Bacon Butternut Squash Soup with Crispy Shallot Rings

I love how cold, wintery weather is the perfect excuse for comforting, hearty soups. I also love that the layers of sweaters and jackets can easily hide my lovehandles from both indulging in comforting soups and being sequestered in my house for days. Full disclosure, this soup isn't super healthy. You could easily lighten it up by omitting the bacon and using 1% milk instead -- but you'd also be really lame. I kid, I kid, you'd also be thinner too. This kind of soup is best to do on a lazy Sunday when you can just lounge about looking at the snowflakes fall as you curse your decision to live in the frigid midwest.


Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 1.5 hours
Approximate cost: 15 dollars

Soup Ingredients
1 medium butternut squash, cut into 1 inch cubes (more or less)
1 medium shallot, diced
1/4 medium onion, diced
1/4 lb of bacon (about 3 slices)
3 c low sodium chicken broth
3/4 c half and half
a sprig or two of thyme
3 leaves of sage, chopped or 1 tsp dried
dollop of sour cream (optional)
1 green onion, sliced (optional)

Shallot rings:
1 medium shallot, cut into thin rings
1/3 c flour

1. Preheat oven to 400. Submerge shallot rings in a bowl of water while you prepare the soup.

2. Cut the squash in half lengthwise. Then, using a spoon, scrape out the seeds.
 
Cut the squash into cubes. I like to cut them into large rings, then make 3 cuts to remove the rind. Then you can cut them into nice cubes.

3. Toss the squash cubes with salt, pepper, and a fair drizzle of olive oil. On a cooking sprayed baking sheet, bake them in the preheated oven for 45 minutes (until tender), turning once. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.

4. While the squash cools, render out the bacon until crispy. I cut the strips into thirds before cooking them in a large pot. Drain the crisped bacon on a paper towel and remove most of the bacon fat. Leave a little to cook the veggies in, or if you're boring you can dump it all out and cook the veggies in vegetable oil.

5. Saute the diced shallots and onions in the bacon fat, seasoning with salt and pepper. If the pan starts to get a bit dry, you can deglaze a little with a drizzle of the chicken stock. Once the onions/shallots are soft and transparent, add in the thyme and sage.

6. Stir in the cooled squash and stir. After about a minute, add in the chicken broth. Bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer, scraping the bottom, for a few minutes until everything comes together.

7. Remove the thyme leaves. Turning the heat to low, and using an immersion blender, blend the liquid until smooth. Seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Alternately, you can blend the liquid in batches in a blender.
 
8. After the liquid is smooth, add in the cream and bring back up to a simmer, stirring until heated through, turning to low.

Shallot rings
1. In a plastic sandwich bag, mix the flour with salt and pepper.

2. Drain the shallots and toss in the bag to coat.

3. Heat about 3 tbs oil in a large pan until very hot. Slowly drop the dredged shallot rings in the oil in batches, frying until golden brown and turning once. Drain on a paper towel as you cook in batches. If you have leftovers, they taste great on sandwiches.


Serve the soup with a dollop of sour cream, crumbled bacon, green onions and a few crispy shallot rings.

Curried Maple Baba Ganoush

For some reason, I thought Baba Ganoush was as mysterious and exotic Kim Zolciak's marriage to Atlanta Falcon Kroy Biermann. Let's just take a minute to appreciate the loving and supportive union of those two -- God bless. Really, though, it's pretty easy and simple, something Kim Zolciak definitely is not. The combination of spicy, warm curry and sweet maple make this a fun fall dip. The secret is roasting the vegetables over the flames of your stove. That's enough of an excuse to make this recipe, and if you don't have a gas stove, you can always roast your vegetables in the oven at 450 for about 20 minutes, but that's seriously a lot less fun.

Cost: under 10 dollars
Time to allot: 1 hour
Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant
1 medium red bell pepper
1/4 c diced onion
2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 tbs curry powder
1/2 small jalapeno (more or less depending on taste)
2 tbs tahini
1 tbs pure maple syrup (not pancake syrup)
1/4 c plain greek yogurt
salt/pepper to taste
smidge of spicy paprika

1) First you want to start roasting your eggplant and bell pepper. The fire-roasting process is where the dip gets its smoky flavor so don't skimp on this part. Turn your burners to a medium high flame. Place the eggplant and eggplant on its own flame. You'll notice the vegetables start to sweat then finally blister. You want this charred, blistering all over the vegetable.

What you're doing is roasting the vegetables from the outside in. You want to make sure the outside is charred, but more importantly you want to get as much of the flesh on the inside soft and cooked as possible. This isn't as much an issue with the bell pepper as the eggplant as the eggplant is typically larger. As the skin chars, rotate the eggplant to cook all sides, don't forget the bottom too. You'll notice a popping and hissing as it cooks. Don't worry, your kitchen won't explode.

2) This process should take about 8 minutes for the bell pepper and around 20 for the eggplant. When it's done, put both smoldering vegetables in a paper bag and fold it shut. Locking the vegetables in with their smoking skins imparts the smokiness into the flesh. Say smokey one more time.

3) While the vegetables are sitting, saute the onion and garlic in a few teaspoons of olive oil over a medium heat, adding salt and pepper. When the onions are soft, add in the curry powder and stir for another minute or two then take it off the flame.

4) Now, take the eggplant and bell pepper out of the bag and rinse them off to remove the charred skin. Get as much of it off as possible because it can be bitter. Here's a picture of the rinsed, naked eggplant.

5) Remove the stem and cut the eggplant into 2 inch chunks. Same for the bell pepper, but only use half. Save the other half for sandwiches or something.

6) Pile everything into the blender - eggplant, bell pepper, curry onion mixture, jalapeno, tahini, maple syrup, pepper and a good helping of salt. Pulse away! Check periodically and season with salt and pepper to taste. You're going to want to pulse it to a very smooth consistency.

7) Finally, mix in the yogurt. This helps give it a creamy, spreadable texture.

I like to top mine with the spicy paprika or even cayenne for an extra kick. I was trying to work in a final Real Housewives of Atlanta reference here but it all seemed pretty forced. Don't be Tardy!