Curried Orange Vegetable Soup

Whoops, haven't posted here for 8 months! Well...my last Hungry Harvest delivery gave me the largest sweet potato I've ever seen, and the smallest butternut squash I've ever seen...to add to a second small butternut squash I hadn't used from a previous week. So I figured some kind of sweet potato-butternut squash soup was in order. A bowl of beta-carotene! I made such a big pot of this that I'm going to freeze some to add to the Thanksgiving spread next week. 

I don't tend to do pureed soups that often because 1) they're a bit more fussy and 2) they don't seem as filling as chunky soups. But those orange vegetables make for good creamy soups, so I decided I'd go for it. I also added a can of chickpeas for some protein.

I was totally going to add a can of coconut milk to this at the end, but after I pureed it I was very happy with the texture and flavor, so I decided to leave it out. I also totally meant to add an apple for some sweetness, but forgot - so I added a splash of apple cider.

Like most good soups, this can be completely improvised for what you have on hand and/or prefer. You can use all or just one of sweet potato, butternut squash and/or carrots. I am not even suggesting quantities because it's that flexible! I would say at least 4 cups of veggies is good - I might have had more like 8; it almost filled my Dutch oven. This is also vegan if you use veggie broth.

If you're inspired you can also have fun with garnishes like pumpkin seeds, bacon bits, kale chips, croutons, flavored oils or maybe a drizzle of heavy cream or sour cream. Or just eat it with a nice grilled cheese!

- Sweet potato, peeled & chopped roughly
- Butternut squash, peeled/seeded & chopped roughly (you can prick & microwave for a few minutes to soften it up first)
- Carrots, scrubbed & chopped roughly (no need to peel)
- optional: 1 apple, peeled & chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2+ cloves garlic, minced
- fresh ginger, grated or minced
- curry powder (at least a couple of teaspoons, maybe more especially if it's a large pot)
- turmeric (1/4-1/2 tsp)
- cinnamon (a few shakes)
- 1 box stock/broth + water
- 1 can chickpeas, rinsed & drained
- lime or lemon juice
- optional: can of coconut milk, or some heavy cream

Saute the onion in some olive oil in a large pot until translucent. Season with salt. Add garlic and ginger & stir briefly. Add spices & stir briefly.

Add a little bit of the stock and mix everything together. Then add the chopped veggies. Add the rest of the stock, plus enough water to not-quite-cover the veggies, and a healthy pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover & simmer for 15 minutes.

Add chickpeas, cover & simmer for another 15 minutes or until vegetables are soft.

Puree the soup either with an immersion blender, or carefully in a regular blender (do it in batches and maybe let it cool a bit).

Return the soup to the pot over low heat. Add the coconut milk if you like, and some lime or lemon juice. Taste and see what it needs! I also added freshly ground pepper and some Penzey's Black & Red.

BBQ Tofu

My grocery store has apparently stopped stocking tofu...but luckily Hungry Harvest started carrying it, so I can usually get it delivered every week! Which is great, 'cause I have new favorite ways to cook it:

I think I've converted to the camp of tearing tofu into pieces rather than cubing or slicing it. Tearing it into rough pieces creates more surface area for crispy goodness. And when you're stir-frying or baking it, the cubes will sometimes tear anyway. So you don't have to be as gentle with it. And while I'm not one of those people who needs a meat substitute to actually look like meat, if that's your thing, it does look more meat-like this way.

This recipe is roasted in the oven, and uses both a spice rub and store-bought BBQ sauce. The flavor is pretty intense! If you want to simplify things I think you could get away with just the BBQ sauce. Also you could cook this in a pan on the stove if you don't want to turn on the oven. Just saute the pieces on medium high until they get crispy, and then add the sauce.

- 1 pkg extra firm tofu
- spice rub: smoked paprika, chili powder & garlic powder, and a pinch of salt. I did not measure, but I'm gonna guess it's a couple teaspoons of spices.
- olive oil
- BBQ sauce - I also did not measure, but am guessing 1/4-1/3 cup.

1. Press the tofu under a weighed plate with paper towels for 30 minutes, or however long you have. Slice the block in half lengthwise, and then tear into rough pieces.

