Hey, thanks, DailyBuzz Healthy Living for featuring my Jalapeno Butternut Squash Soup on their Top 9 today.
Today's my birthday, so what a nice thing to find in my inbox!
If you'd like to make this delicious soup yourself, click here.
They're Supposed to be Green (Beans)
Have you ever tried a green bean salad from a salad bar? The beans are usually somewhat grey, dressed with too much oil and not enough vinegar, and often times they are covered in some weird herbs.
I'm here to share with you a really good, quick and easy green bean salad recipe. The key is in how you prepare your beans. You can make any number of dressings for the beans, once they've been cooked properly. If you over cook them no matter how you dress them, they just won't taste right.
If you follow these very simple steps, the most important being to rinse the beans in cool running water for a bit to stop the cooking, you will be ever so pleased with the results.
I'm thinking that a version of this recipe will also end up as one of the Cooking for One series I've been working on. I figure you can cook all the beans at once, store them in air tight containers in portion sized servings. Then, when you're ready to eat the green beans, you can add any number of a variety of sauces. One is included here, just a basic lemon, olive oil and caper combination.
Green Bean Salad
serves 2
Ingredients:
- 1 pound Green Beans (or yellow), tips cut off
- 3 tbsps Salt
- 1/2 of a Lemon
- Olive Oil to sprinkle over the cooked beans
- 1/4 tsp capers, drained
- salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Boil a large pot of water with the salt in it.
- Place the green beans in a steamer basket.
- Submerge the basket in the boiling water.
- Partially cover the pan, leaving enough space for the steam to escape.
- Cook the beans for 6 minutes.
- Take the steamer basket out of the pan, and rinse under cold water for one minute.
- Put the beans (about half the cooked amount will do for two) in a shallow bowl and squeeze the lemon over them. Sprinkle some olive oil on top and add the capers, salt and pepper.
- Mix it up and enjoy!
Butternut Squash Jalapeno Soup
That's kind of a strange color for butternut squash soup, huh?
Well that's because it's got jalapeno and sage added to it.
I may have overdone the jalapeno a bit, thus the extra green color, but the flavor is really nice.
I didn't used to like soups like this. My favorite soups feature meat (usually ham or bacon) and it was kind of a hard sell for me to embrace this fully vegan soup. The turning point for me was that roasting the squash was so easy. It's the kind of thing you can throw in a pan in five minutes, with any number of herbs and spices, and then just put in the oven and forget about it for an hour or so. Once it's cooked and cooled all you have to do it scrape the meat out of the skin of the squash and puree all the good bits from the bottom of the roasting pan.
For this version, I roasted the jalapenos right alongside the squash. The only issue with that is that they don't get as crunchy as they do when I pan fry them, so there wasn't anything to use as garnish in the end. To thicken the soup, I used almonds and almond milk, but if you have any kind of problem with nuts, just leave them out, it's plenty thick on it's own.
Best of all, this is completely vegan and gluten free. For those of you who are trying hard to get back on the right track post-New Year's celebrations, give this soup a try.
Butternut Squash Soup with Jalapeno and Sage
serves 4
Ingredients:
- 1 large Butternut squash, cut in half lengthwise, seeds removed
- 2 Jalapeno peppers, cut into rings (remove the seeds if you want to avoid too much spice)
- 1 Shallot, diced
- 1 small Red Onion, diced
- 4 sprigs Sage, shredded
- 2 cloves Garlic, peeled but not chopped
- 4 Tbsps Olive Oil
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 10 Almonds (optional)
- 1/8 cup Almond Milk (optional)
Method:
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees
- Position the squash cut side up in a roasting pan large enough to fit both halves of the butternut squash without them touching.
- Place the sage and garlic in the cavity of the squash.
- Add some of the olive oil and salt and pepper.
- Flip over the squash. You may need to move the garlic and herbs a bit to get them to fit back into the cavity no that the squash is skin side up.
- Place the jalapenos, onions and shallots in between the two halves of the squash.
- Drizzle remainder of olive oil over the top of all the ingredients.
- Roast everything for 40 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the squash, until a knife easily goes through the meat.
- Once the squash is cool, scrape out the meat.
- Take everything left in the roasting pan and the meat of the squash and place them in a food processor. Add the almonds and almond milk (optional).
- Pulse until the texture you desire is reached.
Enjoy!
Featured: The Fruit Guys
Hello There.
I just found out that my post for No-Cook Cranberry Relish was featured on The Fruit Guys' website.
What a nice way to end the year. They are deliver great fresh fruit to our office sometimes and it's always a pleasure when the delivery comes in.
Look into fresh fruit and veggie box deliveries in your area, it's totally worth it. You never know what you'll get in the box. The mystery contents can lead to some great off-the-cuff meals.
Hope you are enjoying this 363rd day of the year.