Butternut Squash Soup

I love soup and this is one of my favorites. This Butternut Squash Soup is the perfect blend of sweet and savory - the sage and chicken broth give it a roast chicken flavor aspect and the honey and apples really bring out the sweetness of the squash!

The biggest pain of making this is dealing with the squash, but I have it down to a science. you can always buy a pre-peeled and halved (or sometimes even pre-cubed!) squash at the grocery store, but I am a girl on a budget and would rather hack into it myself and save a little money. I find that a palm held peeler works best - it is really easy to use! It just seems to work better with the size and shape of the squash - I hate my "normal" peelers for this task. (Actually, I prefer this peeler for ALL of my peeling tasks - the other peelers in my kitchen are relics of the days before I discovered this wonderful little palm held peeler!)

Once it's peeled, I use a large chef's knife to cut the bulbous bottom off - from here I slice the top into 1/2" thick rounds and then further cut them to turn them into the 1/2" cubes I need. Then I stand the bottom piece on its cut end and cut it in half. I like to use a grapefruit spoon to remove the seeds and stringy bits, but you can use a knife or a normal spoon - whatever, so long as it comes out. Then I slice that into 1/2" pices and cube that up, too.

It's very simple and very satisfying - one of my favorites!

Roast Chicken

Roast Chicken is something I do REALLY well. As many times as I make it, each time I tell Scott that I am making roast chicken for dinner he makes the most wonderful "mmmmmmm" noise and praises it as if I had spent all day slaving over it. But roast chicken is EASY - in fact, it is what I make if I am not in the mood to cook. It takes less than 5 minutes to prep and it just camps out in the oven for 2 hours. I give a lot of credit to the roasting pan I use - it seems to raise the chicken to just the right height to get a perfectly browned bird! But the real secret to nice browning and a crispy skin is all in the prep. When I am rubbing the chicken with olive oil and herbs and salt and pepper, I make sure to rub some underneath the skin and as far into the legs/thighs as I can reach. It makes the meat a bit more flavorful and moist and it truly does make a difference in the skin.

Ricotta Cheese Pie

I don't make a lot of desserts, but this one I look forward to every year! Ricotta Cheese Pie is one of my most favorite foods! It's sweet, but not too sweet and never cloying - it feels light, yet so satisfying. It is the one desert that my mom would let me have a slice of for breakfast! This recipe comes from my dad's side of the family, but I have only ever had it when my mother makes it or I make it - we usually only make it once a year - for Easter! There is nothing stopping me from making it year round, it certainly isn't difficult or expensive, but there is something to be said for anticipating a certain dish, relishing it on it's particular holiday and as a leftover in the days following and missing it when it's all gone - it's special!

This is also the dish I am bringing to the breakfast potluck at work - as I said before, Ricotta Cheese Pie leftovers were fair game for breakfast in the days following Easter, so why not? Also, it's a cold dish so I don't have to worry about reheating it and I can make it ahead.

It has a light vanilla taste and a light, almost crumbly yet moist texture. The graham cracker crust compliments it perfectly and the cinnamon sprinkled on top as soon as it comes out of the oven is a great finishing touch.

Spaetzle, Schnitzel & Spargel - Oh My!

Ever since I saw the post on Smitten Kitchen, I have been dreaming of Spaetzle! So, I decided that called for a night of German food! And when I think of Germany, I think of my friend Sean - he loves all things German ... and naturally he picked up a Spaetzle press the last time he was there that he offered to loan me for the occassion! He came over on a Saturday night (4/16/11) with a delicious bottle of wine and his awesome spaetzle press!

The recipe I went with was 7 eggs, 2 Cups of AP Flour and 1/4 milk (I happened to have 2% on hand.) After mixing it with my hand mixer, I let it sit in the fridge for about an hour. At first it looked a bit thin, but after it had a chance to rest it was like elastic-y pancake batter ... in other words: perfect!

The intarwebz had a lot of wank over method - some people decried presses and other gadgets in favor of the traditional board, others said not to bother with the board - my decision was made when I couldn't find a board and Sean volunteered his press. Since I never tried the board, I cannot comment, but the press worked fantastically! (And it looks suspiciously like my potato ricer ... I think I am going to give that a try before I go and buy a specialized press!)

