Potato and Green Olive Stew

I'm back from the dead! Well, back, at least -- I feel quite close to not-alive, as a matter of fact. Although the weekend was wonderful and super relaxing (as well as warm! I think Spring is finally here!) I had one of those nights where my eyes just wouldn't stay shut. So Spring Break begins in exhaustion, for me. It's really a pity that they don't give us a little time off at the library, although I suppose I can't really complain: I get to come in almost two hours later than usual.
This past weekend spring was in the air, as I mentioned, and we couldn't think of a better way to welcome it into our home than opening all the windows, scrubbing everything down, and preparing a fresh springy stew. D chose this one, and I must admit that I was wary at first. Olives and lemons with potatoes? Sounded weird to me. I was imagining a very briny, bitter tasting mush. Boy, was I wrong. I mean seriously, seriously wrong: this stew was far from bitter or briny. It didn't have an acidic taste at all; in fact, it was extremely mild, with just a hint of spiciness. And the potatoes were fabulous -- they made up most of the stew, really. It wasn't much of a stew, since there is less than one cup of water in the whole dish; instead, it was more like a vegetarian goulash. I can't wait to try some of it cold -- I feel like the flavors will really stand out more solidly after it has chilled, and I'm sure that the remaining liquid will turn into a wonderful starchy mush, coating the potatoes and olives splendidly.

Potato and Green Olive Stew
This stew only takes about 40 minutes on the stove, from start to finish, which makes it a really easy dinner to whip up. Unfortunately, you have to marinate the olives for a few hours before beginning -- outside of the fridge -- so that adds a big chunk of time to the preparation of this stew. I suppose you could set them on the counter right when you get home from work if you're planning on a late dinner; alternatively, they would be fine if you left them to sauce around in the fridge for a day in the lemon juice. The marinating part is extremely simple: mix 1/2 a pound (8 oz.) of cracked green olives with 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice and allow to rest on the counter, stirring occasionally, for at least three hours. Cracked green olives shouldn't be too hard to find: they're usually at the olive bar and are fresher than those that come in a jar or a can. They're unpitted and scored along the sides (cracked) in order to allow the marinade to seep into them more readily. You should not use pitted olives for this recipe: the pit helps the olive hold its shape when you add it to the stew. Without the pit, it would most likely break apart and become mushy, absorbing all the flavors without retaining its essential oliveness.
Now that the olives are marinating, you're free for a few hours. If you're anything like D and I, however, you'll stay in the kitchen to prepare the rest of your ingredients. Besides, peeling and cutting three pounds of red baby potatoes into 1/3-inch-thick slices takes a bit of time. We soaked them in cold water to prevent them from turning brown or mushy, and drained them when we were ready to add them to the stew. We also chopped two medium-sized yellow onions (to make two cups diced onions, total) and 3/4 a pound plum tomatoes -- diced as finely as possible after removing the seeds and liquid. The tomatoes, by the way, are an essential part of this dish. Until we added the tomatoes, I remained skeptical about this whole affair; after the tomatoes were added, the stew finally started to look like something I wanted to eat.
Once the olives have marinated for at least three hours, heat 1/3 a cup of olive oil in a large, heavy stew pot until it begins to shimmer and wave. Add the two cups diced onions at this point and sauté for five minutes, stirring occasionally. The onions should be translucent, not burned, when they are ready. To the onions, add 1-1/4 teaspoons sweet Hungarian paprika, 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper, and 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper. Stir to coat, then add the drained potatoes, marinated olives, and lemon juice that the olives were marinating in to the pot. Stir again until the ingredients and spices are blended.
Add 1-1/2 cups of water and bring the mixture to a boil. The water level won't seem high enough, but don't worry: once you add the tomatoes, the dish will become appropriately saucy and stew-like. After the water boils, reduce the heat to a simmer and cover the pan. Cook until the potatoes are tender -- about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of your potato slices -- stirring occasionally. After the potatoes are tender, add the 3/4 pound diced plum tomatoes and stir. Continue to simmer until the flavors have blended together, which doesn't take long: about ten minutes should do it. Season with a pinch of salt and serve with a lemon wedge and a small dish for the olive pits to rest in. D and I discussed the possibility of removing all the olives from the stew and pitting them before serving, which we would do for company, but it's far too much work (and we knew there would be leftovers, so the pits needed to be intact in order to preserve the olives) for just us two.
This is such a bright, invigorating surprise of a stew. I wasn't expecting it to taste so spring-like. It has the most wonderful underlying hint of lemon -- not overwhelming, by any means, but the taste is there -- and the olives and potatoes are such a unique combination of ingredients. We'll definitely be making this stew again.

