The Bloated Belly

Carrot and tarragon soup

Welcome a new Bloated Belly correspondent.—The Hack

Carrot and tarragon soup

By Rhonda Valentine

This is a light, delicious, and beautiful soup. It freezes well and is a good way to use up carrots from a large fall harvest. This recipe was inspired by my mom :)

Ingredients:
 
10-12 carrots, cut relatively thin into circles

1 large yellow onion, cut in small pieces

2 cubes chicken bouillon

2 cups water

4 cloves garlic

1/4 cup fresh tarragon (about 6 sprigs, leaves only)

5 cups milk (pick your “percent”, depending on the richness you desire. I use 1 percent unless I am cooking for a party)

Olive oil

Salt to taste
 

Directions:

Boil water and chicken bouillon in a large soup pot
 
Cook onion and tarragon in skillet with 2 TBS olive oil until the onions are mostly clear (cover pan if you wish). Blend in food processor or blender and add to the pot of chicken broth.
 
Cook carrots and garlic in skillet over med heat with 2-3 TBS olive oil until soft, cover the pan if you wish. Blend carrots and garlic in food processor or blender until fairly smooth. You may have to add some of the milk to help the blending process. Add this to the broth.
 
Add the remaining milk and season to taste with some salt. For a vegetarian version consider using vegetable soup broth instead of chicken.

Beans & rice (and chicken with cilantro gremolata) on the fly

By The Hack

The Hack, in his life of action and adventure, has discovered a few truths. One that might not be considered integral to planetary function, but nonetheless true, is this: If one is reasonably literate, one can read a recipe, assemble ingredients, and produce something edible. No culinary school, hours watching Food Network, or reading a fancy pants glossy food magazine required.

And those that enjoy the experience and repeat it become reasonably skilled and efficient, and can impress friends and family. Which leads into another of the Hack's truths (his brain, supposedly, can hold four): Part of becoming an effective home cook is using what’s on hand. This requires at least two things: A pantry stocked with a somewhat broad array of essentials (if one has attempted some ambitious cooking from recipes, one should have that), and a willingness to fail. The Hack has both items, the latter in spades (a character trait well-developed from many other failures).

One of the Hack’s favorite simple pleasures is beans and rice in all its global formulations. But he’s particularly interested in Cuban and Puerto Rican influences. Perusing The New York Times Web site a while back, he found this story with these two recipes, which sent his eager stomach to hearty rumble mode. But, to the original point of using what’s in the pantry: Take a close gander at the ingredient list.
 
For the chicken, the Hack had no chicken legs, but he did have leftover rotisserie chicken. Kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, olive oil, cumin, garlic: check, check, check, check, check. Two limes? No, but he did have some lemon juice in the fridge. Cilantro? Check—by the truckload in the garden.
 
The beans part: he had an onion, the olive oil, the garlic, red bell pepper, cumin, coriander, orange juice, salt and pepper. Beans? No red kidney beans. But a one can (15.5 ounces) of white ones (cannelloni in some circles) and he wasn’t looking to make a ton anyway. He had some precooked bacon he keeps around for various uses, and a jar of reserved bacon fat (a must!) in the freezer.
 
So, the Hack had everything he needed for the beans. Really! He chopped the recipe into 1/3 (since he only had the one can) and rolled, eyeballing it, rather than getting all in a tizzy with measuring implements. For two, it would be plenty of grub.
 
The Hack’s method: Cook the onion and all the other stuff in the reserved bacon fat, then add the cooked bacon. Don’t have pineapple juice? Who cares. The juices are for a bit of sweetness and acidity. It’ll be a little less sweet with only OJ, but it turns out just fine. If you need more moisture in the mix, add more OJ instead of water to amp the flavor. You won't miss the pineapple.
 
For the chicken leftovers, the Hack sautéed them in a pan with a bit of oil to crisp up the skin. Then he made the gremolata pretty much to how it’s listed, sans the fresh squeezed lime juice. That's where the litlle jug of real lemon juice came in.
 
