Butternut Squash Soup

I love thick creamy soups in the fall. The problem is that milk products and I don't get along very well. Lactards out there rejoice! I have a terrific recipe for you that is not only dairy free, but what I think should be very healthy. I have actually never made butternut squash soup before (I made up this recipe as well...), and got über-excited when I ordered my hand blender online earlier this week. Unfortunately, I couldn't wait for that to arrive, so I did this in a blender, which just means some extra cleaning. I was working on this soup while putting together my halloween costume, so the timing of everything really doesn't matter all that much. You could also probably skip the roasting step, but I wasn't in any rush. The amount of liquid is also up to you, depending on if you want a thicker or thinner soup, so the amount listed below is merely a suggestion. Just keep adding that chicken stock for a thinner soup. The herbs and spices are mainly a guide, take out what you don't like and add others, such as nutmeg, which I probably would've done, but I ran out last weekend. Don't be afraid of the curry paste. You can barely taste it unless you're looking for it. This serves about 4 people.

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash (mine was 2.3 lbs)

3 cloves garlic

olive oil

1 medium sized onion, diced

1 cup water

1 cup chicken stock, plus extra

1 cup soy milk

1/2 tsp dried thyme

7 whole cloves

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp Patak's Hot Curry Paste (can find this in most grocery stores, definitely Whole Foods)

Salt

Pepper

Green onions-optional for garnish

Directions:

1. Cut up the squash into pieces, and smash up 3 cloves of garlic. Put in a roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil and season liberally with salt and pepper. Bake in 350 deg F oven for about 1 hour, depending on the size of your pieces.

2. Saute the onions in olive oil (oh i don't know, maybe 2tbsp?) until they are soft.

3. Once the pieces are mostly soft (i.e. you can easily pierce with fork), take out of the oven and peel it and cube the squash. Put it into a pot with water, chicken stock, onion and the spices and let it boil for about 30 min until everything is very soft.

4. Dump everything into a blender, and puree until well blended. I had to do this in batches in the blender. This is where a stick blender would've come in handy...

5. Return to pot and stir in the soy milk. Add salt until you think it's enough. My pet peeve is recipes that try to tell you how much salt to add. Put your taste buds to use! Add more stock if you want to thin it out.

6. Serve in bowls garnished with sliced green onions.

Steamed Blue Claw Crabs

Blue claw crabs, and possibly other crabs, are the best in October and November; it is when they are the meatiest and contain the most crab roe (my personal favorite part of the crab). This recipe comes from my family and is a very traditional crab dipping sauce in Shanghai.

Crab Dipping Sauce:

3 Tbsp sugar

2.5 Tbsp Chinese black vinegar

2 Tbsp finely minced ginger

1/2 Tbsp light soy sauce (by light I mean in color, not sodium content)

Directions:

Mix ingredients well

Steamed crabs:

Scrub the outside of the crabs well. An old toothbrush works well for this. Steam in a large pot for 20 minutes.

Pomegranates!

Early fall ( or maybe winter since we already had snow in Boston) heralds the arrival of pomegranates into our supermarkets. Fresh pomegranates are full of concentrated flavor, and their seeds give that extra crunch. Pomegranates are full of vitamin C, B5, potassium, and antioxidant rich polyphenols that are the subject of numerous ongoing studies about potential health benefits, such as decreasing proliferation of breast cancer cells, reducing heart disease risk factors, and lowering blood blood pressure. But taking apart a pomegranate can be messy and difficult. One trick I learned from my former roommate, Derek, in medical school is to score the outside of the pomegranate and then soak it in a bowl of water. The outside leathery skin soaks up some of the water and is much easier to break apart. I left mine to soak overnight and took it apart just now.

Lemon-Poppy Buttermilk cake

I had leftover buttermilk after making a rich chocolate cake on Monday and went on a recipe hunt on allrecipes.com of course, and came across a buttermilk cake recipe. I modified it slightly, because what I really was in the mood for was a lemon poppyseed cake and just needed a solid cake base that uses buttermilk. This cake is fairly dense, but lighter than a pound cake. With the addition of fresh lemon juice, the cake tastes even lighter. I also like this recipe because it's not too sweet in the end. I opted to not make a glaze for it, but I think a nice tart lemony glaze will be the perfect finish. It also is a good basic yellow cake if you take out the lemon parts and poppy seeds.

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted

3 cups white sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)

6 eggs

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

zest of one large lemon

juice of one large lemon (maybe 4-5 tablespoons?)

1.5 tablespoons of poppy seeds

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and use the residual butter on the paper it came in to grease a bundt pan (this will probably make 2 loaves or maybe 30 muffins).

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter with the sugar, and then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. Add in the lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla, salt, baking soda.

4. Mix in the flour, alternating with the buttermilk

5. Finally, stir in the poppyseeds

6. Bake in preheated oven. This cake takes a while to bake. I never time anything I bake (as many things have been ruined by actually timing it). It will be done when a fork inserted to the top comes out clean.