Mulligatawny Soup

Edited to add: All you Chicago-dwellers! It's election day. The ballot is very short, and it's important to vote whenever they give us the chance to do so. So take the time and vote. You have until seven pm. to get in line tonight, so hurry!

Baby, it's cold outside. The brief spurt of warmth has been taken over by fog and hail: check out this intense picture from last Saturday. It's not grainy because of effects: that's hail, and the light inside of a fluffy cloud. Living where I do, I spend a lot of time in the clouds -- literally. Goes well with my nature, I suppose. It can get exhausting, always seeing white and nothing else when you look out the window. When it's clear, though, it's a different story. It looks pretty nifty, doesn't it? Better to look at than to walk through. Fog and general dreariness such as this always calls for soup, of any kind, and while I ate my easy to make and we already have all these ingredients matzo ball soup on Saturday I was secretly dreaming of mulligatawny.
I have a wonderful, dog-eared little book that was originally a gift from me to my mother, The Soup Book: Over 800 Recipes by Louis P. DeGouy, that I used exclusively throughout my young adulthood in the kitchen. My mom and I would try to make a new soup every week, and some of my favorite soup standbys are from this book: Manhattan clam chowder, mulligatawny, leek and potato... the list is nearly endless. They even have recipes for calf's brain soup and other oddities. It was published in 1974, before people were worried about eating cow brain, but most of the recipes are still good. Now, the book is in my hands -- my mom isn't much of a soup-maker, and when she does make soup, she's more into the "refrigerator soup" type of deal -- throw whatever you've got in there and let it boil. I'm all for that (in fact, I saw a great episode of Fast Food My Way this past weekend where Jacques Pepin did just that -- but he grated all the vegetables and served the soup over cheese, yum) but sometimes? A real, bona fide soup with a recipe is what I need.
I do this thing with soup, as with sauce, where i make as much as my dutch oven can hold -- sometimes it spills over the sides and causes the flame to go out. Then, I freeze the bulk of it. A few minutes in the microwave on a busy day and I've got hot, fresh soup, ready to go. A hunk of bread and dinner's been made with zero effort and no time. The reason I'm saying this is... I don't have any pictures of this soup. We ate the last of it nearly a month ago, before I owned a digital camera. But the next time I make it -- most likely soon, since now it's in my mind -- I'll update this with some shots. It's a pretty standard-looking soup though: vegetables swimming around in broth. The first time I made this in Chicago it was just after St. Patrick's day, when we boiled corned beef and were left with some amazing beef stock. After throwing it in the fridge, which helps the fat coagulate at the top to be skimmed off, we used it as the base for this soup. God, it tasted fantastic -- a cultural faux pas, most likely, but yummy all the same. It's a chicken-based soup, so if you have the wherewithal and necessary tools to make real chicken stock, go for it.

