Gazpacho To Beat the Heat

Temperatures in Chicago are through the roof. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, it's lovely to finally be able to put away winter coats and bare our arms, but when the heat is in the 90s, my appetite and desire to cook disappears. Just the thought of turning on the oven makes me sweat.

On these sultry summer nights, I crave freshness. Ripe red tomatoes, crispy green cucumbers, and creamy avocado. All those flavors come together beautifully in a cold gazpacho soup. It comes together in less than five minutes with the help of a blender and topped with a few grilled shrimp, makes the perfect summer dinner.

Summer Gazpacho
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
5 ripe and sweet tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 or 2 cucumbers, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/2 a Vidalia onion, coarsely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup of bread crumbs
1/4 cups of olive oil
optional, but really lovely, 4 tablespoons of sherry
1/2 teaspoon of aroyo chili powder (optional as well, but gives a lovely smoky heat)

1. Chop the tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, and onion and puree in a blender or food processor. 
2. Pour into a serving bowl. Fold in the breadcrumbs. Drizzle with olive oil and sherry. Season with salt, pepper, and chili powder.
3. Serve at room temperature or after chilling in the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. I served this with a few shrimp that I sauteed very briefly at very high heat on the stove and then drizzled with lemon. Chunks of avocado would have been another delicious addition had I had them in the house.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup: the Perfect Way to Celebrate Fall

Is it wrong to feel so alive as everything around me is dying? To dance with the leaves as they fall to the ground?  I can't help it. I love fall with its crimsons, its burnt siennas, and its sulfuric yellows. Just walking to school is like walking through a Monet painting, leaves crinkling under foot, the whole world bathed in a golden glow. There's such a frenzy to make the most of every day before the cold settles in.

As soon as I spot that first leaf flying through the air, I start craving butternut squash soup. I make it pretty much every week during that crisp fleece weather. And if I forget, Juliette is quick to remind me. She loves the sweet orange soup just as much as I do.

Yesterday we shared our first bowl of the season together, outside, sitting cross legged on a patchwork of leaves in our postage stamp backyard. Roasted butternut squash soup tastes like it looks, warm, sweet, and golden, it fills your belly and keeps that warm, happy feeling deep inside all day. But yesterday, it tasted even better than usual because we knew that this might be our last picnic of the season. Soon enough we'll be reaching for a big bowl of butternut squash soup to recover from the cold outside.

Roasted Butternut Squash Apple Soup
Ingredients:
2 butternut squashes, peeled and chopped into 2 inch pieces
4 cups of chicken stock, preferably homemade
4 carrots - diced coarsely, or 3/4 cups of mini carrots
1 small onion - diced coarsely
2 celery stalks - diced coarsely
2 apples - peeled and cut into coarse chunks
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of salted butter
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cut the butternut squash into large chunks and pour into a gallon ziplock bag. Pour in olive oil and maple syrup and rub well to cover each piece with the liquids. Open the bag and pour onto either two Pyrex dishes or on a cookie sheet that you covered with aluminum foil. Beware! Squash releases some sort of chemical that coats your hands. You'll need to scrub like a madman or wear gloves to get the film off.
3. Roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour - until squash is soft when pierced with a fork.
4. Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add diced carrots, onions, and celery and cook over medium to low heat until soft, about 8 minutes.
5. Add roasted squash and apples chunks. Cover with enough stock to submerge the vegetables.
6. Bring to a simmer and cook for 40 minutes.
7. Puree soup with hand mixer.
8. Enjoy soup all week for lunch! Optional toppings include: oven dried prosciutto, croutons, blue cheese crumbs or slivers, creme fraiche. Or you can have it plain, as we did today, a virtually no-fat bowl of veggie goodness.

a Lighter Take on French Onion Soup

French onion soup is one of those quintessential comfort dishes, a deeply satisfying brown savory broth topped with a decadent crust of rich melted cheese. Although you'll find it on French menus, it's much more likely that an American will order it rather than a French person. When a Frenchman is craving une bonne soupe, it's much more likely that he's imagining a simple potato leek soup or a cold vichyssoise. But both tourists and Parisians will agree that this simple soup is delicious.