2. Combine the spices with a little olive oil in a large bowl, and toss the tofu pieces until they're well-coated. Preheat oven to 425, and prepare whatever else you're serving. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil, and spread the tofu pieces out on it.

3. Bake for 15 minutes, stir and bake for 5-10 minutes more until getting browned & crispy.

4. Dump the tofu back into the bowl, add BBQ sauce and toss to coat. Return to the baking sheet and bake another 5 minutes or so. Then turn the broiler on for a couple minutes to make it extra crispy.

Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes w/Chocolate Bourbon Frosting

I took a risk and made a baked goods recipe from a random food blog, with my own modifications! This has burned me before, but this one was pretty successful. I don't bake much, but when I do I always try to follow a reliable recipe (as opposed to my freeform cooking style for other things). I was looking for an easyish chocolate cake recipe for husband's birthday with ingredients I had on hand (cocoa; no actual chocolate)...then looked for cupcakes because I wanted to share some with a neighbor friend...and also looked for a small batch recipe because we don't need a huge batch of cupcakes! 

This recipe from The Spruce Eats seemed to fit the bill. I'm also not a huge cake person, but I always like cakes made with sour cream (super moist!) and I had some on hand. I also don't like super-sweet frosting, so I found a recipe somewhere else that also incorporated sour cream - it's kinda like cream cheese frosting. I scaled the frosting recipe down and it still made more than needed for a dozen cupcakes (of which I only got 11 out of this batch!). But there's nothing wrong with eating some extra frosting by the spoonful!

So here you go - a reasonable dozen-ish batch of moist chocolate cupcakes with not-too-sweet frosting, using only cocoa!

Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes

- 1/2 cup brewed coffee, or water
- 1/4 cup butter (I used salted butter which is what I have on hand. If you use unsalted butter, up the salt to 1/2 tsp)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a small saucepan, melt butter with coffee or water until simmering. Add sugar & cocoa powder and mix/whisk well, until thoroughly combined. Remove from heat & cool slightly.

Sift flour, salt, baking powder & soda together in a mixing bowl. In a small bowl, beat egg with sour cream & vanilla.

Add butter/cocoa mixture to dry ingredients alternately with sour cream mixture. Mix until just combined.

Fill muffin cups 2/3 full (I only got 11 out of my batch). Bake for about 20 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes, then remove cupcakes from pan and cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Bourbon Frosting

- 1/3 cup butter, softened (I used salted; if you use unsalted, add a pinch of salt)
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 Tbl (ish) bourbon. Or use brewed coffee, or milk.

Place softened butter in a mixing bowl and sift cocoa powder & sugar into it. Add sour cream and vanilla, then bourbon or other liquid. Beat well - you can add more bourbon if you want it boozier or gooier. If it seems to gooey, try refrigerating it and it may firm up - and/or add more powdered sugar.

Ze finished product:

Pre-frosting:

One-Pot Lemon Chicken, Rice & Broccoli

This was last night's quick "band dinner" and I decided it's a keeper. Didn't get a photo of it last night, so just grabbed one of the leftovers! We got a bunch of lemons in our last Hungry Harvest box, so this used up some of those. A good easy comfort meal with bright flavor. For a vegan option, I think chickpeas would be good instead of the chicken: just dump in a drained/rinsed can when you add the broccoli, use veggie broth and add the lemon pepper with the other seasonings. Or, you could even oven-roast your chickpeas with the lemon pepper until they're crispy, and add them on top of each serving! 

- 1 lb boneless chicken breast or thighs
- lemon pepper seasoning
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2-4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 cups long grain white rice (jasmine is good)
- 1/4 tsp tumeric (optional, but makes it a nice yellow color)
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 1 box (4 cups) low-sodium chicken stock
- 1 head broccoli, cut into small florets (use the stems too!). Or use frozen broccoli.
- 1-2 lemons (grate the zest & squeeze the juice of one; the other can be sliced for optional garnish & more lemony-ness)

Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces and season with lemon pepper and salt (I also added some Penzey's Mural of Flavor and Black & Red for an extra kick). Let sit for a few minutes while you prep other ingredients (or you can do it a few hours ahead and marinate in the fridge).