Mulligatawny Soup
The literal translation of mulligatawny is "pepper water," and although this dish contains little pepper, it's still full of fragrant spices and interesting vegetables. I'm fairly certain that this recipe is totally atypical and far from traditional -- I've had it in Indian restaurants and the experience was wildly different -- but it tastes great all the same. It's a pretty intensive recipe, calling for lots of chopping and stirring and roux-making, but it's well worth the effort. Make a big lot of it, freeze the remainder, and you'll be happy the next time a cold snap strikes.
Cut up 2.5 pounds of chicken "as for a fricassee," as the book says. I don't do this, because I'm not about to haul an entire chicken home. Instead, I use a combination of thighs and breasts and slice them into long, thin strips. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a deep skillet or a dutch oven and add 1/4 pound of diced salt pork. I don't do this part either: it's hard to get salt pork around these parts. The butcher pretends he doesn't know what it is, and the closest I can seem to get to it is bacon, which doesn't work for this dish in my opinion. So I use a bit of olive oil, which doesn't taste nearly as good as salt pork fat, but it does the trick in a pinch.
Add the chicken to the oil and fry, lightly, over a low flame until it begins to color. Turn the pieces very often -- almost constantly -- to ensure an even coloring. After the chicken begins to color, sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour mixed with 1 heaping tablespoon of curry powder into the pan. Continue cooking and turning until the meat is firm but not quite done.
I like to use my dutch oven for the whole process rather than doing what the book instructs, so I simply skim out most of the fat -- if there even is much -- and then add 10 cups of stock. Chicken, vegetable, or veal stock will all work here; like I mentioned, I used beef stock and the results were fabulous. Add 1 cup diced carrots, 1 small diced onion, 2 whole cloves, 6 bruised peppercorns, salt and pepper to taste, and a dash of cayenne pepper. The recipe also calls for a bay leaf, but I never use bay leaf in anything I cook. Maybe it makes me less fancy, but I am not about to fish around for that darn leaf right before I serve the soup. That's the point when I'm the hungriest and have no patience left!
Now comes my favorite point in the recipe. DeGouy uses wonderful language when writing about soups, although it's a tad bit confusing and stilted at times. Case in point: "[b]ring to a rapid boil, reduce the heat and let simmer very gently as slowly as possible for one long hour." I don't know if it's all those modifiers or what but that is a crazy sentence. Try diagramming that one, Sister Bernadette! (God that book rocks my world.)
After the long, slow hour, which passes like years if you're hungry, taste for seasoning and correct if necessary. I often find it imperative to add more curry and cayenne, and I usually do so closer to the beginning to give it a chance to soak in. At this point, add the following garnishings: 3 tablespoons cooked rice, 1 eggplant, diced and sautéed in butter slightly after being parboiled, and 1 cup leek sautéed in butter. I often sauté the leek and eggplant in the same pan at once. To parboil the eggplant, simply throw the chopped pieces into a pot of boiling salted water for about 3 minutes. Cook the soup for 10 minutes longer or until the garnishings are all cooked. DeGouy suggests serving it "piping hot with a side dish of plain rice," but I often settle for just the piping hot part. No side dish is necessary, really: this soup is full of flavor, teeming with vegetables, and can stand up on its own.

Potato and Onion Soup

Yesterday was, by all accounts, a spectacular day. D got some very good news, but he had to stay late at work -- which gave me ample time to whip up some celebration food for both of us. Unfortunately, I was too damn lazy to go out to the store, so I was stuck with whatever we had in the house. It wasn't much, and we had just made a mixup meal, so I wasn't really interested in throwing a bunch of stuff together randomly and seeing how it turned out. I wanted to make something hearty, exciting, and comforting. What I really wanted to do was whip up some onion tarts like this beauty from Orangette... or these cute babies from Simply Recipes... but I didn't have the time, patience, or energy to spend on the dough, which is quite an effort and would be much better with a food processor. Which I do not own. Anyhow... no tarts, yesterday. But I did have a lot of onions, a bunch of gorgeous potatoes, and a giant container of milk that I didn't know what we were planning on doing with.
Then it hit me: potato onion soup. God. I used to eat this all the time, growing up. Sometimes with leeks, sometimes with celery and garlic... the memories of this comforting, simple meal came back in a flood. And I decided to make the soup, all over again, sans any real recipe. I knew that it would be slightly thin: the milk was skim, and I have a recollection of using whole milk and heavy cream, but I figured that the potato starch would help thicken up the soup. And a handful of flour would work some magic on the consistency. I was right: the soup was thin, but not alarmingly so. It didn't really diminish the flavor or quality of the soup -- it was still quite hearty and filling.
D loved it, as did I. We nearly ate the whole pot for dinner last night. True, I didn't make a gigantic amount of it, but it was more than enough for two people. And with all the milk and potatoes, it's a stick-to-your-ribs kind of soup, so a small amount does go a long way.

