Butternut squash soup - perfect winter dinner

Butternut squash soup might be the easiest soup to make in the world. Alright, it does make a few more dishes than I'm normally on board with but it might just be worth it. This soup has some wonderful fall flavors with apple, nutmeg and cinnamon.

I had a stray squash in the fridge, which I really needed to use and I was getting ready to head out of town but what to make? I was just getting over a cold, so it was feeling like a soup kind of day. Soup seems to be the standard thing to make with butternut squash, so since I'd never done it, the time seemed ripe! Pun totally intended.

I started browsing some recipes and they all seemed pretty similar, differing a little in their spice pallet but the gist was - cut up squash and boil in chicken broth before pureeing with whatever else you decide to put in there with it. This is what I came up with:

1 medium butternut squash
1 apple (I used 1.5 small gala apples)
2 cubes of chicken bullion
3 oz cream cheese
dash of nutmeg
dash of cinnamon
dash of salt

Equipment: food processor or blender

Cube the squash (tip) and core and dice the apples. Place squash and apples in large sauce pan with bullion and just enough water to cover the contents. Boil for 20 minutes or until squash is tender. Spoon cooked squash mixture into food processor with a sloted spoon, add cream cheese, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and  blend until smooth. If you would like a thinner soup, add cooking liquid and blend until soup reaches desired consistency.  Makes 3 large bowls.

Be careful not to be too heavy handed with the spices, I put a dash because I think even a 1/2 tsp will be too much.

I will definitely be making this again and again all winter long, this soup was tasty. It does make some dishes, mostly because of the food processor but it's worth it. How else can you make a delicious soup in under 30 minutes? Also, it's ridiculously healthy and low in calories.

Peanut Butter & Nutella cookies

My contribution to the office holiday party this year was none other than peanut butter and nutella cookies. If you don't know what nutella is, you should. Just go buy some, you'll love it, I promise.

This all started when I saw a recipe somewhere for peanut butter and nutella cookies but they were no-bake and frankly, did not look too tasty. This got the idea in my head. What could possibly go better? So I got to thinking, nutella is not so different from peanut butter, why couldn't I just make peanut butter cookies and sub-out some peanut butter for nutella? No reason I could think of, so that is exactly what I did.

You can probably do this with any peanut butter cookie recipe but this one from Simply Recipes makes a fairly small batch - a plus for us single ladies.

1/2 cup sugar *and additional to roll dough balls
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup nutella
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix ingredients together to form dough. Roll dough into small balls, roll in  additional white sugar and place on greased cookie sheet. Using a fork, press into each ball twice, making a cross-hatch design. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

They will look a little darker than typical peanut butter cookies, so watch that they don't burn.

While these were tasty, I feel like the peanut butter and nutella flavors competed a little bit with each other. In the next round, I might make all nutella cookies and see how that turns out.

Late photo - Thanksgiving feast

I have been a supreme slacker on blogging. To be honest, I haven't been cooking very much either! However, my friend Kim (who just moved to DC!) and I did prepare a feast on Thanksgiving! See below two (very tardy) photos.

The ham was made by slicing a smoked ham partially apart and putting brown sugar in each slot. The toothpicks are holding small bits of apple and pineapple each. My grandma advised that using apple and pineapple adds a slightly different flavor. It was a tasty ham (made in the crock pot) but I'm not sure it's the best it could be. If anyone makes this for Christmas, be sure to let me know how you like the addition of apple!

The other photos shows part of the feast - green beans with blanched almonds, mashed potatoes, gravy (instant, sadly) and stuffing. We also had apple and pumpkin pie (both made from scratch by Kim!), turkey breast (small group), garlic biscuits, cheeses and any number of other yummy things.

Ham in the crock pot!

Just some of the Thanksgiving feast!

Repeat offender: pumpkin cheesecake

This was so good the first time, I made it again. This time with a little cinnamon in my homemade graham cracker crust - I did not cheat so much! Follow your normal graham crust and add just a 1/2 tb of cinnamon (or this recipe).

Did somebody say ganache?

Maybe. Perhaps it was even peanut butter ganache. Are you excited yet? Do you need a quick explanation of what ganache is? Basically, it's fancy frosting/glaze made with cream and butter. It's French. The French like cream and butter. This is why we're friends.

Chocolate-peanut butter ganache

A few weeks back, I had my first fluffernutter. We had Fluffernutter Friday at the office. Half of you are appalled and the other half have no idea what a fluffernutter is, yeah I did not really either, but they are delicious. As a result of this culinary adventure, I became acquainted with the idea of fluffernutter cupcakes - but chocolate, of course. Why would you ever make cupcakes any other way?

Chocolate "fluffernutter" cupcakes
12-18 chocolate cupcakes
For filling:
1 container of marshmallow creme or fluff
Equipment: decorator's bag + tip OR 1 qt ziploc freezer bag
For ganache:
1 cup heavy cream
1 ½ cups chocolate chip morsels
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
¾ cup powdered sugar
½ cup smooth peanut butter

Cupcakes that have been injected with marshmallow cream

After your cupcakes have cooled, fill your decorator's bag with marshmallow cream. If you are using a ziploc bag, try to fill it will as much cream as you think you'll need the first time, it's very hard to refill (and messy). Poke the tip of the bag into the center of each cupcake and squeeze a cream into the center. You need to fill them somewhat aggressively, or you  won't end up with any noticeable cream in the middle (this happened to a few of mine). After you've finished injecting the cream, prepare your ganache according to the recipe here. Pour ganache over cupcakes.

The finished product!

These were yummy! Make sure to let them cool before injecting the cream, or it will melt out the top. Otherwise very easy and quite fancy seeming = my favorite kind of recipe.

Perfect, creamy hummus

I made the most amazing hummus earlier this week. Possibly the best I've ever had. The first few times I made hummus I was always disappointed, it just wasn't creamy enough. Even after I bought my food processor, which significantly improved the hummus making process, let me tell you, I still found it to be lackluster. Until last week, I read a tip to heat up your chickpeas when making hummus to get them to blend smoother and I thought I'd give it a try.

Results? Amazing! I heated my chickpeas up in the microwave for 20-30 seconds before putting them in the food processor and the difference was like night and day. The hummus was almost frothy when I was blending it. You also want to use a small amount of the liquid from the can of chickpeas, this helps too, but not nearly as much as heating them up first.

I also put a fairly significant amount of paprika in this batch, which gave it a really nice spice profile.

Pizza week continues - Sweet potato arugula

This recipe was actually the inspiration of pizza week. I saw a recipe on thekitchn for sweet potato arugula pizza (this is their photo, I did not get a shot of mine), which just sounded SO tasty. Normally, I don't break out new recipes when I'm cooking for other people, but I decided to make this when some friends came over, not for dinner exactly but weighty nibbles.

First, let me say that the flavor combination was excellent. The sweet potato and arugula are a perfect match. Next, let me say, this recipe did not work at all. The sweet potato do not cook nearly fast enough for them to be ready before the crust is anything other than burnt and I sliced them wafer thin. I highly recommend you make this but when you do, make sure to pre-cook the sweet potato until they are at least half-way cooked either by microwaving your slices or cooking them on the stove in a little bit of water. Seriously, I had to take all of the slices off the pizza, cook them more and put them back on. A royal pain in the bum.

When the munchies were finally ready, I had some very hungry guests (including me) but we all loved this. I would definitely make it again but with pre-cooking my sweet potatoes.