically grown baby “garnet yams” in our local produce market were just too good to pass up. I roasted them, slightly covered in olive oil and lightly salted, in a 350-375 degree oven, accompanied by whole garlic cloves and chopped stick cinnamon. They were ready in 15-20 minutes. I thought I would share them as part of November’s Spice Rack Challenge.

The idea came from the New York Times food writer Melissa Clark, who describes the cinnamon infusion as a great reference to the flavors and aromas of the Thanksgiving season. While I began roasting the yams whole, I thought that slicing them would help the cinnamon infusion. So would lightly crushing the cinnamon sticks. You wouldn’t get the same result from ground cinnamon since it would probably just burn. 

The cinnamon sticks were from a jar of pickled grapes that I made last spring, and just replenished, starting with new sticks. As the old adage goes, “Waste not, want not.” This was a terrific way to re-use what would otherwise have ended in the compost pile prematurely.

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Dark Days Week 5: Sea Scallops with Mushrooms and Leeks on Sweet Potato Crisps

Variety, balance. Colors, textures, flavors. Seasonality, locality, sustainability. This meal had it all, simply by layering. Each component was prepared individually and then layered with the others to produce a simple and yet complex dish that was fresh, clean and flavorful.

Even without going “down the shore” (Jersey parlance), we can purchase fine local seafood caught by day boat fisherman using Barnegat Light as their port. It’s limited during dark days of course, but when available it can be amazingly flavorful. Scallops are almost always available since they are fished commercially, but we can also get skate, bluefish, tuna and sometimes even swordfish. I get concerned about the sustainability of the ocean’s yield, so we tend to limit ourselves to the varieties that are not typically overfished.

Mushrooms abound here, coming from Eastern Pennsylvania every few weeks at farmers’ markets during the winter and at our local organic produce store. I stockpiled local organic leeks and sweet potatoes in the late fall and have been looking for good opportunities to use them, as they are both fragile commodities that won’t last the winter.

The Preparation

The leeks were cleaned after being sliced vertically (helps find the sand) and cooked slowly in a covered pan with a little salt. Oil or butter can be added but are not necessary.

The mushrooms – in this case a combination of shitakes and oyster mushrooms – were placed in a hot pan to which I added a few drabs of olive oil. After the mushrooms started to brown, I turned down the heat so they would exude their juices. I added minced shallot and garlic, a little salt and a sprinkling of winter savory (thyme would also work).

The sweet potato was peeled, thinly sliced, tossed in olive oil, salted, and roasted at 400 degrees, turning once, until browned and slightly crisp (6-10 minutes). I removed it to paper toweling to drain for a minute or two and then to a plate to let crisp.

The scallops were cooked in a semi-hot grill pan brushed with oil until browned on one side, flipped, and finished with a teaspoonful or so of local organic port from the Hopewell Valley Winery.

To assemble, I placed the sweet potato crisps on a plate, spooned on a mixture of the leeks and mushrooms, then the scallops. I topped them with a small spoonful of mushrooms and leeks, and garnished with fresh parsley (nearly the last from my own garden). Once again, the use of fresh local ingredients cooked simply produced a tasty and nutritious meal. Bravo Dark Days.

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Tomato and Pumpkin Soup

Continuing to eat out of the pantry before the spring growing season, I roasted the remaining cheese pumpkin from the late fall harvest, which had kept surprisingly well, and combined it with a home-canned tomato soup base that was stretching its viable shelf life. Our local CSA farm grows several heirloom varieties for canning, with names like Federale and Amish Paste. When I can those in the normal way, I find that their high water content creates a flavorful but watery mix. So rather than worrying that it won’t thicken into a sauce, I process it in a water bath into a loose, liquid puree, perfect as a base for soup and stew.

For this soup, I first I seeded the pumpkin and cut it into segments to roast in the oven over high heat. The pumpkin, while flavorful, was watery, so I added an orange sweet potato (or yam) to the soup, along with onion, celery, paprika, and chili powder. Pureed, this had a wonderful flavor, creamy texture, and a beautiful color reminiscent of Romesco sauce. Instead of the pepper, I could have used thyme and rosemary. I served the soup with a dollop of sour cream, chopped lovage (though I could have used parsley, chives or cilantro) and homemade oven-crisped croutons, but it holds its own just plain. Although I felt my way through the process for the first time, this could become one of my favorite soups.  The ingredients are flexible so I’m sure it will come out a new way the next time based on what’s in the pantry.  This soup improved with a day of aging, but was also great fresh off the stove.

Tomato and Pumpkin Soup (6 servings)

1 medium yellow onion, chopped fine

1 stalk celery, chopped fine

1 large orange sweet potato or yam

Vegetable or olive oil

1 tbsp sweet paprika

1 tsp chili powder (mine had ground chili pepper plus a tad of nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon)

3 cups roasted pumpkin flesh (see below)

4 cups canned tomato soup base (or use a quart of home-canned whole tomatoes or a large purchased can, buzzing the tomatoes and the liquid in a food processor)

Water if necessary

Optional: a touch of smoked paprika or pimenton

Salt and pepper to taste

Garnishes: optional sour cream, herbs, croutons, hot pepper flakes

Saute the onion and celery in oil over low heat until soft. Add yam or sweet potato and stir to coat, cooking the ingredients without browning for about 5 minutes. Add paprika and chili powder and stir to combine. Add pumpkin and tomatoes and cook at a simmer, covered for 45-50 minutes, until everything is soft and thoroughly cooked.  Add water if the soup is too thick.  Puree in food processor and taste for seasoning. Serve hot with optional garnishes.