Potato and Onion Soup
Begin by slowly melting 2 tablespoons of butter in a large, heavy saucepan -- as usual, I used my dutch oven, as I always do when making soup. Dice 2 large onions and add to the melted butter. Stir to coat the onions in butter and, with the heat on low, cover the pot for about 10 to 15 minutes to allow the onions to steam. While the onions are cooking, chop about 2-1/2 pounds of baby potatoes. Any kind of potato will do, but I was fortunate enough to have a sack of rainbow colored baby beauties. I have no idea what they're actually called, but I got them at our new favorite grocery store. It's just a Jewel/Osco, but -- unlike most of the groceries in downtown Chicago -- it has an outdoor parking lot, spacious aisles (lord how I hate being pushed in the grocery store; you don't even know) and all sorts of fresh, bright, squeezable produce. Andreas Viestad, my favorite Norwegian chef (although a bit too bourgeois, in my opinion... but his cuteness makes up for that) had a glorious episode centered on potatoes, and he mentioned that if you ever see any small odd-shaped "nubbly" potatoes to snatch them up immediately. He was right: these potatoes rocked -- it was a healthy mixture of mostly yukon gold and small red potatoes, smattered with a few baby purple potatoes for good measure. God, am I ever glad I didn't use them all in the soup. I want to make potato salad with the rest of the lot. I chopped these potatoes into odd-sized bites: since this is a five-ingredient recipe mostly consisting of potatoes I really wanted them to look great. That part was really fun, because I got to get a little creative with my knife and make crazy slices. I kept the skins on, mostly for color, although they could be taken off if you're so inclined.
I made sure to stir the onions a few times while steaming them so they wouldn't burn, but that wasn't really a concern since the heat was so low. After rinsing the potatoes, I dried them quickly with a paper towel and threw them into the pot with the onions. Another pat of butter was added at this point -- if I'm using skim milk, I might as well use enough butter to make it rich. I also added some salt to the vegetables in order to make the onions sweat a little, as well as a hearty dose of freshly ground black pepper. Most people would use white pepper in a white soup, but I don't own any -- I don't like the flavor of it as much as I like the flavor of black pepper. At this point, I also added about 1 tablespoon of flour, which would act as a thickener for the soup when the milk was added. After steaming the potatoes in with the onions for about ten minutes or so, I added four cups of skim milk. Stirring frequently, I brought the soup to a slow boil and allowed it to simmer until the potatoes were soft and gorgeous. I left the top on the pot, for the most part, in order to help the soup cook faster -- at this point, I was starving, so I was willing to do anything in my power to make it finish fast. After about 30 to 45 minutes of the slow simmer, the soup was finished. It was so, so, so, good. And for five ingredients and about an hour, total, cooking time? It was well worth the minimal effort.

Red Lentil Soup

On a cold day like today, the only thing I want to do is sit on the heat vent in my apartment and eat hot soup. Unfortunately, I don't have that luxury and I have to tromp around in the snow, but if I had a choice? That's where I'd be. One of the major problems with most bean soups is that you need to soak the beans overnight, which means that you have to plan the meal ahead of time. Not so with lentils: they're so small and absorb liquid so readily that there is no need to soak them, making it an ideal bean to work with on short notice.
I buy my lentils at Whole Foods in bulk, which allows me to get the precise amount that I desire, rather than purchasing too many or too few. They also have a nice assortment, but I prefer red lentils for their vibrant color. We're jar-savers, and nothing is cuter than an old jar full o lentils. The one downfall of the lentil bean is that it is very small, and sometimes a stone or two makes its way into the lentils as they're sorted in the lentil factory. You do have to sort through the beans to make sure there aren't any stones in there, but that has never happened to me: perhaps it's just because pebbles were more prevalent in the '70s, which is the year that my cookbook was published.
I'm using a Joy of Cooking recipe (1973 edition) and this page has to be the most ratty one in the book because I've made this soup so many times. It's stained and kind of hard to read the ingredients, but that just means that it must be a really great recipe. You can make it with any type of lentil, but I prefer red; however, the color tends to melt away after it is cooked.

