Thanksgiving Soup Bar: Red Curry Butternut Squash Soup

The Thanksgiving Soup Bar idea started with the idea of doing a pumpkin soup, but I decided to do a butternut squash soup instead. I liked the idea of warming the soup flavors with curry. I could make a basic soup without a recipe, and I'd added curry powder to soups before. I flipped through cookbooks and web sites, though, to see if I could find a specific recipe. Curry and winter squash is a popular combination, and there were a lot of recipes to sift through. I settled on this one from Williams Sonoma. It appealed to me because it went beyond just adding yellow curry powder to a standard soup, but other than the squash, the ingredients were things I already had in the refrigerator and pantry.

I tweaked the recipe a bit, adding lemongrass to the already Thai-style flavor profile. Fresh lemongrass and ginger are wonderful, and I often have a knob of ginger on hand, but didn't last week. I keep tubes of Garden Gourmet pastes on hand as well, though, and using them here saved me a shopping trip. Because I was traveling for the holiday, I made the majority of the soup ahead. After the squash was cooked, I cooled the mixture and transferred it to a zipper bag for transport in an ice chest. Just before serving I pureed the squash mixture, added the remaining ingredients, and turned it over to my sister to man the strainer while I prepped the other soups. You can skip the straining step if you like - the little bit of remaining texture can give the soup a nice heft.

The soup was a little thin after straining; if I'd had more time I would have simmered it a bit to reduce as I prefer a little thicker soup. It was fine as it was, though. I could also see adding more coconut milk or even cream or half and half to make it a truly creamy soup; the amount of coconut milk here is enough to give it a little lightness, but not enough to make it creamy.

Next time I make this I'll add more than the designated 1 tsp of curry paste. I could barely tell

Weekend Food Exploits

Lately I've gotten back into the routine of going to the grocery store every weekend. Stocked pantry/fridge = meal flexibility and a lot fewer restaurant meals. Late spring through early fall I also stop by one of the produce stands run by Howell's Farm. They specialize in tomatoes, but also grow a nice variety of squashes and eggplants, peppers, and corn. Yesterday's trip was a little different -- I started my day with a visit to the Nashville Farmer's Market.

The FM has traditionally been a disappointment; few farmers and lots and lots of resellers. The interior market has had some interesting shops and restaurants, but that's somewhat in flux now. Half the facility is taken up with a flea market that is 99% knock-offs and mass-produced cheap, gaudy junk. There's an effort underway to renovate and reposition, including trying to get more actual farmers selling more actual local product. The effort has been surprisingly controversial ... but more about that another day.

I went to the FM hoping to score some decent peaches, and was also interested in seeing what the general selection was like these days. One seller had some peaches from KY, which counts as local. None that I inspected were really ripe; I've got four on my counter and hope they'll be worth eating. I also picked up a loaf of whole wheat bread from what I think was a Mennonite couple who had a table of baked goods. Made a Bradley tomato sandwich with it for lunch -- it was good, soft bread for all of it being whole wheat. I saw a huge variety of squashes and peppers, including cute pint baskets of cherry-tomato sized, mixed-variety heirloom peppers. I was hoping for fresh onions or garlic, fresh herbs, maybe some strawberries, and ... exotica. I was disappointed, but did go to Howell's stand there and pick up some things I usually get from them -- zucchini, eggplant (small white and Japanese), Bradley tomatoes (low-acid and thin skin), cherry tomatoes mentioned in yesterday's post (which I discovered today are called Black Cherry), plum tomatoes, Peaches-and-Cream corn, some pickling cucumbers, and some red potatoes. A goodly haul.

Sundays have become a cook-for-the-week-and-the-freezer day, and today was no exception. I used the pickling cucumbers to make a quart of refrigerator bread-and-butter pickles, using kind of a hybrid of several recipes. I'll write about them in a couple of weeks, after the first tasting. With the eggplants, plum tomatoes, zucchini, and previously-purchased purple bell pepper and Vidalia onion, I made Cooking Light's Gardener's Ratatouille. I've been making this every summer since the recipe was first published in 2002. The unconventional colors of some of the vegetables (purple pepper, white eggplant) made it even more colorful than usual. Delicious, too!

I was going to link to the recipe, but it's no longer available on the Cooking Light web site, so ... here it is. (Note: It's also in the Cooking Light 2002 Annual recipe book.)

Gardener's Ratatouille
Cooking Light, Aug 2002
Robin Taylor Swatt

2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
3 cups chopped plum tomatoes -- (about 1 pound)
2 cups chopped eggplant -- peeled (TL note: I've never peeled them)
1 1/2 cups chopped zucchini
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 clove garlic -- minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 3 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Add tomato, eggplant, zucchini, bell pepper, and garlic. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Stir in oregano, and remaining ingredients; cook, uncovered, 5 minutes or until most of the liquid evaporates. Yield: 4 servings (serving size: approx 3/4 cup).