With all due respect to nutball foodies out there, busy folks like the Hack often keep a one of those little jugs of store-bought lemon or lime juice in the fridge, rather than a few limes or lemons that he might not get to for a while. It works, and the Hack thinks all those folks feeling guilty about their little jug of juice when their crazed foodie friends come over to the house and stick their nose in the fridge should just stop feeling that way. Acidity and citrus-y zest is what’s wanted here, jug lemon juice is just fine when that's all you've got. Dinner was a hit, the Hack was a hero to his significant other for at least five minutes.

The Hack thinks it’s a wonderful sauce to drizzle over chicken, which brought forth an idea from his soggy brain: It would be just dandy with this, no? (For the record, the Hack reports, yes, it is.)

Best roast chicken…ever?

By The Hack

Lookit. Nice, yes?

The Hack fancies himself a reasonable home cook, but one thing he hadn’t explored much (at all) is the roast chicken category, at least not until a couple years ago. Then he tried a few different recipes, including the one in Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook. He tried that one twice, and both times the bird turned out tasting fine, but not worth the work.

(Otherwise, the Hack finds Bourdain’s cookbook quite good, has cooked many items from it, and the roast chicken recipe wasn’t a waste—the herb butter recipe used with the bird was worth the experiment; he prepares that quite often for various uses).

And many recipes are similar to Bourdain’s, involving stuffing the cavity with various aromatics, shoving butter or another fat under the skin over the breast meat, and then often massaging the entire bird in butter as one might wish to douse suntan oil on a buxom bikini contest winner. Once in the oven, there’s often a starting roasting temperature, then after a while, a raising or lowering, basting the whole way through.

And most are just fine. The bird tastes fine. But that’s it. And not, in the Hack’s humble opinion, worth the time and effort.

Enter Thomas Keller.

The Hack had a farm-raised bird sitting in his fridge, a three-pounder. Not eager to start the process of massaging, basting and watching, he typed “simple roast chicken,” or some such phrase, into Google. Up popped this at Epicurious, from Mr. Keller, he of The French Laundry.

Sounded so easy to the Hack, he immediately became suspicious. He knows enough chefs that have the moral convictions of pirates—traits he himself has been accused of sharing—that he believed initially that Keller was holding out a crucial detail to keep the bird moist during the high-heat cooking that produced the crispy skin.

He rolled the recipe over in his noggin, though, and determined it could be the real deal. High heat. Smaller bird. Low-sided pan. Salt.

The Hack followed the recipe exactly (basically, after rinsing and drying, salt and pepper the sucka and cook for an hour at 450 F) with one exception: he used a broiler pan. What could be better than a low-sided pan? A no-sided pan. Juices dripped safely below deck, bird crisped up all the way down low.

(Another good tip: Doc. Biggles at Meathenge recounted in one of his roast chicken recipes that he uses a cast iron pan, sets a trivet in it, and places the bird on the trivet—an outstanding idea.)

The Hack has used this recipe with great success several times since. Moist meat, crisp skin, and with a touch of good mustard on the side as Keller suggests, it’s fabulous. The key is a great bird, not the commodity fryer available in any grocery store. That bird’s meat just won’t stand up flavor-wise to such minimal adornment, and some of them are injected with brine, which will screw everything up. Pay the money for a farm-raised bird, it ain't that much more, and you won’t go back. Plus, you’ll want to eat all leftovers, an act which adds to overall savings, no?

Adjustments:

There are occasions where the only available bird is larger than two or three pounds. Don’t fret. The Hack has made successful adjustments in temperature and time. Why, just last week, The Hack’s lovely wife bought a 4.5 pound bird. Guests were coming over. The Hack rolled his brain around and ran with this: He cut a wad of excess fat from the back end, and wedged it under the legs he lashed together above the breast—added protection for the longer roasting time required. Then he roasted it at 375 F for about 40 minutes, then cranked it up to 425 for another 30. Spun the pan a 180 degree turn at the temp shift, since he was standing there. Perfect. The added fat slab crisped up too, which made a nice, crunchy, salty snack. And you can poke in the thigh with your meat thermometer just to sooth any worries as you go, but eventually, you’ll be able to eyeball done-ness.

