Eating seasonally here in southeastern PA extends beyond frozen and canned delights from the last sunny days of autumn. Thanks to local orchards’ squash production and our prolific mushroom industry (mushroom capitalal of the world!), my meals have been colorful and fresh. Try this curried soup for some mid-winter spice. I would have loved an arugula salad alongside this dish, but alas, the single- and teen-digit temperatures of last week crisped my cold frame plantings just enough to do them in. I’ll have to mulch them next time around.
According to the Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook, you’ll need:
2 medium acorn or butternut squash (I used ambercup, which store fabulously); 2 1/2 cups water (I used chicken stock from one of our own birds, embellishing upon Katzen’s vegetarian recipe); 1 cup orange juice; 1 Tbs butter or oil; 1 cup chopped onion; 2 medium cloves garlic, crushed; 1 1/4 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp ground cumin (or more – make sure your spices are fresh); 1/2 tsp coriander; 1/2 tsp cinnamon; 1 tsp ginger (I fresh-grated mine); 1/4 tsp dry mustard; 1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced; a few dashes cayenne; fresh lemon/lime juice and yogurt – optional, but put on as toppings, these make the soup extra tasty.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Split the squash lengthwise, remove seeds, and place face-down on a lightly oiled tray. Bake until soft, about 1/2 hour or a bit more. Cool, then scoop out the insides. Measure out 3 cups’-worth, place in a food processor or blender with the stock/water and puree until smooth. Transfer to a kettle and stir in the orange juice.
Heat the butter or oil in a skillet, and add onion, garlic, salt and spices. Saute over medium heat until the onion is very soft, about 8 minutes. I needed to add a bit of water to keep this from sticking to my pan. Add mushroom, cover and cook 10 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
Add the saute to the squash, scraping the skillet well to salvage all the good stuff. Add cayenne and heat gently. Once it is hot, taste it to correct the seasonings – maybe more salt? This is rather sweet, so use lemon juice and yogurt to make it suit your fancy.
*NOTE* – The mushroom industry booms around here in large part due to the availability of straw from horse operations. Mushroom companies pull up to the abundant various horse riding venues (stables, arenas, etc.) after establishing a relationship with the owner, and cart away large dump-truck loads of horse-poop enriched straw material, usually weekly. The use of a waste product to create further products intrigues me, but as usual the energy/resource equation is more difficult than what at first may seem like a simple add/subtract. Horse activity in concentrated, larger amounts (just like any large-scale animal operation), contributes to land degradation and water supply pollution . . . and mushroom production companies, I am sure, have their own difficulties practicing minimal environmental impact. Yet . . . this loop is pretty close to the ideal “cradle to cradle” notion, wherein no waste is produced.
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