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Cold and Creamy Butternut Squash Soup
 The summer isn’t over yet, but the golden gourd-shaped butternut squash are coming in. The problem is, it’s just too hot for the traditional baking whether it’s sweet or savory.
It’s too hard to eat it raw so summer has to offer another solution. Ah-ha! Cold soup- cold and creamy butternut squash soup.
- Peel, seed and cut-up one average butternut squash (Throw the seeds out for the birds and squirrels.) Put it in a large pot.
- Add ½ a large white or yellow onion, coarsely chopped.
- Add one large can of chicken broth (about 50 ounces) and 1 – 3 tsp of freshly grated ginger
Bring to a boil. Cook until the squash and onion are very tender.
Season with
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- salt and pepper to taste
Cool almost room temperature. Puree in blender or food processor.
Add 1 cup heavy cream. Chill
Serve with a garnish of chopped chives.
A Winning Trio Combo – whether you need gluten free or not
These pancakes don’t need butter or syrup although I do believe in gilding the lily. The use of rice flour makes them thinner and a little crispier around the edges than a traditional pancake, but the yum factor is definitely a ten.
- 1.5 cups rice flour
- 3 Tbsp sugar
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1.5 cups milk
- 3 Tbsp melted butter –unsalted or lightly salted
- 2 large eggs
- ½ tsp vanilla
- ½ c. chopped pistachios
- ½ c. chocolate chips
- 1/3 c. flaked coconut
You can be a little generous with these last three ingredients!
Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Whisk together milk, eggs, vanilla. Pour over dry ingredients and mix together until ingredients are combined adding the melted butter as you mix, Fold in the nuts, chips and coconuts.
Heat a griddle on the stove top at medium heat. Melt ½ Tbsp butter on the griddle and spread it around. Spoon about ½ cup of batter on the griddle at a time to make as many pancakes as you can easily maneuver on the griddle.
When the pancakes have bubbles all over the top—some popped, flip them over. When the underside is brown remove to a warm plate or to a plate in a warm oven. Repeat the process until you use all the batter. Add more butter to the griddle as needed.
Serve with good maple syrup and butter. You can roll them up and fill them with whipping cream, too, and garnish with a little more of the pistachios, chips, and coconut.
I was mad. Not foaming-at-the-mouth mad, but foot-stomping mad! The day had ended badly thanks to a data management program. I left the office–upset– and hungry. Right or wrong, food is soothing for me, and when I really want soothing, I want pasta. I came home, open the refrigerator and just started pulling things out. Here’s what I found:
- 1/2 lb of fresh baby spinach
- red bell pepper, perfect for roasting
- 1 leek
- 1 red onion
- 1 bunch of green onions
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 lb fresh basil
- big handful of fresh curly parsley
- head of broccoli
- 2 salmon fillets
I had extra virgin olive oil, Kosher salt, whole peppercorns, and a wedge of Parmesan cheese. Over in the pantry I found some whole wheat spaghetti. This actually began to sound pretty good– and not too unhealthy. I roasted the red pepper. I chopped up everything except the salmon and set it aside in piles.
I heated my big cast iron skillet and added some EVOO. I put on a large pot of salted water on the stove for the pasta. I started with the red onion. When that got translucent, I added the leeks, next the brocolli, then the spinach. When the spinach was wilted, I removed it all to a plate. I put the pasta in the boiling water. I put the salmon fillets in the hot pan — 5 minutes on each side until it’s done. I set the salmon aside. I cleaned out the pan and started over with more EVOO in the hot pan.
Finally, I added the garlic, the basil, and the green onion to the hot oil. I chopped up the skinned, roasted red pepper and added it to the pan. Up until now, this was still a pretty healthy dish. But– this is Mad Cook’s pasta. Healthy is not a requirement. So, I added about 2 cups of heavy cream. I let it cook down slowly and thicken. When it coated a spoon, I added the other cooked vegetables, some grated Parmesan, Kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper. I drained the pasta and tossed it into the cream and vegetables;gave it a good mix. I arranged pieces of salmon on top and sprinkled it with more Parmesan.