Best roast chicken recipe ever? For its simplicity and result, Bloated Belly HQ declares it so.

Grilled asparagus, lamb burgers

By The Hack

Is there a better way to cook asparagus than on the grill? I think not. See that stuff there next to that lamb burger? MMmmmm. Grilled asparagus. With some leftover lime butter. And it’s so stupid easy. Take your asparagus, commingled with some olive oil, and place on hot grill. Close cover for a minute. Open cover, and look. Maybe turn it, to see if they’re showing signs of grillness. Don’t wander off! It don’t take long! Few minutes, tops. Look and see when the “skin” of them suckas is starting to blister a bit, and you can see the liquid just underneath that said “skin" movin' around. You’ll know what I’m talkin’ about when you see it. Move ‘em around so they’re grilled all around, but, obviously, not charred. They might be kinda limp, depending on their thickness, but still snappy in the mouth. Done.

Don’t have lime butter? Try blue cheese. Yum. I’ll toss that lime butter recipe on here soon, though. Used it a while back for salmon.

But we’re talking asparagus here!

And that burger. Lamb.

I ain’t made a reg’lar hamburger at home in years. Nothing against hamburgers, but lamb is my fave. Take ground lamb, our butcher usually has packs at just under a pound, more than enough for two burgers, mix salt and pepper and, if you’ve got it, roasted garlic (cut the top off a garlic bulb, pour in a little olive oil, wrap in foil and place in the grill while it heats up. It don’t take long, either. Squeeze roasted cloves through a garlic press into the meat), or garlic powder if you don’t. What else goes good with lamb? I think mint and feta. Chop mint and toss in meat. Now, feta don’t sit too well on a burger. So, stuff it inside (Twin Cities folks know this as a Jucy Lucy, misspelling intentional). Make your patty into a bowl, drop some feta in there, then bring the edges together and seal ‘em up. Or, for more even distribution, make your patty into two and---you can figure it out. I cook these with indirect heat, shutting down one of the burners on the gas grill. I don’t want no flame ups to ruin little lambs. Don’t take long, neither. Couple minutes on one side, lid closed, flip, close lid couple minutes, done. Toast buns. Smear one with mint jelly. Or, toss a couple mint leaves on top. Eat.

How to make Valentines Day digestible? Steak. At home.

By The New Guy

Your humble Editor has many reasons to be thankful to be chained to his Anchor, but there is one in particular for which he thanks his lucky stars: She does not care for Valentines Day. Isn’t that the greatest?

That doesn't mean that they haven’t developed a sort of ritual for the most saccharine and silly of the Alleged Holiday category. Lately, it’s been staying at home and cooking something on which they normally wouldn’t spend the bucks. The Editor, thanks to his day job, has picked up a few skills in the kitchen (which doesn’t mean he’s great), and his devoted Anchor is no slouch converting groceries either (she's better). But on Valentines, for reasons he can’t recall, he’s usually manning the stove. In the past for the non-event, he’s cooked up beef tenderloin, much to the Anchor’s delight. (Which marks a second trait the editor is thankful to have in a spouse: enjoys meat). He yanked from the dusty archives of his brain a recipe by the venerable Mark Bittman of the New York Times: Steak Diane for Two.

In the Editor’s experience, one really has to want to fuck up a tenderloin to fuck up a tenderloin. In his humble opinion, it comes down to buying a good hunk of meat and getting out of the way. He’s on a grass-fed jag of late, but it’s hard to find tenderloin on short notice, so he went with the standard, corn fed dead cow found at Kowalski’s. They have decent mammal tissue, but the fish he shies from, and devotes his dollars in that department to Coastal Seafood.

