Tag Archives: tell them you read about it on chestercountyramblings

roasted butternut squash soup

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October = Fall = start of soup season.  I like butternut squash soup.  Mine is different because I roast my squash (roasted vegetables add more depth to soups) and I add garam masala, mace and ginger, instead of just nutmeg.  I will be making this later today, thought I would share the recipe now.

I was over at Sugartown Strawberries yesterday afternoon and was inspired to make soup due to the perfectly beautiful squash fresh picked by Farmer Bob. (And as a related aside, Sugartown Strawberries starts hay rides next weekend I think)

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

  • 1       medium-sized butternut squash, peeled and seeded (mine today is about 3 pounds)
  • 4      tablespoons   butter
  • 1      large white onion, minced
  • 2      carrots minced
  • 6      cups chicken stock
  • 2      tablespoons corn starch
  • 1      pint light cream or fat-free half and half
  • 6      fresh sage leaves chopped fine
  • celery salt and ground pepper to taste
  • mace and ground ginger to taste
  • small  dash of garam masala to taste

Directions

Halve your squash and remove seeds.  brush with olive oil, dust with salt and pepper and place face down on a sheet pan lined with non stick foil or parchment paper and roast skin side up about 40 -45 minutes at 350 degrees (you want squash to be roasted and cooked to be able to easily slide out of the skin.)

When squash is done, remove from oven and leave to cool

Place butter in dutch oven or soup pot and melt.  Add sage leaves to pot, followed by onion, carrots and a little celery salt. Over lowish heat gently cook onions down to the point just before they caramelize. Remove from heat.

By now your squash should be hopefully cool enough to handle.  Remove from skin and put small pieces into your soup pot with the onions and stir. Fully incorporate your squash (yes, there will be an unattractive mush in your pot at this point) and next quickly whisk in corn starch and incorporate.  Slowly and gently whisk in light cream or fat-free half and half – do not boil but bring the heat up almost   so all is incorporated.

Add the broth. Stir, stir, stir until all is incorporated and blending together and broth is heated through.

Reduce to a simmer and cook about 20 minutes covered.  Next take a hand blender (you know one of those little blender wands and puree your soup right in the pot.

Check salt level and adjust accordingly.  Add ground pepper and additional salt to taste and add a good shake of both ground ginger and mace and a judicial  pinch of garam masala.  A lot of people do this with just nutmeg, I think the garam masala, mace,  and ginger taste better.

Keep on simmer/warm stirring occasionally until you serve.  This is a soup you can serve the same day or heat up the next day.

This is a soup that does NOT freeze well, so make it fresh and finish in a couple of days.

Additional serving suggestions:

Garnish with rough chopped flat leaf italian parsley and  a smattering chopped toasted pecans and a teaspoon of crème fraîche in the center of each soup bowl  or serve plain.

 

 

 

pudding 101

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This morning the breeze has started the fall rustle of leaves.  Don’t know how else to describe it.

Fall means the start of comfort food season.  What people don’t realize is there is something to be said for the basics.  Basics include foods we grew up with, comfort foods.

Last night I made an old-fashioned pot roast.  Mine is different because I use a little lemon or orange peel in mine and toss in a small can of crushed tomatoes and wine along with a few kinds of mushrooms (fresh not those rubberized canned things). To make a perfect pot roast you need a heavy dutch oven large enough to comfortably cook your roast and you must dredge the meat in flour and brown up a little before putting in a low and slow oven and ignoring for a few hours.

What I made the other day also falls into the category of old-fashioned comfort food: rice pudding.  I never wrote my recipe down before, so I hope the proportions are right.