That was it! It was delicious. I was soothed, and I had enough left over for lunch. Normally, I’d have a picture to post, but I ate the pasta before I thought about it.
Fast Pizza for 1, 2, 3…12
I love pizza. I love it so much that I get really nasty when I have a bad one. As a result, I tend to make my own. Making a yeast dough, see … makes a fabulous pizza, but it’s not an instant meal when you come in from work staving for something tasty.
I recently bought a packet of twelve whole wheat Lavosh wraps at Costco. Each one is about 8x 10, nice and thin and ready to eat. They make good wraps, but they make really good individual thin crust pizzas. Continue reading Fast Pizza
So, you think you don’t have any dessert in the house
It was late. One car had a flat tire. The other car had a warning light glaring at me. The problem — a severe need for dessert and no reliable way to get to anything. The solution had to be in the pantry. I went back in mind to an earlier time in my sister-in-law’s kitchen. Continue reading Old Fashioned Sweet-tooth Remedy is Gluten-free
Adapted from Erin McKenna’s Recipe in Babycakes, a vegan, gluten-free cookbook.
When my son’s girlfriend comes to visit, I have a partner in crime in the kitchen. We both enjoy cooking and eating. The only difference is that she’s tall and thin– and I’m not! The challenge is creating the stuff we love that she can eat. She needs to eat gluten-free. It’s not a life-style choice. Many of our successes are posted elsewhere in this blog. A lot of what we’ve done has been blind experimentation. We found some good conceptual recipes, too, that provide information on how these unusual ingredients work.
Christmas afforded time to really experiment. Here’s one we adapted from the Babycakes cookbook. With no need to be vegan, we used eggs and butter with abandon. The recipe requires faith. If you lick your fingers when you flip the finished cake out of the pan, you may want to throw it out– just keep going! Continue reading Triple Chocolate Fat Pants Cake Delivers on its Name!
Bean-haters Chili — the quiet meal
I love chili. I remember exactly how my mother made it, and it included plenty of red kidney beans. For her, like most of the meals she prepared, chili was a budget-stretcher. The ground beef went that much further, and it was tasty to me. I would later discover, not so to others. Continue reading Bean-haters Chili for a Snowy Day in Crownsville
 You may be in Crownsville, but enjoying the tastes of Arizona is especially easy this time of year. Arizonans grow lots of tasty near tropical goodies. The royally elegant Medjool date is among the tastiest. You can turn it to a unique, quick, and tasty appetizer for winter entertaining or summer parties with just a few ingredients and no cooking. Continue reading Arizona in Crownsville Appetizer Treat
 Pumpkin, Apple, Mince-- the Apple Crumb was gone before the photo! Gluten-free pie crust– different and delicious!
Faced with the challenge of perpetuating the family tradition of pumpkin, apple, mince, and apple crumb pie for Thanksgiving and the need to be gluten-free for turkey day, I went in search of information about pie crusts. With a hint here and there and a kitchen that looked a little like a chemistry lab, I ended up with four pies that were different from the traditional in texture, but still quite delicious. The crusts required a few tricks to get the dough into the pie plates. They were slightly sweeter than a traditional pie crust, and the texture was more akin to shortbread. All in all, they made a great addition to the dinner — no sense of something missing here. Continue reading Have your pie and eat it, too– gluten free
 Yum-m-m-m So you bought a pumpkin to decorate the front of your house for the fall. Pretty soon it will time to decorate for the next holiday, and you’ll be throwing that pumpkin away. STOP! If it’s still firm, it’s food for Thanksgiving. Here’s how you can make it into some delicious treats. Continue reading Pumpkin – More than a Decoration. It’s fresh and flavorful pie filling.
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