So there they are, the mounds of meat. $25 per pound. Ouch. The steaks weighed out to be about 8.5 ounces a piece, so the Editor sliced ’em both down to six ouncers for the meal (the leftover slabs made a nice, quick appetizer the next evening).

So, from the Editor's pocked memory: Salt and generous fresh ground pepper on the meat, olive oil in the pan, sear and cook for a bit, and that’s pretty much it. The sauce is equally simple: butter, finely diced shallot and some sliced shitaakes if you’ve got ’em, sautée for a bit, then add a bit of teaspoons (or thereabouts) of Dijon mustard and Worcester sauce, about a half-cup of half and half (eyeballed for desired consistency), and that’s about it. Salt and pepper to taste. Throw the steaks back in to and finish cooking to medium rare (just a couple minutes MAX per side over medium heat), thicken the sauce, and done. Pile 'shrooms and sauce on top of steak. Easy. Fast. The Editor, given that the sauce was heavy enough, decided some quartered red potatoes, quartered, tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary then roasted at 375 until done was a decent, healthy, lighter side, along with a mixed green salad. Have the taters roasting while you do the steaks and sauce. The whole deal is about 20 minutes.

Not too shabby. Apologies for the lighting, I neglected to reset the ol' white balance in the camera from a previous shoot.

Bless the New York Times, though. Here’s a link to the original recipe. Turns out the memory still holds stuff reasonably well. 

Wine? Sure. A big bomb red like a decent cabernet sauvignon is a predictable choice, but the Editor has found recent pleastantries (and bargains) with Bordeauxs, and their extreme versatility makes them nice choices for a drink on their own or other meals. But for this meal, the Editor and Anchor went with a German sparking wine. Sparkling wine, you say? Shush. There are many sparkling wines out there, cavas and proseccos included, made in the traditional Champagne method that are excellent, and usually more affordable. It's the editor's humble opinion that more sparkling wine should be drunk with everything—they are light, yet with their dry snap and acidity, able to cut through heavy proteins and fat-laden meals. And they're just fun.

Perhaps another post on that subjet is in order...

Salmon, glazed

Salmon. It can be so simple to prepare. But for that reason can be a stumper sometimes. Sure, you like it just fine the way you always prepare it, maybe with just some olive oil, salt pepper and dill for the light side, or with a buerre rouge sauce (that sounds fancy pants but it's easy--for another post, perhaps?) But for the a small-minded fellow worn down to the bones by another numbing day at the job, a little hiccup in the routine is small victory. So there I had a pound of salmon in butcher wrap from Kowalski's. Yeah, I bought it at a grocery store. It's a nice grocery store, but I rarely buy fish there--or any grocery store. My usual spot is Coastal Seafood. But hey. There it was. The fella behind the counter tried to sell me on some farm raised from Chile, but there's a whole slew of problems coming from down there, so I pointed to the wild caught. "Well, if you like richer tasting fish," he said. Yes, yes I do, doofus. I like fish tasting like fish does when it's yanked from their natural habitat. The slab looked good. Didn't smell fishy.

Planned on cooking it that night, but for reasons unremembered, didn't. Unwrapped it on night two and, well, that scent had settled in. Is it bad? No. But you know you should have just cooked it when you bought it. Still, a nice looking piece of wild caught Alaskan salmon. What do do?

Much to my surprise, the brain kicked in. It told me that for the day job I received a cookbook a few years back from an Alaska publisher that produced local-fare cookbooks. This one was entirely devoted to its title: Salmon. I pulled it out, thumbed through it, and found a neat little recipe that was quick and easy. It's basically this: take about one pound of salmon, lay it skin side down on aluminum foil. Put Kosher salt on it. Heat your grill. When the grill's ready, rub about a quarter cup of brown sugar on the salmon (I like dark brown sugar). Put pepper on it. Toss the whole mess on the heated grill for about ten minutes, and check for doneness depending on the thickness of your slab.

