Archive for January, 2009

Jan200930

Roasting Rambler

2

Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut Squash Soup

Food traditions can take root faster than you’d think. Several years ago (probably seven or eight) I decided to make a soup for Thanksgiving that I’d made a few times and had liked each time. It’s surprisingly simple, has few ingredients, and can feed a crowd. Want proof about that last part? Each year my family celebrates Thanksgiving with my dad’s side of the family and some years this amounted to about 60 people (in recent years this number has fallen into the 20’s and 30’s). These gatherings would start in the morning and could last well past midnight, so this soup became part of the second wave of food that was eaten to supplement the leftovers.  The nice thing about this recipe is that it can feed from two to 60 with about the same effort. Since that first Thanksgiving when I introduced this soup to my family, I’ve made it every year – including the year I had knee surgery over Thanksgiving break. [...]

Jan200922

Roasting Rambler

1

Buckwheat Waffles

Breakfast - Buckwheat Waffles

I grew up eating the deep pocketed square waffles that my mother made with buttermilk. They’re delicious with either whipped cream and strawberries or the more traditional maple syrup. Recently my mother gave me a waffle iron; its pockets aren’t as deep and it’s round, but it still makes a delicious waffle, especially using my mother’s recipe. She folds the egg whites into the batter after beating them to hard peaks – this gave me the idea to tryout a waffle recipe that would use up leftover egg whites from my ice cream experiments (see here and here for posted examples). [...]

Jan200917

Roasting Rambler

1

Leftover Redux

Bowl of Beef and Barley

While I love to cook for groups of people – friends, family, and sometime coworkers and classmates – I often end up cooking for one. This occasionally presents a bit of a problem in terms of leftover logistics. Such as a craving for roast beef right before Christmas (helped along by a nice sale on chuck roast). I salt and peppered and browned the roast on all sides, and then plopped it into a slow cooker with some tomato sauce, browned onions, more salt and pepper, carrots, a sprig of fresh rosemary, balsamic vinegar, several cloves of garlic, and some water. Cooked on low for hours (at least 5) it was fall apart tender when I loaded my plate for dinner. Then I had some for dinner the next night, and the next, and then I had to leave, so the broth, meat, onions, and remaining carrots went into the freezer. [...]

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