Butternut Squash Soup

I made this recipe at Thanksgiving as a starter last year, and it was wonderful once I added a few extra ingredients. So I tried it again as a light dinner last night. I used my father-in-law's new immersion blender for the first time, and I really want one of my own now. If you don't have one, just blend the soup in batches in your regular blender.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp butter
1 butternut squash, about 1 1/2-2 pounds, peeled and cubed
2 large carrots (or about 3/4 cup), peeled and chopped
1/2 cup chopped sweet onion
2 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup whole milk or half and half
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of saffron
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp sage
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Melt butter in a large pot, letting it cover the bottom. Drop in squash, carrots, and onion and sauté for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add chicken broth, bring to a boil. Add the herbs and pepper and mix together, then cover and reduce heat to low, simmering for 30 minutes. Then turn off heat and add in milk and salt.

Blend all together well with immersion blender or regular blender until soup is smooth.

Feeds 6 people.

Low-Fat Yet Delicious Taco Salad

It's been awhile since I've had the opportunity to cook anything new. Life is a little chaotic, with a toddler running around and my husband working nights. But this was made with leftovers and freezer food, so it was incredibly cheap AND tasty!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds ground meat (I used a combo of Turkey and beef)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
Taco seasoning packet or mix (or if all else fails, throw in a mixture of chili powder, cumin, black pepper, paprika, and garlic salt)
chopped lettuce (about 2 cups)
1 chopped tomato
1 cup shredded cheese
1 cup salsa
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
6-7 corn tortillas
1/4 cup cooking oil (Enova if you have it, or Smart Balance)
light sour cream
guacamole (pre-packaged)

Spray a large frying pan with cooking spray and turn on medium-high heat. Add ground meat and brown evenly all over.

Then add black beans and spices and mix well together, turning heat to low. Cook about 4 minutes or until all is heated through.

In a separate, smaller pan, heat the cooking oil until steam rises, or about 3 minutes. Then toss in one whole tortilla and fry until golden and crisp. Repeat with the remaining tortillas, then chop them or beak them up into slices or fork-ful bits.

Put meat/bean mix into a large bowl. Then add the tortillas, cheese, lettuce, salsa, onions, cilantro and tomato and mix well.

Set guacamole and sour cream in separate bowls for each person to take as much as they wish as toppings, and serve taco salad in bowls to everyone.

Extremely tasty, and feeds 4.

Zucchini Bread

This is a belated post, as I made this bread several days ago, but it is a wonderful, sweet bread great for snacking or breakfast. This is my grandmother's recipe, so pay no attention to the fat content. My in-laws don't own any regular loaf pans so I had to make due with about 6 mini loaf pans. Even the baby liked eating this, though I suspect she got more of it on the floor than in her mouth.

Ingredients:

2 cups worth of grated zucchini
2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup raisins (optional)
1 cup chopped nuts (also optional)

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix dry ingredients in sifter and sift onto a sheet of wax paper (or something similar). Combine eggs, oil, zucchini, and vanilla extract in bowl, mixing well, then add the pile of dry ingredients. Mix well, and add raisins and nuts if doing so. Pour into 2 greased bread pans and bake for 60 minutes. Or use 5-6 greased mini-loaf pans and bake for about 40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean after being poked in the middle of each loaf.

Roasted Rabbit with Sangria Sauce

This is a long, complicated recipe that my father-in-law came up with and asked me to share because of how interesting it is. He was given a rabbit by a hunter friend, and had also made sangria the other day. He decided to combine them and discover a new flavor. You can purchase rabbit at specialty butcher shops; it's a very lean meat that tastes similar to chicken.

Sangria Sauce Ingredients:

1 green apple, chopped
2 oranges, eighthed
1 white nectarine, chopped
1/2 cup blackberries
1 red pear, chopped
1 bosc pear, chopped
1 stick cinnamon
spice pack: 4 whole allspice and 6 cloves (use a tea ball or something)
1 inexpensive bottle of red Zinfandel wine

Mix all together in a pitcher and you have Sangria. Have a drink or two! Then use the rest to make the sauce. Instructions below.