Red Lentil Soup
Wash 2 cups of dry lentils very well and drain. Be sure to be on the lookout for any small stones that may have gotten mixed in with the lentils. Boil 10 cups of water and add to the lentils. Add a hunk of salt pork, or ham if you can't find any salt pork. I haven't been able to find any since I moved to Chicago, but I never had a problem finding it back East. Is it an East Coast food, or am I just not looking in the right place? I even asked the butcher for some. He looked at me like I was insane. Ham works fine -- you're just looking for some nice flavor. You can even just leave the ham out and make it meat free and vegan friendly, if you wish.
Simmer for 3 hours. While the soup is simmering, sauté one large minced onion, 1 minced carrot, and 1 minced stalk of celery in 1 tablespoon of butter (or in some salt pork drippings, if you prefer -- yum!) Throw a bit of salt in with the mixture -- it helps these aromatic vegetables sweat off some of their liquid, allowing them to cook faster.
Recognize those ingredients? That's a mirepoix, another traditional building block -- as a matter of fact, the holy trinity -- of French cuisine. The last "building block" I talked about on this blog was the bechamel sauce, used in the Layered Macaroni and Cheese recipe. A mirepoix is traditionally a mixture of onion, carrot, and celery in the ratio of 2:1:1 in French cooking, but it can be adapted to fit your dish. For example, if you are making a light-colored soup, you'll want to use a parsnip instead of a carrot in order to preserve the coloring. It can also be adapted to cuisine type: a Spanish dish, for example, may use a mirepoix made from onion, garlic, and tomato.
Enough of my food rambles: where's the rest of the soup recipe? Basically finished, that's where. After your soup has simmered for 3 hours, add the mirepoix and stir. Allow the soup to cook for 20 minutes more or so. You can serve it chunky (which is how I like it) or you can puree the soup to make it smooth. In order to puree, though, you have to bind the soup; otherwise, the liquid will separate from the solids and it won't keep well at all.
To bind the soup, there are a number of methods. My favorite is to just make a roux: blending 3 tablespoons of butter with 3 tablespoons of flour over medium heat is very easy and will work well for the amount of soup you have here. It takes about 1 tablespoon of each ingredient per three cups of soup. Just blend in to the soup when it is all combined, then stir through and boil for 10 minutes or so to make sure it is properly bound.
If you're opposed to flour, you can grate a raw potato directly into the soup. You'll only need about 6 tablespoons of raw grated potato for this amount of lentil soup. Simmer for 15 minutes to thicken. I've never tried it with the potato binding, but it seems like it would work, since potatoes are starchy.
This is such a great soup, I can't get over it. I wish we weren't all out of lentils at home because I'd be making it tonight. Alas -- we'll probably "settle" for some onion soup. We made enough of that to freeze a container; this recipe will make enough for two frozen containers, most likely -- I believe the containers are 2.5 cups each. D likes to pour a bit of sherry in his; I prefer to eat mine plain. It is fabulous either way.

