Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Happy Harvest!!

One thing that I really love about the autumn is the harvest. Every year I load up on my favorites like big bouquets of cauliflower, giant stalks of brussels sprouts and heads of yummy greens. Today though, I decided to stray out of my culinary comfort zone and play with some harvest items that I've never cooked with: Butternut Squash and Kale.

Let's talk about kale first. I've been trying to eat lots of dark leafy greens because they are high in folic acid. I came across a blog a long time ago (I would link to it but I can't find it) where the blogger made kale chips. She raved about them and I have been meaning to make them myself since then. I saw some big beautiful heads of kale at Whole Foods a few days ago and decided to try them out.


Kale chips are super easy to make. All you do is cut away the tough stems, cut up the kale into bite sized pieces,  wash and dry in the salad spinner then put the kale on baking sheets with a little olive oil and salt on top. Bake for 15 minutes and that's it. They are so good! Super crispy and salty and you can not stop eating them.

I saw an episode of the Barefoot Contessa on Food Network a few weeks ago where Ina makes a butternut squash soup and it looked delicious so I decided to make it for dinner tonight. I have never cooked butternut squash before and I I now know the reason. It is super hard to peel. Peeling this 4lb. squash took FOREVER. I did it though and made a delicious soup with the squash, apples, onions, salt, pepper, curry and vegetable stock (recipe calls for chicken stock but I'm a vegetarian) and garnished it with cashews, scallions and a dollup of sour cream. Check out the recipe here.**One thing I want to let you know should you decide to make this soup: I used an immersion blender instead of a food mill or food processor and it was very easy and I imagine much less messy.**

What harvest vegetable should I try next?


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