Here it is:

Start with turning on the oven to 350 degrees to pre-heat. Next grab some unsalted butter  for greasing baking dish

 Ingredients

3/4 cup white sweet rice cooked and cooled (sweet rice is an extra sticky rice used in Asian cooking and you can buy it at an international grocery or specialty foods store)

3 cups whole milk (you can also use the canned Carnation milk you use to make pumpkin pie)

1 cup fat-free half and half

1 cup light cream

6 egg yolks

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground mace

1/2 teaspoon ground green cardamom

1/2 cup shredded coconut

3/4 cup white raisins

Directions

Grease well a  round baking dish (I use  Pyrex 2 or 2 1/2 quart baking dish – not sure which one – it has a lid which makes for handy storage of leftovers)

Into the bottom of the baking dish first add rice. Smooth out evenly on bottom. Sprinkle raisins evenly on top.  Sprinkle coconut on top of that. Set aside

Combine egg yolks, vanilla and salt in a bowl. Add sugar.  Beat until sugar is dissolved, incorporated, not grainy on the bottom of the bowl

Add  cornstarch, lemon zest, spices.

Slowly add milk, half and half and light cream.  Beat until frothy . Pour over rice/raisins/coconut in round baking dish.

Take your round baking dish and place in a Bain Marie – a Bain Marie is literally a water bath.

I take a larger rectangular pan, place my round baking dish inside it, and then pour hot water inside the rectangular pan AROUND the baking dish (DO NOT get the water into your rice pudding mixture)

Bake until the rice pudding is no longer liquid – at least an hour.  When I made a few days ago, my oven may not have been properly pre-heated and it took about an hour and 20 minutes to cook.  Your baked pudding will be caramel and brown colored on top when cooked and a knife inserted will come out clean. You just have to watch it.

Take pudding out of oven and place baking dish on a trivet to cool.  I like serving the pudding still slightly warm.  Some people like putting whipped cream on top to dress up the pudding when serving.  I do not – I think it is overkill.  You can have fun with this dessert and serve in red wine or martini glasses (wide rim).

Pudding variations include:

  • You can tweak recipe and remove just the rice and add a can of DRAINED cream corn to make a sweet corn pudding.
  • You can also substitute cubed day old brioche and make a bread pudding.  You can omit the cardamom and mace and raisins and coconut and add chocolate chips and it becomes a chocolate chip bread pudding.

Puddings are fun.

 

 

the best mac & cheese….ever

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Yesss….comfort food season is upon us. 

How would you like my macaroni and cheese recipe?

If you are on a diet, or can’t eat rich oooey cheesy goodness, DO NOT make this recipe.  And this is not your mama’s mac and cheese, it’s a special occasion make once in a while kind of deal.

And oh yes, as a related aside, I love these old vintage Dansk Koben Style Dutch ovens from the 1950’s and 1960s?  I picked a couple up in sunny yellow at different tag sales years ago.

Dansk is reissuing them and selling through Crate and Barrel.  Boy am I glad I scored mine at $5 a piece quite a few years ago.  They are quite the tasty price now if purchased new in 2012 (the pricing is a bit ridiculous I think). I have a 4 quart and what I make the Mac & Cheese in, a 6 quart.  They also reissued the baking pan from the Koben Style line.  Save your money on that one – everything sticks to the enamel on that particular pan, so unless you want to be a dishwashing slave, skip it.

Anyway…These Dutch Ovens (Dansk Kobenstyle) do show up often on Ebay and at tag sales.  The prices on Ebay can get a little rich for my blood on them. But if you can score one of either size for $20 or under, you got a great deal.  Mine were a steal, but I collected them before they became collectable – my original impetus was my mother had a 6 quart Kobenstyle Dutch Oven and I loved cooking with it and wanted one of my own. I ended up with two. And seriously, I use them ALL the time.

