Sumptuous Soups

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Sumptuous Soups

There is nothing like a nice, hearty soup to warm you, body and soul, on a cool fall night. From a nice chicken dumpling soup to a thick and chunky Spanish stew, you will find something to enjoy in soups from across the world. As it gets colder outside and the days get darker, nothing lifts your spirits and brings the family together like a bubbling pot of homemade soup.

Curried Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

October is a great time to find fresh squash. You will find an abundance of squash, from acorn squash, butternut squash, and zucchini to pumpkins, spaghetti squash, and hybrid varieties like honey bear. Squash is one of those foods that can be great cooked in many different ways. They can be baked, turned into pie filling, roasted, steams, and cubed or pureed for soup. Before your local farmers market closes for the winter, make a trip to pick up some squash so you can fix this sumptuous for your friends and family.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp butter
One large onion, chopped, about 2 cups
5 tsp curry powder
6 cups butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped, about 3 lbs
2 tart apples, peeled, cored and chopped
3 cups chicken stock
1 tsp salt
1 cup apple cider
Pepper to taste

In a large pot, melt butter; add onion and sauté until tender and translucent. Add the curry powder to the onions and stir thoroughly. Put the squash, apples, stock and salt into the pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer until squash and apples are tender, approximately 25 minutes. Remove 2 cups of liquid, set aside, and reserve for later. Blend the remaining soup in a blender until smooth and return to the pot. Add the cider and stir. Gradually add the reserved liquid to the soup; the soup should still be thick, but not overly so. You may not need to add all of the reserved liquid to reach the desired consistency.

If needed, reheat the soup before serving. Liberally grind pepper over the soup before serving. This soup is especially good served with rustic bread or some simple homemade buttermilk biscuits.

Serve this sumptuous soup piping hot and enjoy as it warms you from head to toe with its delicious and hearty flavor.

Apple Creations

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Apple Creations

The start of fall ushers in the height of apple season. Apples are available year-round here in the United States, but during autumn you can find many fresh, local apples to use in your cooking. The apple is a fruit with many varied uses; they are tasty when fresh, but are equally good cooked in both sweet and savory dishes.

Apple Cranberry Chutney

Chutneys are a great sauce for turkey, pork and other types of protein. You can find many varieties of apple chutney recipes that are all equally simple and delicious. Apple cranberry chutney is a great chutney to make during the fall to accompany your Thanksgiving dinner.

2 1/2 cups apples, peeled, cored and chopped (2 large apples, preferably golden delicious or granny smith)
1 1/2 cups cranberries, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh peeled garlic, chopped

Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally until apples are tender and sauce is thick, about 1 hour. Cool to room temperature and serve with dinner and enjoy! Chutneys can also be canned if you are interested in taking the time. Canned chutney will keep much longer.

The most common use for the apple is in deserts. You will find a multitude of desert recipes using apples, but the apple pie is easily the most popular. My family loves our delightful variation on the traditional apple pie, apple dumplings. Apple dumplings are just as easy to prepare as apple pie, but they are even more exciting and delicious. The recipe that follows is my grandmother's recipe, which we have all enjoyed for years. This recipe serves four, but it can easily be increased.

Apple Dumplings

First, prepare enough basic pastry dough for a double crust.

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup butter, very cold
2 teaspoons salt, if using unsalted butter
1/2 cup water

Blend flour and butter until it has the texture of coarse meal. You can use a food processor if you have one, or you can use a pastry blender to mix flour and butter.  Alternately, you can blend with your hands or with two knives. Next you add the water. The amount of water depends on the flour and the butter, you want to add enough water so that the flour and butter begins to adhere together.  If it forms one mass without being pressed together, you have used too much water. After adding the water, form the dough into two flattened disc shapes. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to use. When you are ready to use the dough, roll it out and cut into four squares of approximately the same size. You will have some extra dough, but its better to have too much than too little.

Prepare Apples:
4 small to medium apples, peeled and cored, but left whole
Cinnamon and sugar, mixed

Place each peeled and cored apple on a square of pie dough; fill the hollow center of the apple with mixed cinnamon and sugar. Take the pie dough and wrap it around the apple, pinching the edges to make a nice and secure wrapping around the apple. Place all four apples into a baking pan.

