My friend Josh Cutler asked me to write a food column for his local papers the Hanson Express and the Pembroke Express. Here's what I submitted to appear this week:
As an improvisational cook, who seldom uses recipes, I’m fascinated with taking an ingredient, technique or flavor combination and trying it in different ways.
Served with a sandwich or salad as a casual supper or as a starter to a more elegant meal, homemade soup is a satisfying dish that can be prepared easily with ingredients you may already have on hand.
Broccoli Soup
Makes 4 large or 6-8 small servings
1 large, sweet onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
Approximately ¼ Cup Olive oil
1 bunch of broccoli, chopped. Set aside about 2 cups of florets cut small enough to fit on a spoon.
1 medium Russet potato, peeled and chopped
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 32 ounce carton of low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock
¼ - ½ cup of heavy cream (optional)
Method: In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, sauté onion in olive oil. Slowly cooking the onion provides important depth of flavor to this dish; let the onion sauté for at least 5 minutes. Add lemon zest, and chopped broccoli (reserving about 2 cups of florets to add later) and potato. Season with salt and pepper. Add chicken or vegetable stock and cook until broccoli and potato have softened (15 – 20 minutes.) Puree with a hand blender (for an easy clean up, one pot dish) or very carefully (take note of the ‘max fill’ line) by small batches in food processor or blender. Add in reserved florets and cook an additional 10 or so minutes until tender. If using, add heavy cream to taste. Add lemon juice just before serving.
Note: Because the soup is pureed, the broccoli and potato need not be carefully chopped; but keeping them the same size will mean they cook at the same pace, and smaller pieces will cook faster. Using low-sodium stock allows the cook to better control the amount of salt in the dish. Heavy cream will not curdle when boiled or when lemon juice is added; but if substituting milk, light cream or half & half avoid rapid boiling of the soup and omit lemon juice. Made with vegetable stock, this soup is vegan.
When asparagus is in season, it can be used in a similar way. Following the method for broccoli soup, substitute a bunch of asparagus for the broccoli. Trim the tough ends off the asparagus, and then chop, reserving the tips to add at the end. Cauliflower also works well in this soup.
Thanksgiving is behind us now, but butternut squash is still plentiful this time of year. This recipe is a bit more complicated, but the end product has a wonderful balance of flavors.
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Bacon, Apple and Sage:
Makes 4 large or 6 -8 small servings
1 large, sweet onion, chopped
1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into about one inch cubes
Approximately 2 tablespoons olive oil
5-6 fresh sage leaves, cut into thin ribbons (chiffonade) and divided into 2 piles
4-5 slices bacon, chopped
1 32 ounce carton of low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock
2 tart apples, such as Granny Smith. Peel, core and chop 1 ½ apples and save ½ of one apple unpeeled.
Toss the cubes of butternut squash in olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper and roast on a rimmed baking sheet at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cook bacon in a large stock pot or Dutch oven until crisp and then reserve cooked bacon. Sauté the onion in bacon drippings with half of the fresh sage for approximately 5 minutes. Add the 1 ½ peeled, cored and chopped apples, roasted squash, and stock. Simmer about 10 minutes to cook apple. Puree soup using a hand blender or in batches in a food processor or blender (do not fill blender or food processor more than 1/3 full of hot liquid.)
Finely chop or julienne remaining apple (leaving skin on) and toss with reserved bacon and sage. If not serving immediately, a little lemon juice squeezed over the apple will prevent browning.
Ladle soup into bowls or cups and garnish with the bacon/apple/sage mixture.
Note: When choosing butternut squash, remember that the seeds are in the bulbous end. Selecting a slender, long-necked squash will give you more squash and fewer seeds. Butternut squash can be peeled with a heavy-duty vegetable peeler. Peeling and cubing the butternut squash allows it to cook quickly; but the squash can also be cut in half, drizzled with olive oil and roasted in the skin for 45 minutes or longer. When tender, the roasted squash can be scooped from the skin and added to onion/sage mixture along with the apples and stock. After cooking the bacon, if the amount of fat left in the pan seems excessive, drain some or all of it off. If necessary, olive oil or butter can be added to sauté the onions.
Oh man is this late.
First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
Halloween in Durham with Eliza (the flower) and her friends Quetzal (the butterfly) and Meri (the Pig)...
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