Roasted pumpkin

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash the pumpkin then cut in half and remove the seeds. Cut into chunks, brush with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt, then roast skin side up for about 40-50 minutes, or until soft. Cool, then remove the flesh to a bowl.

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Spicy Pork Stew with Poblanos and Sweet Potatoes

I am so lucky to live in an area (halfway between Philadelphia and New York) where local food is plentiful and varied, frequently organic, always fresh and relatively well priced. In addition to orchards and farms that grow fruits and vegetables, we have local farms selling milk, eggs and cheese, local beekeepers, local winemakers, local mushroom farms, local day boat fisherman who truck their catch to the farmer’s market, even a nearby flour mill.  There also are a few local farms that raise poultry, pigs, lambs, and beef in a sustainable, responsible way. So for me, being a locavore is relatively easy, even all year round, especially since I preserve foods in the summer and fall for my pantry.

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased some wonderful cubes of local pork, which I dreamed of stewing with abundant paprika and sauerkraut from the pantry. Dream is the right word since I forgot that I did not put up any sauerkraut this year. However, indulging my sometimes ridiculous habit of raiding the “soup bin” at the local health food store (where slightly bruised or otherwise less-than-perfect produce sells for a pittance a pound), I had scooped up some organic poblano peppers and a red bell pepper, neither of which was local. But they sure were thrifty.  Believe it or not, I still had sweet potatoes from our CSA farm and wanted to use the last of them. Plus whole tomatoes that I had canned.

I made a delicious and satisfying stew that followed my instinct and no recipe. While I call this a pork stew, truth be told, it had more vegetables than meat. While I’m not adverse to meaty stews, I prefer to have the meat present but in a secondary role. I thought that the poblanos made the stew a little bitter, so I added a teaspoon or so of brown sugar, which gave the stew another dimension of flavor.  I served this on rice but could have added black beans instead.

Pork Stew with Poblanos and Sweet Potatoes

1 lb pork cubes, trimmed

Paprika

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 onion, cut into ¾-inch pieces

3-4 poblano peppers, charred, skins removed, cut into 3/4 inch pieces

1 red pepper, cut into ½-inch pieces

2 sweet potatoes, cubed

6 plum tomatoes, chopped, plus a little juice from the jar or can (or use fresh)

½ tsp adobo sauce from canned chipotle chiles (or use a little smoky paprika or pimenton or add a little ancho chile, softened in hot water since ancho chiles are poblanos dried)

Chicken broth (about 1–11/2 cups)

Brown sugar, optional (1-2 tsp or to taste)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Sprinkle the pork cubes with paprika and brown them in batches in a little oil, removing them to a small Dutch oven. Clean out the pan, add a little more oil and the onions and cook for a few minutes until translucent, then add the peppers and stir to combine. Add the tomatoes and cook for a minute or two. Add the vegetable mixture, the cubed sweet potatoes, and a dab of adobo paste to the pork, pour on chicken broth just to cover, and cook in the oven for 1½ hours. Check every so often to make sure the liquid is simmering not boiling. If it’s boiling, turn down the heat. Otherwise the pork will dry out. Taste the broth; if it seems bitter (from the poblanos), add a little brown sugar.

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Root Soup with Preserved Sage from the Pantry

Continuing my mission to use up the roots in my refrigerator, I made a delicious pureed soup of rutabaga, parsnips, potato, sweet potato and leeks.  Just about any combination or variation of proportions would work. I used a homemade light chicken broth from my freezer but vegetable stock or even water would be fine. If you have a leftover cheese rind, you could add it while cooking.

In addition to the soup itself, what I liked about this was the sage garnish. I had two options: harvest what’s left of the sage poking up out of the snow and sautéing it to a crisp; or using the sage that I store in a Weck canning jar full of coarse salt. During the summer when fresh sage is plentiful in my pot garden or at the Farm, I harvest leaves and layer them with an abundance of coarse salt in a large jar with a tight lid.  For many months, they remain leathery, almost fresh. Eventually they become brittle but are still amazingly flavorful.

Root Soup

2 leeks, cleaned and sliced

1 tbsp butter or oil

About 4 cups of cubed root vegetables

1 quart chicken broth or water to cover

Salt and pepper to taste

Sage — dried leaves or fresh

Olive oil for frying the sage leaves if using fresh ones

Sauté the leek in the butter or oil until translucent, add the root vegetables and stick and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 35-40 minutes or until the vegetables and cooked through. Puree the soup, add salt and pepper to taste and garnish with dried sage leaves or with fresh sage sauteed in a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt.

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