The Best Macaroni and Cheese…Ever

6 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup flour

salt and pepper to taste

2 cups low-fat half and half

1 3/4 cups light cream

8 oz cream cheese (block not in the tub)

1 box of elbow macaroni or small pasta of your choice (16 oz)

5 cups of grated/shredded cheese (I buy the mix – Cheddar and Monterey Jack, or the “macaroni and cheese blend” which also has  American)

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 a medium onion minced

Healthy dash of Worcestershire sauce

Healthy dash of Tabasco sauce

Small dash of ground mace

8 slices of cooked and crumbled thick bacon

Melt butter in dutch oven. Add onion, cook a few minutes until translucent. (4 minutes on my stove on a medium flame I watch like a hawk so not to burn butter.)

Reduce heat to low and whisk in flour and salt and mace. When it all comes together like a white paste you are finished with that step.

Slowly add half and half.  Add Tabasco and Worcestershire.

Slowly add light cream.

Bring it up to a boil and then reduce heat to low.

Add grated parmesan cheese.  When that is incorporated and smooth, add cream cheese.  When that is incorporated and smooth slowly add the other cheese (cheddar blend see above).

Stir, stir, stir so nothing sticks and turn off burner and move sauce off the heat. (Here’s a tip – I remove a cup of the sauce to a separate container – I usually cook this a day ahead, so when I reheat I add the extra sauce as it heats up – some people just heat up with extra milk – I find this thins it out)

Cook your pasta as per the instructions on the box. Drain but do not rinse.

Fold into your cheese sauce in the Dutch Oven.  Add the crumbled bacon and gently fold a little more until all incorporated. Check your mac and cheese and add additional salt and fresh ground pepper to your taste.

You can either serve as is, or throw Dutch Oven into the fridge and eat a day later.  If you choose the eat a day later option, reheat slowly on stove top on very low and add back in the extra cheese sauce which you put in a separate air tight container and refrigerated along with big batch of mac & cheese.

If you don’t use the extra cheese sauce in the re-heating of the mac and cheese, you can store for a few days and use on other things (like broccoli)

This is very rich, but super yummy.  This recipe will serve a crowd easily as you won’t want to dish up honking huge portions.

And hey, if dishing up to grown-ups give a rough chop to some fresh Italian Flat Leaf Parsley and toss on top when serving as a garnish.

chocolate peanut butter madness

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Enough of politics and development for the week, let’s get back to cooking!

So….you know I have a thing about “magic” or “seven layer” bars…they are easy to make, look much fancier than they really are…and kids (of all ages LOL) love them.

So can you stand yet another variation??

Chocolate Peanut Butter Madness

1 package Devil’s Food Cake Mix (or dark chocolate or even German Chocolate will do)

1 egg

1/2 cup of butter melted

1/2 cup of peanut butter (smooth) melted

1 bag of Reese’s peanut butter chips (they are usually about 10 oz)

1 1/3 cups of semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips (I like those 60% dark cacao ones)

1 1/3 cups of shredded coconut

1 cup chopped pecans or peanuts

1 can of Eagle brand condensed milk (unless you are buying say the Goya equivalent use Eagle, it is the best)

Mix the cake mix, butter, and egg.  It turns into a dark, slightly uncooperative play-doh.

Take a greased and lightly floured 9″ x 13″ cake pan and smush the cake mixture into bottom of pan evenly- you might wish to try to smush down with the back of your hand (as if your hand were in a fist and you have the flatness of your fingers all four together).

Next sprinkle on evenly over cake mixture in the following order (do not deviate):

1. shredded coconut

2. chopped peanuts or pecans

3. shredded coconut

4. peanut butter chips

5. chocolate chips

Next drizzle melted peanut butter evenly over top.

Next drizzle condensed milk evenly over top.

Bake in 350 degree oven for approximately 25 minutes (today I think I baked them for 28)

Cool at least an hour before cutting.

Enjoy!

 

 

9/11

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On September 7, 2006 I wrote an editorial about 9/11 for Main Line Media News which I would like to share with all of you.  Eleven years later, it still resonates.

I have been to downtown NYC a few times since I wrote my original column a few years ago.  I have watched NYC rise proudly again.