Stuffing Ingredients:

Center chunk of celery (leftover celery) or about 1 1/2 celery stalks, chopped
1 bosc pear, sliced in 1/2-inch thick wedges
1/2 cup sweet onion, chopped into chunks
1/2 cup seasoned stuffing
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
salt and pepper

Spritz salt and pepper inside body cavity of rabbit. Mix all other ingredients in a bowl and spoon as much stuffing as you can fit into the cavity of the rabbit. Lay pear slices on top to cover gaps in the opening, then truss the cavity shut with skewers or trussing thread.

Rabbit:

One 3-4-pound rabbit, thawed if frozen
salt and pepper

Once rabbit is trussed closed, sprinkle salt and pepper all over the skin.

Lay legs-up in roasting pan and roast at 350 degrees F for 1- 1 1/2 hours, or until meatiest part of the rabbit reaches 160 degrees F. Cook sangria sauce/reduction as soon as rabbit is in the oven, then baste the rabbit once about halfway through cooking.

Sangria Marinade/ Sauce:

1/8 tsp ground coriander seed
pinch of saffron
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp/2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup of fruit from the sangria (include a few blackberries!)
1 1/2 cups of sangria liquid
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup minced onion
1 Tbsp honey

Drip oil into a large frying pan on medium heat. Add onions and brown slightly. Pour in sangria liquid and bring to a simmer. Add garlic and fruit and stir well, simmering on low heat. Add spices and garlic and stir well again. Allow to simmer on low-medium heat until liquid is reduced by half, then add the honey. Let reduce to about 1/3 of the original amount of liquid, then take off heat and let sit until rabbit is done.

Use to baste rabbit halfway through, then save the rest as a topping sauce for the done rabbit meat.

Serve with rice and a green vegetable. Delicious! Serves 4-6 people.

Spiced Up Rice and Lentils

I made this for lunch today after a morning watching wilderness survival TV shows. They always puts me in the mood to go camping and eat whole grains. This can be made as a nice side dish to accompany a poultry dinner. You can replace the spelt grain with millet or barley if you like. The baby is walking now, so putting her in her play yard is the only way to keep her busy while I cook. Thankfully, she ate this happily in her high chair once it was done.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup long grain/brown/wild rice
1/4 cup lentils
1/4 cup spelt grain
1 chicken or vegetable bouillon cube
1/4 tsp seasoned pepper
2 cups water
fresh sprigs of herbs: I used about the equivalent of 1 Tbsp sage, 1 tsp thyme and 1 tsp basil

Throw all ingredients into a medium sized pot and mix well. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low heat for about 25-30 minutes, or until all water is sucked up by the grains. Makes about 4 cups.

Garlic Chicken and Summer Squash

I was so busy today, between shopping at the farmer's market with the cutest baby in the world and working on my book, that I almost forgot to make dinner.
We bought a free-range chicken at the butcher the other day and thawed it today. In my half-crazed hurry to get it started, I just threw the first few things I found in the house together in a bowl, slathered it on, and got cooking. The squash was a $2 find at the farmer's market.

Ingredients for chicken:

One whole chicken, innards removed and rinsed under cool water
3 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 Tbsp fresh sage, ripped up into bits
a few random shakes of seasoned salt and seasoned pepper
three sprigs of thyme and a couple of whole sage leaves
two garlic cloves, halved

Once the chicken is rinsed off and set on the roasting pan, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Gently push your fingers under the skin of the breast and drumsticks to separate it from the meat. Stuff the last three ingredients into the cavity of the chicken. Mix the minced garlic, sea salt, pepper, sage, and the random shakes of spices in a small bowl. Rub this mixture all over the skin and under the parts of skin you pulled up. Bake for 1 hr and 20 mins or until thermometer reads at least 160 in the thigh.

Ingredients for squash:

4-5 small summer squashes, chopped thickly
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp garlic salt

Fill a medium pot with about 1 inch or so of water, then add a steamer grate. Throw squash in and cut up the butter so bits of it are all around the squash. Sprinkle garlic salt over all, then cover and cook, steaming about 10 minutes.