Corny Squash Soup With Kale Chips

It’s squash and corn season at the farm, and in the last CSA batch I got a three lovely looking acorn and butternut squashes, a couple ears of sweet corn, and a bunch of kale.  As the temperature drops, nothing sounded finer then a rich bowl of soup. So, I combined these three things to make a sweet, salty, and savory brew perfect for the fall.

Ingredients:

• Bundle of kale
• 2 ears of corn Squash: 4 small acorn or 2 small acorn and a butternut, or 2 butternut
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• Dash of cinnamon
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil
• Butter or bacon fat
• Greek yogurt (optional)

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Peel the corn, wash the kale, and cut the squash in half and de-seed.
Spread a thin layer of olive oil on the flesh of the squash and lightly pepper and salt.
Place in the oven for about 40 minutes, or until the flesh yields easily to a fork.

Chop kale into to big chunks, toss with olive oil and sea salt.
Layer kale onto baking sheet; try not to overlap the leaves.
When squash is done place kale in the oven for 15 minutes, then flip over for another 15 minutes.

Scoop squash out of skin and chop up.
Dice onion and brown in soup pot with bacon fat, butter or olive oil.
Once onions are browned, add stock.
Bring to rolling boil.
Add squash to pot.
Simmer for about 15 minutes, then take an immersion blender and puree. You can also do this (carefully) in a blender or food processor.
Add spices to puréed soup.*

Slice the fresh corn off the cob and put kernels in the soup.
Let simmer for about 20 minutes.
Serve with crumpled kale chips on top and optional, a scoop of plain Greek-style yogurt.

*if soup seems thin, make a roux and add to pot.

A couple years ago I stumbled on this recipe for “False Mahshi: Layered Swiss Chard, Beets, Rice, and Beef” in the New York Times.  In an article about the Iraqi New Year, Joan Nathan had included this recipe, adapted from Esperanza Basson.  Well, even that seemed a bit labor intensive so I cut it down into a super simple, healthy, and yummy version.

Ingredients:

1 cup rice

6 Tbls olive or vegetable oil

2 medium white or yellow onions diced

1 bunch or 2 large beets grated

1 bunch of greens chopped (like Swiss chard or kale)

4 Tbls of dried mint

4 cloves garlic minced

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 Tbls salt

optional: 1 lb meat like smoked sausage, rib eye, chicken, and such, just cook on the side.

Preparation:

Cook rice separately, 2 cups water to 1 cup rice.

In a wok or large pan, sauté the onions and garlic in the oil.

Once translucent, add the beats and salt and simmer about 5 minutes.

If you want to add meat, this is a good time to do it too. A super simple meat to use is premade smoked beef sausage. I cut it into cubes and toss it in.

Add the rest of the ingredients, stir occasionally, and let simmer till greens are wilted, about 15 minutes.

Once rice is done, add to mixture and stir.

Voila!, a healthy, Middle Eastern style casserole that also works well for leftovers.

“Beer is not the new wine,” said Goose Island owner Greg Hall, last night at the City Winery. “Craft beer is the new wine.” During yesterday’s NYC Brewer’s Choice, 15 brewers came out, most with rare, unobtainable, small-batch beers. Brooklyn Brewery was pouring a light and citrusy re-fermented Brooklyner Weisse they made for the occasion, HE’BREW offered their thick, hoppy R.I.P.A. Rye and lighter Rejewvenator, and Ray McNeill showed off the wound he got making a batch of ESP, which he brewed Tuesday, as well as the coffee and chocolate tinged Russian Imperial Stout.

I adapted the recipe from Sandy Mitchell, on About.com.

Ingredients:

Filling:

3 cups Concord grapes, washed and stemmed

2 small pears, cored, and cut into small chunks, or, 1 medium apple, grated

1 cup sugar

4 Tbsp flour

1 1/2 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

9″ pie shell, either homemade or prepared (I like the ones at Whole Foods)

Topping:

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup melted butter

Preparation:

Pop the grape pulp from the skin by pinching them out. Save the skins. Simmer the pulp in a small saucepan for about 5 mins. While still hot, press the pulp through a sieve or a food mill to remove the seeds.

