Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup with Roasted Garlic

Are you craving a super silky incredibly flavorful soup?  Something that welcomes you back in from shoveling the driveway from another snowstorm?  Looking for a bright and cheery way to illuminate the long dark days of winter?  I give you:  Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup with Roasted Garlic.  I love pureed vegetable soups that are healthy, full of intense flavor, and velvety, silky, or creamy (but without any cream!).  Being winter, butternut squash soups are all over food blogs and magazines.  Matt is crazy about sweet potatoes and I had some rosemary and sage leftover from yesterday's veal stew with mushrooms (a Marcella Hazan recipe) and a half a butternut squash from last week's crispy chicken with golden raisin and butternut squash compote from Food and Wine Magazine.  I also still had one quart left of vegetable stock in the freezer, so this was a no-brainer today!

You will need:

• 6-8 garlic cloves, unpeeled
• 2 TBS olive oil or butter (I prefer butter, but olive oil will work, and it is healthier!)
• 2 medium onions, diced (1 1/2 cups)
• 1 pound butternut squash (half of one medium squash), peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 3 small/medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 sprig fresh sage, with two or three leaves
• 1 quart vegetable or chicken stock
• freshly ground black pepper
• kosher salt

What you will do:

• Heat a cast iron or stainless steel skillet over medium heat.
• Place garlic cloves in dry pan and pan roast, turning regularly, until cloves are soft and very fragrant, they will likely get a few black spots.
• Remove garlic cloves from pan and set aside.
• Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed 4 qt pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.
• Add onion and a few pinches of salt, lower heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent.
• Add squash and sweet potato to pot, and sweat over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes
• Add stock, rosemary and sage sprigs.
• Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer soup for about 15 to 25 minutes, or until squash and sweet potato are very tender.
• Remove pot from heat and remove rosemary and sage sprigs, discard.
• Peel roasted garlic, removing any burned parts and tough stems.
• Place garlic and soup into a food processor (you may need to do this in batches if your processor is less than 12 cups capacity, alternatively, use an immersion blender in your pot).
• Process until silky smooth.
• Season with black pepper and salt to taste, a couple grinds and a pinch at a time.

The Tuna Salad Sandwich

I know, I know.  What's so exciting about tuna salad?  Well, usually, not a lot, but with this tuna salad, you'll be singing a new song!  Modified from the filling for Roasted Pepper Tuna Rolls from Lidia Bastianich, this has fast become a favorite to make, even if I'm not making the pepper rolls.

In the past I've made tuna melts with a tuna salad including water packed tuna, celery, shallots and lemon juice.  And I love the classic flavors in that, but THIS tuna salad needs no melty cheese to make you swoon.  What mustard you use in this salad is very important, so pick wisely and select something multidimensional.  I like to use Raye's Wintergarden Mustard, which has a touch of dill and garlic in a mellow, but flavorful medium brown mustard. While you are eating this tuna salad, it is soooo good, that you plan to make it again for lunch the next day, before you finish eating the sandwich in front of you.  If you make a double batch, this keeps excellently in the fridge for a week, easily.

For two large sandwiches~

With a fork, mix together in order, until a few small chunks of tuna remain, but the salad is mostly uniform

• 1- 5 ounce can of oil-packed tuna, well drained and flaked into pieces
• scant TBS capers, drained, rinsed, and finely chopped
• 1/2 TBS apple cider vinegar
• 2 TBS Mayonnaise
• generous 1/2 TBS mustard
• 2 TBS chopped parsley
• a few grinds of freshly ground black pepper

Serve up on a baguette or a ciabatta roll.  Along with all his other bread recipes, I'm especially crazy about Jim Lahey's stecca recipe for sandwich bread, which is the nicely browned half-stick of "baguette" in the picture, sprinkled with a little Maine Sea Salt.