Easy. Tasty. Although my quibbles with the recipe (and why I didn't write it down for y'all) are this: It says things like "salt to taste" when you add salt to the raw filet. Eh? Salt to taste? Just put a decent amount of salt on it in that state. One thing I realized with the recipe, is that I under-seasoned it. I'd like to fiddle with a bit of heat next time; I'll let you know.

More salt, more pepper, and this would have been outa sight in it's simple balance of flavors. That, and some supremely fresh fish would be outstanding. At left, I smeared a tad too much sugar on. No matter, it melts off.

But it piles up on the foil and burns a bit. But the fish? Just fine.

Overall, this cookbook is a nice package, filled with nifty illustrations. Worth the buy, if it's still available, if only to add to the mental catalog for salmon prep.

Salmon
By Cynthia Nims
Illustrated by Don Barnett
Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co.
www.gacpc.com

What to do during tomato season

PLUS

PLUS

PLUS

EQUALS...

Ain't she a beautiful thing? Fresh 'maters from the St. Paul Farmers Market, old school lean bacon from some fella in Wisconsin, and that's a recipe for heaven, folks. I've had BLTs three days running for lunch, makin' all the co-workers jealous when I slice into a fresh tomato every day.

Eat this: Coffee cake

Jack Venus returns to his kitchen after yet another rigorous tour fighting crime and bedding Hollywood starlets to whip up a quick coffee cake for unexpected guests. —Lewis

Venus Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar*
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 Tsp. salt
1 can pie filling (of your choice)
Cinnamon
1 9x13" cake pan

The recipe is actually pretty straightforward, mix the sugar, flour and salt together. 

Then add in the oil and eggs.  Beat together with a mixer or with a fork until well combined.  Viola. You now have the batter.

Spread half of the batter into the bottom of the ungreased cake pan and level it out evenly.

Open up that can of pie filling and carefully spoon about half of it over that bottom layer of batter.  Level the pie filling out, as well.

Carefully spoon the remaining batter over the top, until all of the pie filling is covered. Try not to leave any pie filling exposed, because it'll burn during the baking process.

Once that's all done, sprinkle a bit of sugar over the top and a little cinnamon as well.  The sugar will caramelize and make the coffee cake extra tasty.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes and let cool.

Enjoy!

*I use Vanilla Sugar, which is just sugar that's been put into a container
with a vanilla bean or two.  The vanilla flavors the sugar and makes it very tasty, especially in coffee.

Oh yeah? Bruschetta this.

Uber-home chef Jack Venus returns, taking a quick break from his graphic design studio and recent work as a stunt double for Ron Jeremy.—Lewis

This bruschetta recipe is perfect for a late night snack or for guests.

Quick and Easy Bruschetta
(serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
1 Lf. Ciabatta bread, sliced into wide 3/4-1" thick slices
2 Roma tomatoes, cut into 1/8-1/4" thick slices
1/2 oz. of freshly chopped Basil
1-2 cloves of Garlic, minced
2 tsp. Extra Virgin Olive oil
2 1/2 T. of Balsamic Vinegar
Kosher Salt
Black Pepper, freshly ground
Grated Parmesan cheese

For Reduction:
1/4 C. Balsamic Vinegar

This couldn't be easier. Add the basil, tomatoes and garlic to a large bowl
along with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Add a pinch of salt and grind a
little black pepper in there as well. Lightly mix this together and allow it
to sit while you prepare and toast the bread.

Next, take your bread and lay the pieces out on a baking sheet. Flavor it
with a light drizzle of olive oil for taste and slide that sucker into a
preheated oven.  You're going to bake the bread for about 15 minutes at 350
degrees to make it nice and crispy.  Turn the bread over after about 6
minutes and make sure you check the bread often. Burnt bread tastes awful.