Combine sugar and flour.

Add in the grape pulp, skin, and other fruit.

Next, add the lemon juice and melted butter.

Mix then pour into pie shell.

For the crumble crust, combine the topping ingredients.  It will be dry and form little balls, sprinkle the mixture all over the top, coating it. Use as much or as little as you want, but the more you use, the crisper it will be.

Put aluminum foil under pie for an easy clean-up, it gets kind of messy.

Bake the pie at 350 degrees for 40-60 minutes.

Cool before serving.

If someone makes me a bacon suit, I will love you forever. Or, if you don’t want to break out your needle and thread, how about these other porcine themed vestments?

Bacon Slip-On Shoes

Bacon Makes Everything Better T-shirt

Bacon Tie

Bacon Belt

Bacon, Egg, and Toast Scarf

And for you vegetarians out there, let us not forget the watermelon shoes (still on my wish list).

It’s been a busy couple months of eating it up for the New York Press, especially in Brooklyn with one trek all the way up to 112th Street in Harlem. Here are the latest and greatest published reviews I have done.

Hot Bird in Fort Greene

“Hot Bird is owned by Frank Moe, the proprietor of Rope, Fort Greene’s popular art-student filled bar. Though Rope never hooked me in, Hot Bird is a different story. The bar gets its name from the famous chicken place that used to shell out roasted birds and ribs until it closed in the early 1990s, and while the restaurant doesn’t remain, the bright yellow signs that still deck a few building walls off of Vanderbilt and Atlantic avenues have become iconic ads. One, which towers over the bar’s spacious front yard, only enhances the new bar’s appeal.” (read the rest here)

Nero Doro in Bed-Stuy

Nestled on the blossoming corner of Classon and Greene avenues is nero doro, a relaxing, simple and fresh Italian café owned by Italian transplant Carolina Barbagallo. the airy space hums with soft jazz (and, recently, the buzz of the vuvuzela during the World Cup matches) and beckons the weary traveler to take a seat in one of the cozy chairs or pastry-laden coffee bar. There you find Barbagallo at the helm, serving combos of salads, paninis and le piadine, a soft flat bread from the Emilia Romagna region in Italy. (read the rest here)

5 & Diamond in Harlem

After the trek from Brooklyn to Harlem, our mouths were watering as each plate whisked away from the kitchen to their assigned tables. While we longed to sample the fare, a mix of chef David Santos’ creations and those of the original man behind the stove, Ryan Skeen, our thoughts were distracted by the gossip surrounding the ex-chef de cuisine. skeen’s mysterious departure from the head chef position at 5 & Diamond right when it began to produce a lot of buzz, his past work at Irving Mill and his infamous email termination from Allen & Delancey had our curiosity whetted as we eagerly looked for him to whizz out of the kitchen like one of the plates. We never did see him, and instead ordered glasses of the mildly spicy Danjean Pinot Noir ($9) and some small plates to cure our hunger. (read the rest here)

I also did a preview of the NYC Food Film Festival, which was amazing. One of my favorite films was Florent: Queen of the Meat Market by David Sigal.

I haven’t seen Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World yet, but it’s definitely on my list.  In preparation for the movie, my roommate and I started reading the comics and were pleasantly surprised by how good they are, and how much food makes the scene.  Scott and Ramona eat noodles together, the band meets up at a diner called Sneaky Dee’s, there are burgers after the beach, breakfasts of eggs and bacon, and a drunken tequila night.  I can’t wait to see how the movie compares, or, like many campy action films,  if they neglect the most basic need, eating.

This is (surprise) one of my favorites. Love and burgers, “sigh” for sure.

Fresh Green Chilies at the Hatch Valley Chile Festival

Ever since I left Denver, Colorado in August 2002 and made my way to Brooklyn, there is only one thing I really missed: green chilies.  Sorry East coasters, you don’t know what I am talking about unless you happened to spend some time in the Southwest and indulged in the these delicious, hot, and meaty green peppers.  This love and constant craving finally drove me to hit up the Hatch Valley Chile Festival in the tiny town of Hatch, New Mexico this year. 