Mixed Chile Chicken Enchiladas

The sauce used in these enchiladas has unfathomable depth.  I'm talking rich layer upon rich layer, insane amounts of flavor.  Using half New Mexico chiles and half Guajillo chiles, you arrive at a sauce bearing a bright, tip of the tongue, tantalizing introduction, followed up by a dark, eye-roll inducing, earthy, smoky relationship.  The perfect sauce.  The recipe is my slight modification of a Rick Bayless recipe.  I knew I wanted to fill the enchiladas with chicken (tons of shredded chicken in the freezer!), but I had to kick up the chicken a touch, in order that it would stand up flavor-wise to this amazing, taste-bud party, extravaganza of a sauce.  A little onion and cilantro with the chicken and cheese, and ecco, the perfect filling.  These make great leftovers, so be sure to make the whole recipe, even if there are only a couple of you!

Makes 4 to 8 servings of 2 to 4 enchiladas each

For the sauce:
Ingredients

• 6 garlic cloves, skin on
• 2 ounces dried New Mexico Chiles, stemmed, seeded and cut open
• 2 ounces dried Guajillo Chiles, stemmed, seeded and cut open
• 1 tsp Mexican oregano
• 1/8 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 3 cups broth (preferably homemade, chicken or vegetable)
• 1 1/2 TBS olive oil
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt

Process

• Heat a dry cast iron pan to medium heat, place garlic cloves in pan and dry toast for about 15 or 20 minutes, turning a few times, until soft, fragrant and blackened in spots.  Set aside to cool, remove skins, and roughly chop.
• Using same cast iron, toast chiles a couple seconds per side, pressing down with a potato masher, then add to a bowl of hot water.  Continue toasting all chiles until done.  Then let chiles sit in hot water for 30 minutes, and then drain chiles, discard liquid.
• Put chiles, garlic, spices and 2/3 cup of broth into food processor (or blender).  Process until you get a smooth puree (you'll have to scrape down the sides a few times).
• With a rubber spatula, work puree through a size to remove any bits of skin or seeds.
• In a medium or large heavy pot, heat olive oil over medium heat until a sprinkle of water sizzles.
• Add puree and cook, stirring constantly for about 5- 10 minutes to let sauce cook and reduce (it will darken).  Taste after 5 minutes, if raw taste of chile is gone, you're all set, if not, continue to cook.
• Add remaining broth, set heat to low and simmer sauce for at least 30 minutes, until the consistency of cream soup.  This will take 30 to 60 minutes, depending on your pot and your stove.  If you've been simmering for 30 minutes and the sauce is too thick, add a little more broth.

For Enchiladas

Ingredients

• One large onion, very thinly sliced
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 pound shredded chicken
• 2 TBS chopped cilantro (plus more for garnish)
• 1 pound monterey jack cheese, shredded (or grated on the large holes of a box grater)
• 16 taco-size tortillas (corn or flour)

Process

• Heat oven to 350.
• Heat olive oil over medium- high heat, add onion and salt.  Drop heat to low
• Cook onion slowly, until translucent, but still with a bit of texture.
• Take pan off of heat.
• Mix in chicken, cilantro and two-thirds of the cheese.  Divide in half, and then those sections in half again, and then again and again.  This way you can "eyeball" a 1/16 of the filling for each enchilada
• In a baking dish, ladle enough sauce to lightly cover the bottom (about 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
• Heat tortillas (in oven or microwave) until pliable.
• Fill each tortilla with 1/16 of the mixture and roll tightly.  Place seam side down in baking dish.
• Continue with all tortillas and then cover with remaining sauce.
• Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.  (At this point, you can put enchiladas in the fridge to be baked off later in the day, or the following day).
• Cover dish with aluminum foil, and place in oven for 30 minutes.
• Remove foil and continue cooking for 10 minutes
• Let enchiladas cool for 10 minutes before serving.
• Sprinkle cilantro on top and serve.

Sweet Sriracha Wings

Chicken wings were on sale at Whole Foods today, so I thought I'd buy some and surprise Matt with a fun dinner.  We shared a pound and a half of wings for dinner.  That's it.  Probably should have eaten a salad too, but whatever...next time!  I put together this recipe after a little research into other non-fried chicken wings.  Matt said that the desired crispiness of fried wings was there, and I agreed.  Matt (who is the champion kitchen cleaner around here) also liked something else about these wings other than the mind blowingly awesome flavor, crisp outside and juicy inside: super easy clean up!  If you don't like my sauce suggestion below, you could always just toss the wings in some buffalo sauce and call it a day as well.