Soupe à l'Oignon Gratinée (French Onion Soup)

It must be wintertime, because my dutch oven is getting a lot of use. I love making soup -- it's always been one of my favorite things to do in the kitchen, partially because it's very easy and quite foolproof. Don't have enough potatoes? Only chicken, no beef? It's ok, because a traditional, homestyle soup calls for nothing in particular: just what you have on hand. Another aspect of soup that I adore is that you can use almost dead vegetables, giving you extra mileage in the kitchen for that worn out stalk of celery you didn't get around to using, or those dingy looking carrots that aren't suitable for lunches or general human consumption. No one will know if the carrots started out a little sorry in the end -- they'll be too busy eating!
My parents were kind enough to bestow upon me their original two-volume edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, complete with box, after I mentioned that I had procured only the second volume at a book fair. Now I have two copies of volume two, but they're different editions -- which doesn't mean much. Still, if I ever lose one copy, I guess I have another to complete the set. Good to have, I guess. Anyhow, my father is fond of making the infamous French Onion Soup, found in the first volume, so I'm pretty thrilled that I own a copy of the book now so I can make it. Growing up, we had a very important birthday tradition: anything you want to eat was made to order on your birthday. My two most requested meals? Onion soup with chicken wings was one, and the other was vanilla milkshakes and bacon. I can't imagine eating onion soup and wings now (or vanilla milkshakes with bacon for that matter) -- much too heavy -- but when I was a kid, it was like being in heaven. My two favorite things together on one plate! Oh, the possibilities!
It's been cold here, cold enough to freeze the lake over halfway to Indiana, and one of the best winter meals is a hearty bowl of soup. This onion soup is easy to make, because all you need are onions, broth, butter, and vermouth. And time -- it requires a good amount of stirring and pot-watching, but that makes a fine excuse for staying out of the cold.

Soupe à l'Oignon Gratinée (French Onion Soup)
Begin by slicing, in thin strips, five cups of yellow onions (five cups is equal to about 1-1/2 pounds, if you buy one of those mesh bags full. We got a 3 pound bag and used half of it, for example.)
Once the onions are sliced, melt 3 tablespoons of butter with 1 tablespoon of oil in a large, heavy-bottomed soup pan over low heat.
Add the onions and cover, cooking over the low heat for 15 minutes.
Uncover and add 1 teaspoon of salt with 1/4 teaspoon sugar, which helps the onions caramelize and turn a delicious golden brown. Raise the heat to medium and stir frequently, cooking for 30 to 40 minutes more. Do not let the onions burn on the bottom of the pan -- you will probably need to be in the kitchen for this entire amount of time, or nearly all of it. About 20 minutes in, start boiling 2 quarts of beef stock or broth (or brown stock as per Julia Child's recipe, also found in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which isn't extremely difficult but requires meat pieces and a fine strainer or cheesecloth. It's not hard, but it's an involved recipe.) Your onions will turn a beautiful golden brown and you'll want to eat them right away. Don't -- the best is yet to come.
Add 3 tablespoons of flour to the onions and stir for 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
Stir in the boiling stock or broth. Add 1/2 cup dry vermouth or dry white wine (we used vermouth, which is a nice ingredient when cooking because it's not really used in volumes as a drink mixer, leaving the same bottle to hang around for years before it's all killed off in one martini-binging "lets get rid of this old vermouth" afternoon.) Season with salt and pepper to taste (and, at this point if you so desire, my dad's "secret ingredient": Frank's hot sauce, just a few dashes.) Simmer, uncovered, for 30 to 40 more minutes, stirring and skimming occasionally. You really do want to skim, because a lot of the fat and flour rise to the top and form an unpleasant skin.
While you are waiting for the soup to finish, heat the oven to 325º. Cut a loaf of french bread into 1-inch wide rounds, one slice of bread per customer (or two, if you're serving small bowls.) Place on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. After baking, brush each side with a bit of olive oil, then put back in the oven to cook for another 15 minutes.
Slice a few pieces of cheese -- the recipe recommends swiss or parmesan, but I'm fond of Gruyère -- and also grate a bit as well.
When the bread and soup are both ready, turn on the broiler to high. Place a slice of bread (which is referred to in the recipe as a "croute") in the bottom of a bowl. Ladle over a healthy portion of onion soup. The croute will float; place a few slices of cheese directly on the croute, being careful not to drop them into the soup.
Arrange the bowls on a baking sheet and put under the broiler for about 3 minutes, watching carefully. You do not want the cheese to burn, nor do you want to serve it without the cheese melting. It's a difficult balance to strike properly, but diligent watching will ensure that nothing goes wrong.
Serve, with a bowl of grated cheese on the side as garnish.
As Miss Child would say: "Bon appétit!"