For 38 years they have hosted chili roasters, venders serving up a slew of chili laced goodies, a chili eating contest, auctions, and Chili Queen crowning, and more chili themed events all on a dusty clearing between numerous pepper fields just a couple miles from town.  From the moment you enter Hatch the scent of chilies roasting hits your nose and you can’t go anywhere without people peddling sacks of the fresh peppers as well as ristas (the stringed bunches of chilies), chili stew, and chili rellenos.

Green Chili Ice Cream at the Hatch Valley Chile Festival

Basically, I had landed in heaven.  We spent all of Sunday chowing on chili ice cream, red chili laced popcorn, pecan and green chili brittle, corn soaked in green chili butter, chili beer, and so on.

Even when our car broke down on the drive back to Colorado in the small railroad town of Belen, New Mexico,  I was still living high.  Who cared the only place to eat was Pizza Hut?  I took my jar of fresh green chili salsa and smothered my slice, letting the heat take away the pain of waiting for the mechanic.

Green Chili Smothered Burrito at the Hatch Valley Chile Festival

It’s a sad day when pizza disappoints, review of Paulie Gee’s in Greenpoint:

“New York feels so saturated with Neapolitan-style pizza restaurants that you can barely throw a wad of dough without hitting a wood-fired pie in any neighborhood. Greenpoint is just the latest area to embrace the trend with Paulie Gee’s, which opened mid-March in the old Paloma space. Run by its namesake, Paul Gianonne, this rustic restaurant is nestled in the hippest part of the neighborhood near staples like The Pencil Factory and The Black Rabbit, and, from the look of the crowd gathered on a recent weekday night, this joint is gearing up to become a permanent fixture.” – New York Press

Oh what a Tangled Vine we weave, but a delicious one!

“The wine list alone is organized in an unusual way, from the lightest of the brews to the richest. But even with the comical and well-informed descriptions under each offering, the staff is more than happy to pair wine with food, or just to offer a glass you will love. I was lucky enough to spend a recent evening with Tangled Vine’s wine director, Evan Spingarn, as he taught me what went with which dish, and how different wines could really bring out the flavor of the food. With more than 160 types of mainly.” – West Side Spirit

Pizzacone to the rescue! Feature on K! Pizzacone and how they are changing the world of pizza:

“Before it even properly launched, K! Pizzacone became a legend. A to-go box from the restaurant’s opening day sold for $56 on eBay, and one man from Charlottesville, Va., was so enamored with the idea of the pizzacone that he took a bus to New York during a category-5 blizzard, just to get a taste. “It was delicious,” he wrote in a blog post, which was merely signed “Alex.” But Alex’s excitement for K! Pizzacone isn’t unusual. On opening day last month the tiny, day-glow take-out joint was packed with the hungry, the curious and, of course, the food bloggers.” --New York Press

Two meat shops make their debut, reviews of This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef and Mile End:

“These days, meat is king. It seems like no matter what kind of flesh you’re interested in, there’s a shop devoted to making sure it’s readily available. And now we’ve got two new sandwich shops in the game: This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef and Mile End. Both focus on making a supreme meat sandwich, whether it’s roasted, braised, boiled or steamed.” – New York Press

“The U.S. and Russia have sent spies to each other’s countries for decades, even in the 20 years since the Cold War ended. Still, the latest allegations come at a time when relations between the U.S. and Russia have been warming….They used coffee shops, bookstores and street corners to contact handlers, according to the FBI.”

When I looked though the FBI report, it just said “a coffee shop” near the pay phone at Vanderbilt and DeKalb. Patricia Mulcahy, the owner of Tillie’s, said it could have been Andy’s (now Mega Bites), but I highly doubt it considering all the people tip-tap-typing away sit at Tillie’s. I asked a fellow ex-Tillie’s employee and non-spying Russian what she thought of the whole deal and promptly got back the reply,

“I thought those people were just freelancers!”

Goes to show you don’t always know your neighbors, or your customers.  But in a way, it’s nice to know that despite all our high tech communications and fancy technology devices we can still get a good ol’ human spy in there, and a sexy one to boot.