Winter

ImageOh this little butternet squash tarte tatin, how much do I love you? Enough to have you three times over the past few weeks, all for the sake of “recipe testing”, you know.

And honestly, this upside-down tart is probably one of the best things I’ve had all season, if I do say so myself.

Sweet butternut squash is roasted and then placed on top of caramel in a baking pan. The whole thing is covered with puff pastry and baked, and when it’s ready you invert the whole thing onto a plate and just go for it. I’ve tried to be nice when eating this but you can’t, it just disappears so fast. It was a hit during our Friendsgiving last month, but in a quick misfire of timing and communication it landed on the table during the meal and not as dessert. You know what? It didn’t matter. It was sweet and buttery, perfect with Gaby’s stuffing and just about everything else that afternoon.

Honestly, I do think you’ll love it.

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dijon vegetable chowderWhen you live in the Midwest, northern Minnesota to be more exact, where below-zero temperatures are no big deal, but just part of winter life, a hot bowl of hearty homemade soup is highly appreciated.

A few weeks ago I received a copy of "Enlightened Soups," by Camilla V. Saulsbury. As I was in the midst of holiday preparations, I didn’t have much time to look through the cookbook. But as the New Year rang in, I was ready to get back to a more healthful eating routine. And, during the first week of the new year, a few of Camilla’s Enlightened Soups have been a part of my lower fat, lower calorie eating plan.

As I paged through the cookbook filled with more than 135 light and healthful soup recipes, I soon noticed the recipes used ingredients that can be found in most supermarkets and that the soups did not take long to make. All can be prepared in an hour or less, some in just 20 minutes. Each recipe has a small illustration that shows how long it takes to prepare the soup. As I soon discovered, enlightened soups don’t need to cook for hours to deliver wonderful flavor.

Another feature of "Enlightened Soups" is the nutritional information included with each recipe. I first tried Red Lentil Mulligatawny. It was rich with flavor and took 45 minutes to prepare from start to finish.

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lentilsoup.jpg In many countries it's tradition to eat good-luck foods in the first few days of the new year or sometimes in the last few seconds of the old one. People in Spain stuff their mouths with grapes as the clock counts down the last twelve seconds. In the United States, Southerners eat collards and black-eyed peas because they symbolize money. My Hungarian heritage is not without its new year's food superstitions.

To celebrate, we eat pork and lentil soup. Supposedly because pigs root forward, they are a forward-looking bunch of animals. Chickens are not since they scratch backward. We eat lentil soup because the little lentils resemble coins. So the custom of eating good-luck foods is all to gain prosperity for the new year. Believe me I'd eat all these foods all the time if it meant prosperity for the entire year.

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ImageI love mushrooms for their flavor, texture, and meatiness. It's almost odd to say so, but mushrooms do have a texture and deep flavor that reminds me of meat. One of my favorite comfort foods is a bowl of mushroom soup. For me it's just as satisfying as a bowl of chili. Like little sponges, mushrooms easily take on the flavors of other ingredients that they cook with. Sautéing them in garlic or onions makes them especially wonderfully robust. This soup uses cremini mushrooms, the brown button type, and dried porcini mushrooms, which have an intense almost nutty flavor. This soup has a lot of good going for it.

Not surprisingly, there are hundreds of varieties of mushrooms, but surprisingly the ones that we buy in grocery stores are almost all the same. White button, cremini, and portobello are all forms of the common mushroom. All our supermarket mushrooms are cultivated, grown on inoculated logs in mushroom farms. The most popular, button mushrooms, are white as a result of mutation. But the common mushroom is typically brown, such as cremini, or baby bella as they are marketed. When they are large and mature, they are sold as portobello mushrooms. All of these mushrooms are great in the kitchen, but each one has its best use. Portobellos, for example are exceptional when grilled and can be eaten like a burger. Cremini, with their full flavor yet tender size, are perfect for soups.

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