So, it is a little late to make these for today's big Pats game day, but since I'm sure they'll be playing next week...plan ahead accordingly! :)

The following recipe makes enough for two very hungry adults not eating anything else (except maybe a salad, to you know, balance things out).

For the wings:
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds wings (if the wing is still attached to the drumstick, separate, although often you can buy wingettes and drumettes together, already separated) 
• 2 TBS flour
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tsp smoked paprika (or 1 tsp of your favorite chili powder blend

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 450
• Put flour, salt, pepper and paprika in a large ziplock bag and shake to mix.  
• Add wings. 
• Close bag and shake to coat wings all over with seasoned flour.
• Cover rimmed baking sheet with foil (this is the easy cleanup part!) and lightly oil with olive or vegetable oil
• Place wings on foil-lined baking sheet, drizzle or spray a little oil atop each wing
• Place in oven for 45 minutes until browned and crispy.
• Turn wings at 30 minute mark and 15 minute mark.

For sauce:

Ingredients:

• 2 TBS unsalted butter, melted
• 2 TBS jalapeño jelly (or other hot pepper jelly, like an apricot-habanero), melted (careful melting this in a microwave, it melts within about 10 seconds)
• 2 TBS Sriracha

To prepare wings to serve:

• Put sauce ingredients in a large bowl, whisk to combine
• Add wings, hot from the oven
• Toss to coat wings in sauce thoroughly
• Consume whilst making mmmm noises and marveling that you don't have 3 quarts of oil to clean up, or a pan to scrub or anything more than washing a bowl and a couple plates....

Fried Pickles

This is a favorite treat of Matt's and it only takes about 30 minutes to assemble and cook.  And if you happen to be the proud owner of stylin' fry baskets (like we are thanks to my cousin Aurelia), you can also make this treat extra festive on a random day.  If you happen to keep panko bread crumbs around your cabinet, this treat also can be made with what you have in your fridge and cabinets.  For our fried pickles, I use pickles made by my mother; specifically, dill cucumber spear pickles and spicy dill bean pickles (the skinny ones in the photo are the dill beans).  But you can use any pickles, preferably in a stick/spear/wedge shape.  I've tried frying pickle chips, but the centers get soggy almost immediately after getting out of the oil.  If you have whole cucumber pickles, just slice into spears or halves before frying.  You can eat them plain (as I like to do) or dip them in your favorite dressing or dip (Matt dips them in blue cheese dip, quelle surprise).

The process is pretty simple.  Line up 3 pie plates/cake pans, or similarly shaped vessels.  In first vessel put seasoned flour (see below).  In second vessel beat a couple eggs together until uniform.  In third vessel, place panko bread crumbs.

First, blot off extra brine from pickles, but do not blot completely dry.  Dredge pickles in flour, shake off excess flour.  Coat pickles in beaten egg.  Coat pickles in panko.  Place on a plate to ready for frying.

Heat 1 1/2" of canola or peanut oil in a deep saute pan over medium heat.  Using a deep fat or candy thermometer, heat oil to 350 degrees.  Do not touch tip of thermometer to sides of bottom of pan when taking temperature reading, or your reading will be off.  Gently place a few pickles into oil and fry for 30 to 60 seconds, using chopsticks to move pickles around and flip over if necessary.  When they reach desired deep brown color, remove from oil with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels on a cooling rack placed over baking sheet.  Only fry a few pickles (3 to 6 depending on size of pickles and size of pan) at a time, if you add too many, you will crowd the pan and the pickles won't cook properly.  Since you aren't "cooking" the pickles, remove as soon as they are browned nicely, and they'll be perfect.

For the seasoned flour, mix together the following ingredients with a fork:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/4 tsp ground chipotle