remedial eating

i took to throwing pumpkins

A week for soft things, this one.

Some beg it.  You know the ones.  Heavy on the gentle, double dose of cosset.

 

 

Colds kept everyone home, mid-week.  Sniffling noses, stuffy heads.  Nothing big.  Still, no school for anyone.  PJ days.

(Nothing big, save the penguin, who broke his wing.  Something about being rescued from the jaws of a seal.  And, the stuffed puppy, who was treated for a broken paw.  Ditto Mr. Monkey.  Big play theme right now, broken bones.  Go figure.  Fortunately, scotch tape and tissues heal all.)     

 

 

PJ days which happened to coincide with stellar weather, sixty-four and sunny and, well, weird.  We continue to whipsaw our way through winter.  Last Friday, we had four fresh white inches.  Wednesday, we flung open windows and doors. Today, balaclavas and a fresh dusting.  

As I type?  Fourteen below, with wind chill.  

 

 

What's a person to do, but take advantage?  On the warm days, play outside for hours in shirtsleeves and Crocs, no socks.  Crack nuts.  Pound rocks.  Make messes and ruckuses.  Set elaborate fairy tables.  Turn bean teepees into people teepees.  (The wind still whips.  Any excuse to use a sheet.)  Filthify fingers and toes.  

(Filthify: my 2013 Word of the Year nomination.  See precedents: vilify, quantify, Spotify.  See, also, the widespread utility: The children filthified the white carpet, running through on muddy paws.  See, finally, the tired redundancy of recent years: tweet ('09), app ('10), hashtag ('12).  Come on. Life isn't only online.  Dirt happens.  Filthify.  Are you with me?)

 

And on the cold days?  Make sn'ice cream!  Talk about soft, and taking advantage.  Two minutes between you and ethereal fluff, vanilla-scented, melt-on-impact, food-of-angels fluff.  Ice cream maker not even required.  Does take fresh fallen snow, though, several inches.  Reason alone to love winter. 

On every third day, when it decides to show.

 

 

Quiet afternoons balanced out the big ones.  I don't think of games as after-school fare often enough.  I'm coming to think they may trump snacks.  Doesn't work every day, but when it does, a game's a good way to to settle the tempo, set the tone.  To ease that awkward hour of re-entry.  

I must remember to schedule absolutely nothing more often.  

 

 

There was fiber.  A lot of fiber.  Fiber fixes much.  It's hard to beat the cosseting wallop of wool, linen, cotton, polyfill.  

Okay, polyfill's a little squeaky.  And odd.  But when it's stuffing the limbs of one pink polka-dotted giraffe, it's a soothing sort of squeaky.

 

 

We finally set out to conquer finger-knitting.  Seems such a smart way to launch a small child.  The video was very good.  I was not.  (The end result was to look like a ladder.  My end result resembled a cockroach.  A blue bulky-weight 100% wool cockroach.  Locked onto my hand.  Probably devouring it.)  

Needles for me from now on, thanks.

 

 

One sweater was finished and cast off, blocked, buttons auditioned.  Icy blue yarn was wound for another (TBD).  Yarn-winding is perpetually popular.  Also, perpetually disastrous.  The winder and I, we don't get along.  Or don't see eye to eye.  Or have bad karma.  Something.  

I blame the fact that I lost the instructions.  I suspect the truth looks more like that blue roach.  

 

 

I unearthed a second sweater I began two years back, and finished last fall, and buried last winter.  The Malabrigo yarn, so lovely on the screen, looked like old dishwater in the hand.  The sleeves didn't work up right the first time.  Or the second.  Or the third.  The buttons instructions began with "Crochet...".  I don't crochet.  (I don't, apparently, read instructions through, either.)  

I wrote it off as a giant flop learning experience.

 

 

But someone walked in just as I began to re-bury it, tried it on, declared it a fit.  And I saw just then that gray goes with winter.  And that the Swing Thing's full of twirly, flyaway fun.  And that buttons are really just after-thoughts.  

And really, what's two inches, between sleeves?     

 

 

And there was some saying 'yes', when what I meant was 'no', which always feels like a softening of sorts.  Paper.  Oh, paper.  I do so love paper.  I don't so love the mountains of scrap.  I ask for such conundrums, of course, with my well-stocked cupboards and well-loved childhood books.  Still, somedays, I'm not up for it.  I try to distract.  Drag feet.  Grumble.  On good days, I eventually give in.  Invariably, I'm glad I do.  

Because we figured out how to make curled paper snails!  And super cool cut circle twirlies!  And paperdoll chains!  Here's the key: Make sure the shape—doll, heart, snowman, whatever—goes all the way to both edges.  All the way. Both edges.  Really.  (Unlike Fulghum, I left Kindergarten lacking.)  

 

 

And for winter, and sore jaws, and scratchy throats, soft eats aplenty.  Cakes baked for no better reason than because.  Thick tiles of warm bread, spackled with butter, sliced well before the recommended hour's wait.  Clouds of rice pudding, our Rx for colds.  Cups of hot cocoa, extra whip.  Burbling vats of chicken broth, for them.  And, for me, bowl upon bowl of silky, sparkling, thrilling orange soup.

This is Heidi Swanson's Pumpkin and Rice Soup, which I mentioned last November in passing.  I mention it again, this February, as I've tweaked it to suit my pantry and palate, and want one place to put it all down.  I mention it again, also, as I've made at least a dozen pots since.  It's become a staple, a stalwart in my kitchen.  And staples and stalwarts deserve their own spotlight.    