Butternut Squash Soup

This is a recipe that we came up with after using cannellini beans for the first time, in a hummus-like dip that is just fantastic (recipe located here). These beans are extremely creamy and we thought it would be an excellent addition to the squash soup I made all last winter. This recipe is great because the carrots and squash make it a very vibrant orange, and the whiteness of the beans only enhances the color.
I usually make an extra-large batch and freeze at least half of it. I serve about a quarter of the remainder (saving any leftovers for the next day) and reserve the rest for a tasty squash lasagna -- the recipe for that will be up tomorrow, so make the soup now and be ready to use the leftovers! I used this same recipe for Thanksgiving and it was a huge hit. Even my youngest cousin, who refuses all vegetables (he says they're "grody") ate his entire portion. And then he asked for more. Sorry, cuz, it's all gone already!

Butternut Squash Soup
This recipe makes enough soup for leftovers and a lasagna, so if you want less, cut all the amounts by half for a more manageable sized soup.
Peel, seed, and cube two large butternut squashes. I recommend you do this first because it's quite an involved task and takes some time. You can also buy pre-cut squash in many grocery stores. I've made it both ways and I must admit that the pre-cut, although more expensive, makes your job a lot easier and takes about an hour off of the total cooking time.
(Equipment Aside: I had a really crummy vegetable peeler for the longest time, but one day by boyfriend surprised me with a brand new "Y" peeler, made by Oxo Good Grips. It was later revealed on America's Test Kitchen that this is the peeler to own. For only five dollars, I'm not struggling with difficult-to-peel vegetables like squash anymore, and I run a zero percent chance of slicing off the tip of my finger with this puppy. It just plain rocks.)
Anyhow, after your squash is ready to go, begin by mincing 1 large white onion and 2 cloves of garlic. Cook the onion on a low heat in the biggest soup pot you own with 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil until it is nearly translucent, then add the garlic. Garlic, by the way, cooks much faster than onions do, and you don't want it to burn. Burned garlic does not taste very good. Add a few dashes of the following to the pan: pepper, salt, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and cinnamon. Cooking the spices at this stage helps them bloom, leaving a less harsh spice-like flavor to your soup.
Chop and add 4 to 6 stalks of celery and 4 to 6 large carrots to the soup. A rough chop will do, since the soup will ultimately be blended using a processor (if you have one -- did I mention that I don't?) or a blender if necessary. Add the squash and cook over the heat for just a few minutes until the spices are evenly blended onto the vegetables.
Make a "hot spot" in your pan by pushing the squash and other veggies out of the way as much as possible and pour 4 cans of well-rinsed cannellini beans onto the hot spot. Stir them to incorporate into the vegetables.
Add 2 32-ounce cans of chicken broth (I prefer low sodium and low fat, because it really doesn't make a difference when it's made into soup anyhow) to the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium. Simmer for about 20 minutes, until the squash is soft and breaks apart when you press it gently with a spoon.
Turn off the heat and let the soup cool a bit, then transfer it into a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. You may have to do this part in stages, depending on the size of your blender. Transfer it back into the soup pot and bring to a low boil. It's ready to serve! You can garnish it with some sour cream if you'd like, but I never do that. Ever. Just eat it alone, because it's marvelous and can really stand up for itself without add-ons.
Another way to make this soup is to substitute the butter and oil with bacon fat. You can chop the bacon -- quite finely -- and then throw it in the food processor or blender when you puree the soup. This adds more depth and flavor to the soup, but also more fat.
Tomorrow, I'll tell you how to make a delicious and vegetarian-friendly (if you don't make the soup with bacon, that is) lasagna from the leftovers. It's really easy, fun, and is pretty healthy for a lasagna.

This post was edited on 2/2/2007 to add a link to the White Bean Dip recipe.