Fall Butternut Squash Soup

A pretty simple soup, for a simple fall evening.  Combine equal parts (about 3/4 cup each) of chopped onions, carrots, and celery in a pot with some butter, garlic, and olive oil.  Saute until things start to smell good, and add 3 cups of chopped butternut squash (skin and seeds removed) and mix well.  After the squash has sufficiently moistened, add about 2 cups of chicken or vegetable broth (we used some leftover turkey carcass broth) and cook for 15 minutes, until everything is soft.

Remove from the heat, and blend the soup in blender in batches, until everything is creamy.  Return to the pot, reheat, and season with salt and pepper as needed, and maybe some fresh sage.  Garnish with the last of the nasturtium blossoms.

Beets!

The color of beets is due to betalain, a naturally occurring pigment most often found in flower petals.  Prickly pear fruit (another ingredient in our refrigerator) also exhibits this pigment, and swiss chard (still hanging on in the garden outside) owes its color and taste to being a subspecies with beets.  They make a good meal tossed with carrots, garlic, and montreal steak seasoning, and roasted in olive oil in the skillet.

Beef Short Ribs

A pretty simple fall recipe for two people.  Fill a slow cooker with approximately:

1 C red wine

1/2 C chopped onion

1/2 C dried mushroom chunks (we used foraged boletes from Wyoming and Montana)

6 whole garlic cloves

1/2 can tomato chunks

handfull of Italian parsley.

Salt and pepper 4-5 beef short ribs, and add to the pot.  Cook on low for 8 hours, and serve with toasted acorn squash, seasoned with a homemade 5-spice mixture.

Pan Fried Duck with Parsnips

What you are going to do is pan fry the duck in its own fat. Only wonderful animals can fry themselves: duck, pig, bear, and whale. Mmm, that could one up the turducken... the Wheariguck™, a duck stuffed in a pig stuffed in a bear stuffed in a whale. Maybe next Thanksgiving.

Cut some of the excess fat from the duck parts into thin strips, and add to a deep dutch oven to start rendering the fat.  Salt and pepper the duck, and place in the pot skin side down.  Cook until the skin is nicely brown and there are a fair amount of dripping in the pot (about 15 minutes), then add some chopped parsnips, shallots, garlic, and fresh rosemary.  Cover with a tight fitting lid, and steam everything on medium heat until done.  You may want to take out the duck at the last few minutes and broil to crisp the skin back up.  Garnish with italian parsley.

Pear Poached in Wine Sauce

Pick out some of the best looking pears you can find, favoring ripe pears with still a hint of firmness.  We used Bosc pears, ideal for their slightly spicy, luscious flavor and firm texture.  For each pear, add about

1 cup water

1/3 cup dry white wine

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 fresh lemon juice and zest

to a saucepot, and bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar.  Remove from heat.  Slice off the bottom of each pear-so they stand upright-and scoop out the seeds and pit from the bottom.  Peal the pears, drawing fancy patterns in the pear peals if you so choose, and add them to the sauce.  Each entire pear must be fully submerged, so add more water and wine if necessary.  Fold several paper towels in half, and place over the pears (drawing liquid over the pear) and then weigh the pears down in the sauce with a plate.

Return the sauce to a boil, and then reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the pears are soft throughout.  Put the entire pot-pears, sauce, paper towels, and lid-in the refrigerator, and eat dinner.

When everything has sufficiently cooled off, remove the pears from the sauce, and re-heat at a fast boil until thickened into a syrup.  Remove from heat, and add several drops of Angostura Bitters, or failing that, a dash of vanilla  Arrange the pears, and pour the syrup over, and garnish with more lemon zest and some mint sprigs.

Homebrew Spreadsheet

For the past several years I have been doing some homebrewing as a hobby, and to supplement the Boca Noir wine and grappa we make at Casa di Lamberti. The beer making has taken off once I moved to Salt Lake City, UT. The Puritanical Mormons and their alcohol laws and post hoc revelations (Post hoc ergo propter hoc - trans "after this, therefore because of this") do not for tasty beer make. The last several batches have turned out nicely, especially the Christmas Ale, a slightly spiced light-brown ale with hints of chai, banana esters, and cloves.

Thanks to Google Docs I have put a spreadsheet in an iframe (very simple, just publish the Google doc to share it with everyone, and wrap it in an iframe). I'll try and keep this updated as the brewing process continues. Homebrew is much more ephemeral than commercial beer, and undergoes a dramatic transformation in taste over a period of a few months; therefore the beer you make is not the same as you finish your last drop, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Enjoy.

The Burger

Gotta love the burger. I have developed a decent consistency in my burgers, with a little variation of the available ingredients.

Ground hamburger (about 0.5 - 0.75 lb per person)
Garlic, chopped
Salt and Pepper, or better yet, Montreal Steak Seasoning
1 egg per every 2-3 burgers

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, and mix until blended with a spoon or your hands. Don't press the meat too much - the idea is to keep everything fluffy. Add whatever additional ingredients you want to flavor the burger with. Some of the things I toss in include chorizo or andouille sausage, good mushrooms (shitake, porchini, or morel), roasted garlic, or in this case, lots of chunked feta.

Form the burgers into nice big patties, and again don't squeeze the meat too much, just enough to hold everything together. Push the center of the buger in with your finger, this will keep the meat from ballooning when cooking. Toss on a hot grill, and (and this is the secret ingredient) douse liberally with Worcestershire sauce. Cook until nicely crisp on one side, then flip, add more Worcestershire sauce, and cook until done. Add some sliced blue cheese towards the end if you like, but with the feta-burger it's not necessary. Top with carmelized onions or sauteed spinach or watercress, and all the other toppings.