While the bread is baking, take a small sauce pan and add about a 1/4 cup of
balsamic vinegar.  Heat this slowly and reduce the liquid by half.  The
vinegar will thicken and become very sweet.

Once the bread is a golden brown, pull it out of the oven and place the
slices onto your serving tray. Top each slice with a good amount of the
tomato mixture and then drizzle the vinegar reduction over the top. Grate a
bit of Parmesan over over each slice for good measure and salt and pepper to
taste.

Delicious.

—Jack Venus

Butternut squash soup

Man, it’s cold out here in St. Paul. Time to start a fire in the fireplace and bundle up on the couch with the hottie of your choice. That and make some soup. And I had this here big ass butternut squash sitting around Bloated Belly HQ for nearly three weeks. “Oh NO! It’s prob’ly gone bad inside,” you say. And that’s what I thought. But fortunately, by dumb luck I had it stored in the right spot—kinda cool and dark—and with those conditions, those suckas will keep for a month.

I like butternut squash soup. Had a heavenly cup of it at Kafé 421 back in October. Nice and thick and smooooth, rich with flavor, alongside a sliced turkey breast sandwich warmed up with melted brie and thin slices of granny smith apple. Yum.

Then a couple weeks later had a not so good bowl somewhere else—watery, bland and yellow.

So there I was in the early part of November, standing in the grocery store fishing through the produce when lo and behold, a monster butternut squash stuck out from the pile of other squashes like a porn star (male) at attention, little did it know that it was about to be met with a fate similar to John Wayne Bobbitt.

Bought it. Then my mag deadline rolled around. Then Thanksgiving. Finally, last week, I set about with the slice and dice. But I had to settle on a recipe, first. There’s so many out there. So many different ways to prepare the squash, mixing it with this vegetable or that fruit, steaming it or roasting it, blah blah blah. A chef friend, Mr. High Falutin’ I-Was-Stud-Chef-in-California-for-Almost-Two-Decades said, “Hey, it’s the squash, tart apples, onion, cream, nutmeg, white pepper and cayenne. Simple. Figure it out, fuck-o.”

Thanks, dick. Cayenne?

So my tiny little brain got tired pondering all the different ways to mix and match and mash and squeeze and boil. I could feel my mass squishing around up there on the ol’ brainpan, and then like a fine bowel movement, it squeezed out an idea. And what follows is my very own recipe, I guess, the product of all the other ideas out there. And for you veg-heads out there, pay close attention, ‘cause this might be the only thing off this here blog you’ll be able to cook.

Took Mr. Squash, read ‘im his rights and cut ‘im in half, carved out the guts with an ice-cream scooper. See?

Now some recipes will tell you to roast it, skin side up, then clean it up. Naw, naw naw. Just peel it. The skin on these is soft enough to use a reg’lar ol’ vegetable peeler. Now some recipes will tell you to chop it up and steam cook it with the other stuff you’re gonna put into it. Again, I say no. I ain’t no fancy-pants chef but I do know that there’s a lot of liquid in these squashies and you want to get rid of some of it. I read another recipe on a blog that said to take the stripped down, chopped up squash and let it sit in the fridge in a bowl or something for a day to drain. To drain? For a day or so? Crimmony.

Why not chop up the squash into rough chunks, and put ‘em on a pan coated with a little olive oil and roast in a 350 degree F oven ‘til you can stick a knife through ‘em. That way you evaporate a lot of the liquid, and you get some nice roasty color and flavor. Huh? Huh? Isn’t that a good thought? Roasting takes about a half-hour or so. That’s a lot less than a day, right?

Then you get a big pot. Dice up one yellow onion. I wound up with about two cups worth, which seemed like a lot on the cutting board, but once in the pot, it didn’t, particularly when I considered how much squash I had—about three pounds, after the cleaning and skinning. That’s a lot.

Put a tablespoon or more of butter in the pot, melt over medium high heat, then add the onions and sauté them ‘til their translucent and sorta soft. Not much more than five minutes. While that was going I peeled, cored and diced one granny smith apple. Agreed with the chef friend that the tartness of it would counter the sweet squash pretty nice.