Face it, we are ALL different after 9/11, but I have to say we have become a country divided.  Over everything.  From the town to town, city to city, state to state to Washington D.C., we have become a country of extremism – especially politically.  We are all still Americans, but are we always proud of that? Hyper liberal, hyper conservative, what happened to the people in the middle? Who cares about the people in the middle?

When did it become a crime to disagree with the status quo?  To disagree with elected officials? To wish for better in the somber shades of a desperate recession? To be just a little bit different?

Who will do the healing if not each one of us ourselves?  Who do we believe in? Who can we believe in? Can we hope for anything or is hope still just an overused word in our everyday vernacular? And after this election, will “forward” also be over-used?

(NOTE: I apologize in advance for the spacing in the article – not how it was originally, but there is something a little wonky with posting this and I can’t get WordPress to cooperate)

Five years after September 11 what have we learned

Published: Thursday, September 07, 2006

 Sept. 11, 2006, is the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and United Airlines Flight 93’s crash in the field in Shanksville, Somerset County. This date has special significance to every American, and intense personal significance to far too many individuals who lost friends and loved ones.
But September 11, wasn’t the first time terrorists visited the World Trade Center. In truth, Feb. 26, 1993. was the date of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. I worked in New York at that time at an office located downtown in the financial district.
On that day, I had accompanied an office friend to the World Trade Center to grab an early lunch and to check out some stores in the shopping concourse. We were back outside the Trade Center buildings, getting ready to cross the street, when suddenly the ground shook and moved. I remember that we were looking directly across the street at Century 21, a department store in Lower Manhattan. Then something happened that rarely happens in New York: Everything went eerily still and quiet. We looked up at what we first thought were snowflakes beginning to float and fall from the sky. After all, it was February.

Then car alarms began to go off one by one like the cacophony of many distorted bells. The snowflakes, we soon discovered, were in reality ashes.
People began yelling and screaming. It became very confusing and chaotic all at once, like someone flipped a switch to “on.” At first, we both felt rooted to the sidewalk, unable to move. I remember feeling a sense of panic at the unknown. We had absolutely no idea what had happened, and hurried back to our office. Reaching it, we were greeted by worried coworkers who told us that someone had set off a bomb underground in the World Trade Center garage.
I will never forget the crazy kaleidoscope of images, throughout that afternoon, of all the people who were related to or knew people in my office who sought refuge in our office after walking down the innumerable flights of steps in the dark to exit the World Trade Center Towers. They arrived with soot all over their faces, hands and clothes. They all wore zombie looks of shock, disbelief and panic.
Of course, the oddest thing about the first terrorist attack on New York City is that I don’t remember much lasting fuss about it. I do remember that President Bill Clinton was newly sworn into office, but I don’t remember him coming to visit New York after the attack. Everything was back to normal in Lower Manhattan in about a month, maybe two. After a while, unless you had worked in New York, or lived in New York, you simply forgot about this “incident.”
So, on the morning of 9/11, as I pulled into my office building’s garage and listened to the breaking news on the radio announcing that a plane had struck the World Trade Center, tears began to run down my face unbidden. I knew in my heart of hearts what happened. I said to myself, “Oh no. They came back.”

I remember picking up my cell phone to call my father, whom I knew to be, at that time, on an Amtrak train bound for New York City. I remember him telling me it was fine and he’d be fine. I wanted him to get off in New Jersey and take a train back to Philadelphia. But the train was already pretty much past all the stations and getting ready to go into the tunnel to New York. That very thought terrified me. To this day, I still do not understand why Amtrak did not stop those last trains from going into New York City as the news of the World Trade Center attacks first broke.
I next remember getting in the elevator and getting off on my office floor to find people clustered around television sets and radios. And the news kept getting worse: first one plane, then a second, then a third, and then a fourth.
The images and news just didn’t stop. Camera cuts from lower Manhattan to Washington to Somerset County. They are images that have to be ingrained in everyone’s mind forever like indelible ink.
It took a couple of days for my father and brother-in-law (who had already been in New York on business) to get out of the city, but eventually they got home safely with many stories to tell of what New York was like in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. A lot of people weren’t so lucky. They never saw their loved ones again after that fateful morning. Many people in the Philadelphia and greater Main Line area lost friends, coworkers and loved ones.
On September 11, I knew people who were lost, but fortunately I didn’t lose any loved ones. I remember for a brief time it seemed we were all a little nicer to each other, and politicians actually seemed to come together as one and grieve as a nation grieved.