Prepare Sauce:
2/3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Put all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Make sure all the sugar is dissolved. Now pour the sauce over the apples in the pan. Place the baking dish in a 425 degree preheated oven. Bake 40-45 minutes. Let cool and serve warm or cold with vanilla ice cream. These apples wrapped in pie dough will delight your taste buds and stun your guests with its simple delicious flavor.

This desert can be fairly rich, so if you want smaller portions, use smaller apples rather than dividing the dumplings. The cinnamon and sugar mixture melts during the cooking and is one of the dumpling's greatest aspects. If you cut into the dumpling before eating it disturbs the cinnamon and sugar as well as ruining the presentation.

The Ultimate Backpack Lunch

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The Ultimate Backpack Lunch

Summer is coming to an end and the new school year is starting. With all the children returning to school, we are once again confronted with the issue of what to pack your child for lunch. If your children don't like the school lunches or you feel the need to pack a more nutritious lunch for your child you will run into the challenge of packing something different every day. The tips below will also help you pack a fabulous lunch for day hikes or day-long outings.

The ultimate backpack lunch should be nutritious simple and -- most importantly -- delicious. There are a few items which make packing backpack lunches much easier. Firstly, an insulated lunch box gives you much more leeway in items that you can pack. They keep hot foods hot, and cold foods cold much more effectively than a brown paper bag. In addition, a good stainless steel thermos allows you to pack warm foods such as homemade soups and noodles.

An average backpack lunch usually contains a piece of fruit, maybe some vegetables, a sandwich, perhaps a snack and a treat. To make an average backpack lunch the ultimate backpack lunch you really only need to spice-up these items a bit. The ultimate backpack lunch is a packed lunch that you look forward to with delight rather than ambivalence.

Fruit
A balanced lunch should always contain fruit. Many packed lunches simply contain a whole piece of fruit. A simple method of spicing this up is to slice the fruit rather than packing the whole fruit. If you are slicing apples you should always remember to mix a slight amount of lemon juice with the apple slices, as this prevents them from going brown while waiting to be eaten.

Another excellent way to spice up the fruit portion of lunch is to use dried fruit instead of fresh fruit. Unsweetened dried fruits are healthy, but are more like a treat than many types of fruit. You can also find new types of fruit to pack in your lunches. I especially enjoy packing a kiwi, sliced in half, so I can eat the kiwi fruit out of the skin with a spoon.

Snack
Instead of packing potato chips or pretzels, try packing a nice trail mix. Nuts are a very healthy snack and are especially good for packed lunches as they provide plenty of energy. If you have the time, visit your local market's bulk food section. You can purchase your favorite types of nuts as well as dried fruits if you want something a little sweet. I suggest a mixture like this:

1/2 cup each peanuts, pecans, almonds, and walnuts
1/4 cup each raisins, golden raisins, dried halved apricots, dried pineapple pieces, and dried mango pieces
1/2 cup unsweetened banana chips
1/2 cup mixed dark chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and white chocolate chips

You can mix whichever types of ingredients you like best. If you or your children enjoy certain types of fruits and nuts, use more of these. When you mix up you trail mix, make enough to last for a week or so.

Another good snack idea is to pack yogurt and perhaps some granola. If you have some small plastic or glass containers, you can purchase a quart sized container of your favorite flavor of yogurt, then pack an individual serving of yogurt for lunch. Adding a small bag of granola adds a little more substance to the yogurt. I would suggest mixing banana-flavored yogurt with plain granola

Sandwich
You should try to make sure you pack a good serving of whole grains in your daily lunch. A nice alternative to the traditional sandwich is whole grain crackers. You can use your basic sandwich ingredients and eat them with crackers instead of bread. I enjoy sharp cheddar cheese and ham or salami. For the ultimate backpack lunch, make a nice tuna curry to spread on your favorite crackers.

Tuna Curry
12 oz tuna, drained
1/2 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp curry powder

Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Sautee the onion in the olive oil until it is soft. Add the garlic, tuna and curry powder. Continue to cook until the ingredients are mixed and thoroughly heated. You can serve this hot or cold, but it is especially good served warm on crackers. As always you should adjust this recipe to fit the flavors that you like best. The best way to find recipes you love is it to experiment with the ingredients and their proportions.

These are just a few simple suggestions that can spice-up any backpack lunch. I have also found that packing leftovers can be an enjoyable lunch. A thermos full of soup is a great lunch. I hope you can use a few of these suggestions to create a truly delicious backpack lunch.