Threw the apple and the roasted squash chunks in the pot and poured in three cups of chicken broth, which was the exact amount in this box of Kitchen Basics broth. Yeah, if I was truly dedicated, you say, I woulda made my own stock. Whatever. I’m an urban magazine editor, and you all might be busier than me. Some day when I’ve got the time and a leftover chicken carcass, I will. I’ve heard good things about this Kitchen Basics stuff from friends in the know (namely, it ain’t laden with salt and preservatives—it’s natural stuff, and don’t keep long after opening).

Now, you just know that some of those fancy thick restaurant soups have cream in ‘em, doncha? And a few of the recipes I found had it in there, too. So I eyeballed it and poured about one cup of heavy cream into the mix, gave it a stir, and brought it to a boil. It started smelling very nice at this point, and I let it simmer for about 10 minutes, everything was pretty soft by then.

Sure don’t look too pretty, though. But that will soon be corrected. Scoop out the mess into a trusty ol’ blender to begin the transformation (this had to be done in batches, and poured into another container). My old wreck of a blender’s “puree” button was plenty good, just gave ‘er a shake or two to keep the junk flowing.

Look at that, now, pouring out. PERFECT in every way, nice rich color and texture (not like that weak yellow watery crap I had at that one place). I like it a little thick. But you can adjust that with a bit more

stock or water, if you like. But the taste, in my opinion, was almost there as-is. I could taste that onion back there, and that granny smith tartness giving the tongue something to mull over.

Once that was done, then it was back in the big pot for the touchy part—the spices. Now I might be good, but not good enough to know what all works with what and how much, but I went with some recommendations: Nutmeg, for one. Went slow, one pinch at a time. For my batch of stuff (which totaled about nine cups or so) and went to about three or four pinches of nutmeg, and about three of white pepper, and a wee bit of sea salt from my grinder gave just the hint of something else there to cut the sweetness. I think the only thing I woulda done differently is have add a second granny smith apple, because the one I used was pretty small—it woulda just given that little extra zip, I think. But if you’ve got a good sized one, that should be fine.

“Oh,” you say, “what to garnish with? What to serve it with?”

I’ll show you what I did in a day or two. In the meantime just think of what you’d like to taste with it. But here’s the basic recipe for you.

Bloated Belly Butternut Squash Soup

Yield: Roughly 8-10 one-cup servings

• One big (or a couple small) butternut squash yielding about three-plus pounds after gutted and peeled
• One decent-sized yell0w onion
• One good-sized granny smith apple (or a couple small ones)
• Three cups chicken broth
• One cup heavy cream
• Nutmeg, white pepper, salt to taste

Halve butternut squash (chopping off stem, of course), clean out seed and goop, and peel. Dice squash into one- or two-inch chunks. Place chunks on lightly olive-oil-greased pan, place pan in 350 degree F oven until pieces can be pierced through with a knife (about a half-hour).

Peel and dice yellow onion. Melt one-plus tablespoons butter in large pot over medium-high heat. Toss in diced onion; sauté for about five minutes, until slightly translucent/soft. In meantime, peel, core and dice granny smith apple. When onions are finished, throw apple, roasted squash and chicken broth into pot. Add chicken broth and cream; stir and bring to a boil.

Let simmer for ten minutes, everything should be pretty soft. Puree in blender in batches. Once puree-ing is complete, return to pot and add spice to taste: three to four pinches of nutmeg, two to three pinches of white pepper, and some salt (again, to taste). Again, all this seasonal harvest varies, so if the soup is too thick to your liking, thin it with more stock or water. Cream will only increase the richness.

Garnish? Oh there’s plenty out there. Think about what you might like to taste with this soup. I’m still thinking about that.

NOTE: This soup is works very good on the reheat, too, so you can prepare it a day ahead of time for guests.