But here we are five short years later. I have only seen the site one time where the World Trade Center once stood proudly. That was about a year after the attacks. I remember a distinct pit in my stomach and looked away from the car window. This past June I was in Washington, and had the same intense, awful feeling in my stomach as we drove on the highway past the Pentagon.

Life must go on and time can’t stand still, but all in all I can’t help but wonder: What have we learned since about our country and about ourselves? Five years after 9/11 what have we learned and what have we forgotten? What do we need to remember?

don’t judge a restaurant by its strip mall

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Don’t judge a restaurant by its strip mall.

One of the things I have to get used to about Chester County are all the strip malls.  Face it, pick a road, there are lots of them.  One thing most people don’t think they will find in a strip mall is a fun place to eat.  Usually strip malls have fast food or chain restaurants.

Our plans changed yesterday and we decided to go out to dinner.  I wanted Mexican, but real Mexican, not the Taco Bell interpretation.

So I saw a place that got good reviews on both Urban Spoon and Exton Dish.  In a strip mall.  Called Buho’s.  It is in the Fairfield Place Shopping Center – 484-872-8840 – 115 Swedesford Rd, Exton, PA 19341.

We had an amazing meal.  I have not had Mexican so good since there was this little hole in the wall place years ago in the town of  West Chester that was in a store front across the street from what was Gilmores.  My friend Louise had introduced me to this place years ago (at least a dozen years ago), and since then, I had been looking for something as good.

Buho’s is terrific.  It is a BYOB.  Not fancy, but the murals on the walls are pretty cool.  They are also part market, so you can buy some fun Latin American stuff if you so choose – and if you want a piñata for a birthday party, they have quite the selection.

Buho’s was incredibly clean – including the ladies’ room. According to Yelp, Buho’s used to be in Lambertville, NJ before Exton.  If you check out the reviews on Yelp there is an annoying ad above the actual reviews.

Our waitress was so nice and knew her menu.  She spent time with us helping us choose.  We started with a Buho Mixto since it was our first time there – that was a sampling of a lot of things and could have been a meal in itself (we didn’t finish it) There is an extensive menu for dinner, including things like “Bistek a La Mexicana”.  They also do lunch and I think breakfast.  They have vegetarian options too. 

The food was not only more authentic than you find around here, but very fresh and flavorful.  And not super greasy like the food a lot of chain Mexican places put out. And the portions are very generous, so keep that in mind when you order. We came home with lots of yummy leftovers.

They also have a catering/take-out menu.

I hope I am raving enough, because the food was indeed rave worthy and we will go back!  I encourage others to try it too!

Again:

Buho’s- Fairfield Place Shopping Center – 484-872-8840 – 115 Swedesford Rd, Exton, PA 19341.

Buho means owl in Spanish, so there are lots of owls hanging out in the restaurant.  But they aren’t scary creepy like all the clowns that used to be in Gillaine’s in Ardmore.

haven’t done a barn of the day in a while….

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just bananas/just desserts

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Ok, what happens when I am supposed to be resting on a sprained ankle? I get restless.

The result: Banana Cake with Banana Buttercream Frosting. (I had leftover bananas to use up )

Banana Cake:

350 degree oven (pre-heat)

Grease and flour two round cake pans (mine are 9 1/2 inch) and line bottom with parchment or brown paper (cut out a circle just like your mom used to do.)