It only takes a minute or two for the Spaetzle to cook - you squeeze the press, the batter shoots out below into the boiling water in ribbons and when finished, you fish out the spaetzle and put them in an ice bath. Simple and delicious!

That night, I decided to go all alliterative - some pork Schnitzel and some Spargel (asparagus) were fantastic complements to the Spaetzle. The night Sean was over, I popped the cooled Spaetzle into a frying pan with a Tablespoon of butter and some shallots - both Sean and Scott raved about them! The two of them have both traveled through Germany and had the authentic, real deal, so their compliments meant a lot!

But I still had plenty of leftover Spaetzle ... time to get creative! Not pictured was my Spaetzle Provencal that I made the next night. The shallots and the butter from the previous night's dish got me thinking and I realized that I could treat the Spaetzle just about the same as I would bay scallops. So, I put a few handfulls of spaetzle into a zip top bag, tossed in about 4 Tbsp of AP Flour and shook it to coat them, melted 2 Tbsp of Unsalted Butter into a skillet and added the spaetzle. After about 4 minutes of tossing them around the skillet, I added 2 more Tbsp of butter, about 1/2 C minced shallots (maybe less), some dried parsley (didn't have fresh) and stirred that around for a minute or two and then added 1/3 cup of chicken broth and let that go for another minute or so. The result was delicious!

The next night I decided to try my own version of Kaese Spaetzle - it was my own version because I lacked the traditional cheeses one would normally use! I made 2 small ones to use up the small amounts of leftover cheddar and pepper jack that I had out as snacketizers the night Sean was over. The first one used the leftover Spaetzle provencal, a sliced up, coooked, sweet Italian sausage and some white cheddar cheese and was really fantastic! The other one was cheddar jack and sausage and, while good, the pepper was kind of intense in the pepper jack so it was pretty spicy. You can most closely compare it to baked macaroni and cheese (you bake it at 350 for 20-30 minutes), but the spaetzle was feather light and not at all heavy like noodles can get. I would definitely make this again (and again and again!)

It's the little things

This udon starts with the standard udon base brought to a simmer along with the white ends of the scallions. In addition to the noodles there were enoki mushrooms, shrimp, the green tops of scallions sliced thin, water cress and carrots. The best part about the carrots? I bought myself a set of vegetable shape cutters in flower shapes! Creativity and eye appeal are important parts of Japanese cuisine - why shouldn't food look as good as it tastes? The small flowers are the perfect size for raw carrots in udon to be - enough to deliver their fresh sweet taste, but not a huge overwhelming piece. And they are Pretty!

Frozen from Scratch

Kitsune Udon! Arguably, my favorite iteration of udon. Would you believe in the picture to the left, the only fresh ingredient is the scallion? It's not that I didn't make it all from scratch (well, not the noodles anyway and I buy the aburaage already fried, but I do flavor it myself), but I made it from scratch weeks ago. I love that I can enjoy homemade food that is better for me (and cheaper!) than a store bought frozen entree, but just as easy. Maybe even easier!

When I make the Udon Soup Base, I make enough for 4 servings (well, 6 really - there is always enough for lunch the next day!) Scott and I are only two people, though. So the other half? I freeze it! I just pop it into a quart sized container and it freezes like a dream. When I want to use it, it is as simple as putting it into a pot and bringing it up to a simmer! The aburaage come in a pack of 10 - they don't keep for very long and flavoring them takes the same amount of effort if you are doing a few or if you are doing the whole package - may as well do them all! I just pop the extras into zip-top bags in serving portions and keep them in the freezer for when I need them! One day I will make my own udon noodles, but for now, the fresh noodles come in handy serving size packs and can live in my fridge awaiting the next udon night. The wakame udon comes dried so there is no worry about spoilage (so long a you don't store it like an idiot) and the kamoboko - more specifically, naruto - come frozen, you just need to slice off what you need.

And even though I prefer to chop my scallions fresh, I will admit that I have prechopped scallions in my freezer for those nights that I want udon but I can't bear to go to the store.

I like that I can have a delicious, healthy meal in less time than it would take to call out for a pizza, that I can prep a large batch of ingredients all at once saving time and preventing waste and that I can make the most of my meager dollars. And it really turns out great - you would never be able to tell that it took less effort to put together than making a sandwich!