The weather was gray and misty today, so I decided to welcome Steve home from coaching Bella's soccer team with a big bowl of French onion soup. I used a recipe from the Cafe Boulud Cookbook which has a wonderful mix of traditional French and American-French fusion recipes,which never fail to inspire me. His recipe called for substituting toasted baguette topped with marrow for the customary melted cheese topping and adding beef shank to the soup for a little extra substance. I boiled the marrow bones according to the recipe, but they yielded gray, totally unappetizing marrow. Instead, I served the rich soup with toasted bread topped with melting lumps of salted butter. It was much lighter than the customary cheese, more subtle and just as delicious. It would have been nice if the marrow had worked out, but a generous pat of butter topped with a little crunchy Fleur de Sel easily made up for my disappointment.

Be Patient, These Onions Can Still Get Richer and More Caramelized.

The house smelled great from the caramelized onions long after our soup bowls were licked clean. My mouth was tingling from the rich flavors, but I didn't feel overly full. I have a feeling that this lighter version of French onion soup will be a staple in my fridge as we deal with our first brutal Chicago winter.

Onion Soup with Braised Beef Shank (adapted from the Cafe Boulud Cookbook)
Serves 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 1/2 hours
2 pieces of Beef Shank or other stew meat such as oxtail, cut into 1 inch cubes
4 white or sweet onions
2 quarts of chicken stock
4 tablespoons of salted butter and a little extra for your toasts
2 teaspoons of all-purpose flour
1 cup of dry white wine such as sauvignon blanc
1 bouquet garni herb sack or 1 teaspoon of bouquet garni blend from Penzey's
a few pinches of fleur de sel 

1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a soup pot or Le Creuset type pot. Add the beef cubes and sear until browned on all sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.
2. Cut your onions into very thin slices. Add 3 tablespoons of butter to the pot. Melt on medium heat. Add the onions and cook on medium to low heat, stirring frequently, until the onions have turned soft and are a rich amber color. Do not let them burn. This process can take over 40 minutes. Be patient as the onions release their sugar and get caramelized, filling your kitchen with magical smells.
3. Dust the onions with flour and cook, stirring with gusto for 2 to 3 minutes, long enough to cook off the floury taste. This will give your soup a little more body.
4. Add the cup of wine and scrub the bottom of the pan to get all the browned bits into your liquid. Bring to a boil and heat until the wine is almost evaporated.
5. Add the chicken stock and the beef. Bring to a simmer and cook for an hour, until the beef is very tender. Your soup is now ready to serve.
6. Cut a few thick slices of country bread. Toast them. Top them with a generous amount of good quality European butter, go ahead and treat yourself. Sprinkle a few grains of Fleur de Sel on top and enjoy this celebration of fall soup. You could even blast a little Edith Piaf and pretend you're a tourist at a little cafe in the Quartier Latin.

Apple Carrot Ginger Soup to Conquer Chaos

Chefdruck's Tasty Tuesday
I flew out to Ohio desperate for a respite from our frantic house de-cluttering and eager to forget for a few days the prospect of long stressful months awaiting an offer. I couldn't wait to be blown away by the mansions we would be trading our cozy little house for. After two weeks of tough news from NJ realtors about the impact of the recession on our lives, I was ready to see the silver lining in our adventure.

But instead of being welcomed like visiting royalty by Ohio realtors, we were dealt another bitter pill. We spent three days like contestants of the Amazing Race, going from town to town, trying on lifestyles like shoes at the annual Nordstrom sale.

We visited 1920s homes minutes from downtown Columbus with tiny bedrooms and damp unfinished basements, homes that were full of charming details needing a serious amount of TLC and decorating budget to bring to life, but homes that were within tree-lined walking distance from excellent schools. It was hard to imagine our family-friendly furniture and mountains of toys sullying these historic gems. We pictured 2-3 years of yelling at Jack every time he nicked one of the antique walls with an enthusiastic session of car racing.

Then we raced off to a Disney-like community with identical palatial homes built to house the employees of a large retail company. We visited the country club that everyone joins there and tried to look nonchalant when we saw the membership fee and monthly dues. We walked through the cavernous halls of a foreclosed mansion marred by deep gouges in the grand wrap around staircase and an infestation of winged ants and we wondered nervously how many more of these beautiful houses in this dream gone wrong were doomed to the same fate in this climate of layoffs and real estate losses. We still were tempted by the notion of having such a huge house until we learned that Jack would be attending one of the 36 kindergarten classrooms with 30 children each in the fall if we chose that particular town.

By default, we're now leaning towards the initial town we were interested in, a sprawling maze of sub-developments with 12 elementary schools. In addition to not knowing how to navigate this massive school system, we're also concerned about reports that the schools are constantly redistricted and that there is no guarantee your child will go to the same school from year to year.