Heat a Dutch oven or large pot/skillet on medium high and add some olive oil. Saute the chicken until just browned; it doesn't need to cook all the way through. Remove to a bowl.

Saute the onion until softened, add the garlic and stir briefly, then add the rice. Stir for a couple minutes. There will be some browning on the bottom of the pot, that's good. Add the turmeric and thyme.

Add some of the chicken stock and stir well to loosen up the brown bits. Then add the rest of the stock (you might not need it all, but I ended up using the whole box. It's OK if it's a little soupy at the end). Cover the pot and cook for 10 minutes. 

Add the chicken, broccoli, and lemon juice & zest. Stir well, cover and cook for another 10-15 minutes or until the rice is fully cooked. Garnish with lemon slices, if you like. 

Easy Rice Bowls

This has been a favorite the last few months, and is infinitely adaptable depending on your preferences and what's on hand for protein/veg. I wanted to call these "Korean rice bowls" as it's based on various recipes I found online with that bent...though I make absolutely no claims of authenticity.

Anyway, it turns out that soy sauce + brown sugar + sriracha makes an absolutely delicious sauce. Super easy to whip together. I've always made this with ground beef, but I think you could use any ground meat (turkey, pork or even meat substitute), chicken, or crumbled tofu (I'll probably try that next). I recommend cooking the protein with chopped onion & garlic (and grated fresh ginger if you have it...you could also add ground ginger to the sauce), but those are basically the "requirements."

I like having some kind of green vegetable with this - simply stir-fried or steamed and seasoned with salt/pepper. Maybe some garlic, but the protein + toppings are pretty flavorful so the vegetables don't need much. Pictured below with brussels sprouts...broccoli, asparagus and/or zucchini are good. If you add a good amount of veg to the bowl, you can stretch out the meat further.

I happened to have cucumber, carrot and jalapeño on hand, so I decided to make a quick pickled vegetable mix to add to the bowls. This is also optional, but delicious. You can do just carrots or cucumber, and/or daikon radish if you happen to find that. Jalapeno optional but adds a nice kick.

The quantities for everything are super-flexible; it is really hard to mess this up. Serve over steamed rice (or quinoa or cauliflower rice if that's your jam), and if you have green onion and/or cilantro and/or sesame seeds, and/or a squeeze of lime, those are all good garnishes. So this is a recipe for the "deluxe" version, but feel free to omit, substitute and use what you have/like!

Pickled Vegetables
Prepare this first - you can do it a day or a few hours in advance. Leftovers keep in the fridge. You don't need to completely cover the vegetables with the brine (just stir a couple times while refrigerating), so feel free to scale quantities down or up depending on how much you want to make.

- Any quantity of thinly sliced cucumber, julienned carrots and/or daikon radish, and/or some very thinly sliced jalapeno
- 1/2 cup vinegar (rice wine or apple cider are good)
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbl sugar

Mix together brine ingredients until dissolved. Pour over vegetables and refrigerate for at least 30 min.

Start your pot of rice now...

Beef or other protein:
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2 Tbl brown sugar
- sriracha or other hot sauce to taste (you can always add more, but the sugar mellows it out a good bit so keep that in mind)
- optional: a few shakes of toasted sesame oil
- 1 lb ground beef or other ground meat, or drained & crumbled firm tofu
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 or more garlic cloves, minced
- fresh ginger, grated/minced (optional)

Mix together soy sauce, brown sugar, sriracha & sesame oil. Heat a large saute pan or wok over medium high, add a small amount of oil and cook ground meat/protein. Try to get some good browning on it. (If cooking a vegetable, start stir-frying it now.)  If the ground beef sheds a lot of fat, drain some of it off. Add onion, garlic & ginger and continue cooking until softened. Add the sauce and cook just a minute or so until it coats the meat.

Build bowls with rice, beef, vegetables and the pickled vegetables. Garnish with any or all of the following: chopped green onions, cilantro, sesame seeds, more sriracha, a squeeze of lime.