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons buttermilk powder *

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1  teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt (regular not large crystal sea salt)

3/4 cup sour milk**

1 cup smushed ripe bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 cup white raisins

1/2 teaspoon EACH of cinnamon, green cardamom powder, ground ginger

* = sour milk is regular milk with 2 teaspoons of white vinegar added. Stir in vinegar to mix, let sit 5 to 10 minutes

**= buttermilk powder can be gotten at baking supply places or online.  It must be refrigerated when opened.  You can use buttermilk powder AND sour milk OR regular buttermilk.

Take nuts and raisins and toss in a tablespoon or so of flour and set aside in small bowl.

Mix all dry ingredients.

Add bananas.

Add buttermilk or sour milk.

Add vanilla

Add butter

Beat everything on a low speed until blended and then pop up the power to medium high for about 2 minutes

Split batter evenly between prepared pans. Sprinkle nuts and raisins evenly over both plans (split in other words)

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until toothpick or skewer comes out clean.

Cool in pans on rack for 10 – 15 minutes.

Remove cakes from pans and cool thoroughly.

When cool remove parchment or brown paper from bottom. Carefully or you will take chunks of cake away

Banana Butter Cream Frosting:

1 cup butter

1/2 smushed banana

4 cups confectioners sugar

scant 1/4 cup meringue powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 tablespoons soft cream cheese

2 tablespoons of milk

1/2 teaspoon EACH of ground ginger and cinnamon

First cream butter and cream cheese.  Add vanilla and spices and banana.  Add sugar. Add milk.  Beat with hand mixer until frosting is smooth and creamy.

Frost the cake.  I will note that after I frost this cake I place four evenly placed wooden skewers in the top and place cake in refrigerator for frosting to harden.  This is a cake that has to have leftovers stay covered and refrigerated. I will also note that I decided to add the meringue powder (also available at specialty food/baking supply or online) to this because the banana makes the butter cream frosting too soft I think.  The meringue powder which I generally keep on hand for royal icing stiffens the frosting up nicely.

I don’t think I left anything out.

Enjoy!

do you love ludwigs corner horse show?

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….Well if you do, they need volunteers. And after the year they have had at the hands of helpful West Vincent government types, they deserve the help!

It will be more fun than the mad cattle car crush to go see VP Candidate Paul Ryan tomorrow at the Helicopter Museum (and if you are going and have never been to one of these things they are hot and crowded.  Be prepared to stand for HOURS and for the candidate to be LATE.  This is a large group appearance so it will be hell to be in that crowd and to live anywhere near the museum.)

So anyway….If you love horses and love Ludwigs Corner, please consider volunteering Labor Day Weekend.

Please complete the Volunteer Form and e-mail it to mhflick@comcast.net.

Volunteer Flyer

Questions: Please contact MH Flick. 610-914-5270

Mailing address: Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show Attn: MH Flick PO Box 754 Uwchland, PA 19480

Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/LudwigsCornerHorseShowVolunteers

And from Chickenman:

This year the show benefits the following:

http://www.ludwigshorseshow.org/Home/Beneficiary/tabid/61/Default.aspx

Ludwig’s Corner Fire Company
Talk about supporting the public! When your house is on fire, these are the ones that come to save your family and property. Attending the
Horse Show benefits…YOU!

Horsepower of Life
“Enriching the lives of families living
with cancer”  What more needs to said?  A local non-profit that works with
families that have that huge hurdle to overcome.

Ludwigs Corner Horse
Show  Website: http://www.ludwigshorseshow.org/

is there any better late summer salad than this?

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Made this the other day.  Totally easy and delicious.  Summer salads don’t get better than this but if you are going to do it have a high quality balsamic vinegar, fresh basil and really fresh mozzarella and tomatoes that have not been refrigerated.  Otherwise, don’t bother.