Needless to say, I came home to my still-cluttered house very very stressed, with only one desire: to grab my kiddies and hide under the covers from all of this change. Another unfortunate outcome of all of this anxiety is that I'm having a harder and harder time fitting into my jeans. I've definitely been turning to brownies and molten chocolate cakes with more frequency to drown my sorrows lately and it is definitely showing.

If I can't get control of the other parts of my life, at least I can get my eating under control. My body is so addicted to sugar right now that I find myself obsessing about excuses to have a treat all day. I don't believe in diets that radically change the way you eat, such as South Beach. To really succeed in losing weight, it has to be something sustainable that you can live with, not a complete change from your regular habits. My motto is always "everything in moderation" but sometimes it just needs to be "everything in greater moderation."

For this Tasty Tuesday, I'm declaring my battle plan to win back my jeans.

• Only fruit and non-fat Fage yogurt for dessert for the next two weeks.
• No more potatoes, fried or baked, for the next two weeks.
• Salads with fun protein instead of grilled cheese for lunch.
• A big vat of homemade vegetable soup as an alternative to salads.

When I last felt the need to have a little sugar detox, I shared my recipe for roasted butternut squash soup. Unfortunately, the butternut squash season is behind us. I'll be turning to this carrot apple ginger soup in the next few weeks to supplement my salads.

Carrot, Apple and Ginger Soup
Ingredients
3 tablespoons of salted butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 tablespoons of finely chopped ginger root
1 apple, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
7 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of dry white wine
2 bags of baby carrots or 2 lbs of carrot bunches, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon of curry powder
salt and pepper
chopped fresh parsley to garnish

1. Melt the butter in a large stock pot. Add the onion, ginger and garlic and saute for 5 to 10 minutes.
2. Add the stock, wine, carrots and apple. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered over medium heat until the carrots are very tender, 40 to 50 minutes.
3. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Season with lemon juice, curry powder and salt and pepper to your liking. Sprinkle with the parsley to garnish.
4. This soup is good hot or cold.
   

Roasted Butternut Squash Apple Soup

Some parts of New Jersey were covered in snow today - a freakish event before Halloween. This was my wake-up call to get going with one of my favorite activities - making a big pot of vegetable soup. My mom used to make roasted vegetable soups all the time when we were little. I hated it. I had to grow up to appreciate how filling and delicious a big bowl of vegetable soup can be.

I actually credit my butternut squash soup for losing my baby weight after Juliette. I made big containers of soup and filled my stomach with it, day after day for lunch. The pounds just melted away. There's no cream, no fat, just filling veggies. Mireille Guiliano, author of Why French Women Don't Get Fat, recommends doing eating only leek soup for a weekend to lose a little weight. I don't recommend only eating soup for three days - but my butternut squash recipe makes for a delicious weekday lunch.

I haven't gotten any food posts in my comments yet - so I've decided to share with you some of my favorite food blog posts from the past week instead. If you leave me a link in my comments - I'll feature you here next week! My first foodie shout out goes out to Debbie of Jersey Bites. This week she reviewed the cookbook of a fellow Jersey girl and made a delicious eggplant parmesan recipe from it. If you're looking for inspiration from a fantastic community of home cooks, head over to This Week for Dinner where Jayne and her readers share their weekly menu plans. This week Jayne shared an amazing recipe for Thai Chicken Pizza. Finally, my last shout out goes out to Lisa from Jersey Girl Cooks with her gorgeous tomato-laden food blog. Lisa must be part magician - everything she makes looks incredible. This week she shared a recipe for an interesting sounding snack cake made with olive oil and yogurt.

And now for my Tasty Tuesday recipe - the secret is that it's all in the roasting. Oh, and don't cut corners and buy the pre-cut butternut squash - it's too dry.


Roasted Butternut Squash Apple Soup
1 butternut squash (can do 2 if they are small)
4 cups of chicken stock
4 carrots - diced small
1 onion - diced small
2 celery stalks - diced small
4 apples - peeled and cut into coarse chunks

1) Cut the butternut squash into a coarse chunks and place on cookie sheet.
2) Roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour - until squash is soft when pierced with a fork.
3) Melt a little butter in a soup pot. Add diced carrots, onions, and celery and cook over medium to low heat until soft, about 8 minutes.
4) Add roasted squash, apples chunks, and cover with enough stock to submerge the acorn.
5) Bring to a simmer and cook for 40 minutes.
6) Puree soup with hand mixer.
7) Enjoy soup all week for lunch!