Everyone thinks they have a great recipe for butternut squash soup, and various versions adorn winter menus everywhere. The recipe I'm about to give you is the best one. I tried this butternut squash soup for the first time almost ten years ago now, when my best friend's stepfather made it for Thanksgiving dinner in upstate New York. I've been told it was an adaptation from a New York Times cookbook, but I've never found this precise recipe there.
It's something delicious and special, and it's actually pretty easy to make. You'll never try another recipe.
I mentioned that this soup often makes me think of a wintry Thanksgiving I spent many years back. While the holiday food season is over, its music doesn't need to be. Here's Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing "Autumn in New York."
Ingredients:
--1 large butternut squash
--1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
--2 carrots, peeled and chopped
--1 clove garlic
--2-3 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
--1 tbsp. salt + a little extra to taste
--1-2 tsp. pepper
--2 tsp. ground nutmeg
--about 48 oz. chicken stock, or 1 1/2 cartons (you can substitute veggie stock if you're making this a vegetarian recipe)
--2 c. half and half, or heavy cream
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Slice butternut squash in half and scoop out seeds and filling. Using a pastry brush or your hands, coat the flesh with extra virgin olive oil. Fill the seed "holes" in the squash with the chopped carrots, onions, and lone garlic clove. It's okay if they overflow a little bit. Lightly salt the flesh of the squash, and place in the oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for about one hour, or until the squash and the veggies inside are quite soft.
Scoop the veggies into a large stock pot and add the chicken stock. Simmer on low. Now scoop out the squash--the skin should peel back very easily, and you should be able to remove almost all of the "meat." Place it in the stockpot.
Sprinkle salt, pepper, and nutmeg into the pot. Using an immersion blender, emulsify those ingredients. Add the half and half or cream, and blend just a bit more. Serve warm with a sprig or two of fresh thyme.
Cinnamon buns on a snowy Sunday morning. What could make for a better breakfast? Of course, these flaky rolls are also a delightful dessert. I had the idea for these miniature sticky buns after (jealously) watching Ina Garten stroll through London markets. I've adapted her recipe here for some even sweeter, stickier buns.
These are best when they're still just a bit warm from the oven. If you want to make them ahead of time, I recommend rolling and filling the dough, and refrigerating it until you're ready to slice and bake. You'll also need a miniature non-stick muffin pan (but shouldn't you have one of these in your kitchen anyway?).
I can't believe I haven't used this song yet, but it turns out I haven't: Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl." Here it is, to go along with some very cinnamon-y Chelsea sticky buns.
Ingredients:
(*Adapted from Ina Garten's Holiday Sticky Buns)
For the buns:
--1 package (2 sheets) frozen puff pastry dough, dethawed overnight in the fridge
--1/2 c. dark brown sugar
--1 tsp. cinnamon
--1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
--1/2 to 1 c. coarsely chopped pecans (amount can vary depending on your love of pecans)
For the filling:
--1/3 c. dark brown sugar
--1/3 c. turbinado sugar
--1/3 c. very finely chopped pecans (almost dusted)
--1 tbsp. cinnamon
--1/2 tsp. nutmeg
--1/2 tsp. cloves
--1/2 tsp. allspice
--1/2 stick butter, melted
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Start with the "buns" ingredients. In a large bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter. You'll want to beat it until the sugar and spice are incorporated fully into the butter, making a sort of brown sugar butter (by the way, this makes an excellent topping, on its own, for muffins and breads). Spoon the butter evenly into the bottoms of the miniature muffin cups, filling them about 1/3 of the way full. Distribute the coarsely chopped pecans on top of the butter in each of the 24 miniature muffin cups and set aside. The butter will begin to melt, but that's OK.
Now for the "filling." In a bowl, mix the sugars, spices, and pecans and set aside for just a moment. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the puff pastry dough. You'll have two sheets, so you'll end up doing this twice. Using a pastry brush, paint about 1/2 of your melted butter across the pastry dough. Sprinkle about 1/2 of your sugar and spice mixture evenly across the dough. Now, you'll want to very carefully roll it up using the longer edge. In other words, you want to have a longer, rather than a shorter, roll. Once you've rolled it up, pinch the ends closed and place the dough roll seam-side down. Using a serrated-edged knife, carefully cut the dough roll into twelve equal pieces. Place these on top of the butter/pecan mixture in your miniature muffin tins and repeat until all muffin cups are filled.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or just until the rolls have puffed up and are firm to the touch (you'll know when you see them!). Allow them to cool down for just a few minutes, and then flip the muffins upside down one at a time onto parchment paper--your bottoms are now your tops, and you've got sticky buns with a gooey, sugary topping. Remove any remaining butter topping from the muffin cups and add it to your buns. Let them cool just a bit longer, and then dig in!
