stephanieNY

I found some time to cook something up this weekend and so I made butternut squash soup again.  It's got squash and carrots and celery and fennel and potatoes and onions and garlic.  It's gooooood.

Pre-blend:

Post-blend:

You've probably been wondering what I've been eating lately. Well, normally at the beginning of the semester I do a bunch of cooking in the free time before school gets too crazy...soups and sugo and such. And then I live off of that stuff for a while. But things got crazy early, so I haven't been able to muster up the effort to chef it up when I get home from school at night. Instead, I rely on salad bars, ramen noodles, and annie's mac and cheese...and always peas:

However, lunches haven't suffered. This week: cucumber, fennel, grape, and cheddar salad topped with a veggie burger (not pictured). My level of motivation peaks in the morning hours.

Adam and I ate at Neptune Oyster last night. We scored the two stools at the end of the bar that face out the window. We milked it for as long as possible, and by the time we left, we had eaten oysters (fried and raw), mussels, arctic char, and petite octopus. Mmmmmm.

This week, instead of "what's for dinner?", it's "what soup is for dinner?"

Side note:
I'm going to start putting "loose recipes" up on my blog, for my own records. I've found myself wanting to make something for the second time and thinking of a picture of it on my site from way back when, and wishing I could remember how I made it. I suppose I could write them down the old-fashioned way and put them in some sort of accordion recipe-keeper, but my kitchen life isn't that organized right now. On another note, Adam got me a great book for Christmas called "Ratio: The Simplest Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking". The idea being to understand the basic ratios of ingredients in doughs, sauces, etc. For example...the ratio of flour to water to fat is 3:2:1 for pie dough, versus 3:1:2 for biscuit dough. With hopes of thinking in "parts" someday rather than "cups" and recalling recipes from the logic part of my brain rather than the memory part, here starts a temporary written log of loose recipes for now.

This round of pea soup:
1 lb split peas
3-ish potatoes
3-ish carrots
1-ish fennel bulb
1-ish onion
garlic
12-ish cups of stock/water

Adam and I came away from Christmas dinner with the leftover ham bone and are one soup into our ham-based soup creations. We've been living off a huge pot of minestrone that Adam made.

And I have some pea soup plans for this stock this week.

Thanks K&R!

I was thankful for this cranberry/prosecco drink that started the evening:

and for the delicious stuffing that came out of this amazing turkey:

and for this gorgeous table spread:

and for these place cards that Abby made:

The only thing I bought over in Russia (beside a nesting doll for my baby niece of course) was a jar of homemade cranberry jam from an old lady on the street in one of the country towns. She lured me in for a taste test of some of her jams and the cranberry was so crazy delish, so I happily traded her 2400 rubles for a jar.

Check out the old jar she put it in. One of my classmates bought her strawberry hazelnut jam that came in a Nescafe jar. Hehe.

Buuuuut, I don't know what to put it on. The jam didn't taste so delish on that piece of toast in the pictures, so now I don't know what to do with it. It's more tart than sweet, so I think it needs a sharp cheese or a piece of poultry perhaps to make it perform more like a cranberry sauce than a cranberry jam. Hmmmm...any ideas?

I bought a butternut squash on a whim last week at the farmers market. And in the spirit of fall, I made some soup with it tonight. It was easy peasy...1 onion, 1 fennel bulb, 1 carrot, 2 potatoes, and one butternut squash all cooked up in some butter and veggie stock and then blended. At first it smelled a lot like baby food when I added the veggie stock, but in the end it was goo-ooood. I look forward to it tomorrow night and the next night...and probably the next night.

After cooking a bit this summer, I've been extending my efforts into the school year. Last week I made a spaghetti squash meal, some more granola, baked tofu, and big pot of sugo to last me a while. It's a lot more fun to cook for two though. Tonight I made english muffin pizzas...a miniature solution to making pizza for one. Except that I have all the ingredients now and will have to make the same thing the next few nights. S'ok...they were quick and really yummy. Those are figs and onions in balsamic and goat cheese. Maybe I'll be crazy and add carrots tomorrow night.

I tried out spaghetti squash tonight. I've been eying it for a while. It's like pasta except that it's squash...brilliant. Actually, it's mostly like squash. This plate that you see here is a bunch of vegetables. I like it and all, but my eyes were playing tricks on my stomach who thought that it might get some starch tonight. My brain should've known better I guess. I'll try it again, as it's really fun to pull the strands out of the skin and I like its texture mucho. But spaghetti squash, however starchy your name may be, you are a side vegetable.