 

 

I come back to this soup, time and again, for its quiet riot of flavors.  There's the soup itself, a straightforward affair of softened onion, sweet heat, squash and water.  I use fresh ginger in place of Heidi's jalapeno, and coconut oil, for its nutty whiff; either are true to the soup's simple bones.  Once tender, the whole business is blitzed into something of a surprise.  

So much squash soup, like so much pea soup, is thick thick thick, less soup than stew.  (I know.  I do it, too.)  This is not.  This is lofty.  Lilting, if such can be said of a soup.  Thin, airy, delicate.  I didn't know winter squash did delicate.  It does, and swimmingly.    

 

 

You wind up with a gorgeous orange pond, deeply creamy, despite its lack of cream, warm and rich, soul of squash stuff.  It makes a nice sip, all by its lonesome.  Not that I ever eat it that way.    

Because this soup's second stroke of genius (the first being the courage to add all that water) is in the thoughtful extra bits.  Classic Heidi, these.  I've long held puréed soups need bits, to break up the monotony.  I've never thought to combine rosemary, ginger and lemon in browned butter.  Nor to add rice.  Nor nuts.  It delights.

 

 

The nubbins of brown rice—I tried white; brown's better—bring a fragrant, pleasing chew.  The nuts slip in a necessary crunch.  The yogurt's tang offsets the squash's sweet.  Then there's the browned butter.  Can we just pause on browned butter?  Apply exclamation points as needed?  (Browned butter!!!!!!!!) Better.  I've professed my love before.  Ply it, wherever I can.  Pour it over whatever sits still.  I guess I must make antsy soup, since it somehow escaped my browned-butter-flinging ways.  Browned butter on soup's a showstopper. 

Particularly loaded browned butter.  Once the butter looks and smells of toasted hazelnuts, I pile in the minced rosemary, fresh ginger, and lemon, and cook it just a few slow minutes more.  They sizzle, and lend their flavor to the fat, and go a little crisp at the edges.  (Butter-fried lemon zest?  Yes.)  As with an Indian tarka, the aromatics and fat exchange phone numbers, each benefitting mightily from the trade.  And as with a tarka trickled over dal, the browned butter drizzle transforms this soup, a small spoonful of intensity that illuminates the whole bowl.  Good stuff.    

 

 

None of which explains twelve pots in three months, were this a half-day affair. Don't let all those extras deceive.  I clocked my last batch at eighteen minutes. Some slim forethought helps greatly.  I cook up a batch of brown rice most weeks, and keep it on hand, in the fridge, for whatever.  This removes the rice cooking time.  The browned butter cooks while the soup simmers.  And the squash, as always, is ready, cooked, waiting.  

See, I took to throwing pumpkins in the oven, last fall, when we were swimming in CSA squash.  Whole.  Unpeeled.  As is.  As in: sheet pan, foil, pumpkins, go.  I did it mostly as a dare, expecting them to explode/not work/never soften.  They did nothing of the sort.  What they did was cooperate, and cook to spoon-tender, and open up a whole new world in which squash was as hard to prepare as boxed cereal.  And as easy to eat.  It was a revelation.  I've long done this with beets, and loved having the roasted roots on hand.  Tamar Adler calls it striding ahead.  I quote the greeks, call it know thyself.  I cannot be depended upon to want to peel squash, simply because I want to eat soup.  

I want to eat this soup, a lot.  I don't see my pumpkin pitching arm atrophying, any time soon. 

 

Silky Pumpkin Soup with Browned Butter, Rosemary, Lemon + Ginger
adapted from Heidi Swanson, www.101cookbooks.com

Through Christmas, I made and loved this with pie pumpkins.  After the holidays, when pumpkins became scarce, I turned to butternet squash, also wonderful.  I keep the small pan of browned butter on the stove all week, re-warming and snitching spoonfuls, as needed.   

2 tablespoons coconut oil, or butter
1 very large onion (or 2 medium), chopped
1 heaping tablespoon ginger, peeled, chopped
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
2 1/2 pound pumpkin or butternut squash, cooked*, flesh only
6-8 cups water

To Top:  browned butter rosemary lemon ginger drizzle**, cooked brown rice, plain whole yogurt, slivered almonds, coconut flakes (any or all)

In a large saucepan, over medium heat, melt coconut oil (or butter).  Add onions and ginger, and cook until translucent, stirring occasionally, 5-8 minutes.  Add water, salt, and squash flesh, stir to combine, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a low-medium, and cook at a good simmer, 10 minutes, to let flavors marry.  Remove from heat, blitz with an immersion blender until very smooth (1-2 minutes), and taste for consistency and seasonings, adjusting water and salt to taste.  Bring back up to temperature, if you added water. Serve with spoonfuls of rice, yogurt, and/or almonds, and a generous spoonful of the loaded browned butter, drizzled over all.   

*Whole Baked Squash
Line a heavy rimmed half-sheet pan with foil, place whole pumpkins or butternut squash on top, and bake, on a middle rack, until knife pierces thickest part easily.  I've baked squash alongside cookies at 325°, bread at 350°, and chicken pot pie at 400°, for anywhere from 45-75 minutes.   Cooking times will vary based on squash and temperature.  Once tender, set squash aside to cool, then refrigerate, up to one week.  When ready to use, halve, remove seeds, and scoop out the soft meat.     

**Browned Butter Rosemary Lemon Ginger Drizzle
1/2 cup salted butter (1 cube)
2-3 tablespoons ginger, peeled, minced
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, minced
zest of 2 lemons

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, and continue to cook until butter bubbles, foams, clarifies, then begins to brown.  When the liquid looks slightly amber in color, the milk solids, brown, and the scent turns nutty and rich, it is done, 5-7 minutes.  Immediately, add rosemary, ginger and lemon zest, and continue to cook over medium heat, another 2-3 minutes, until aromatics crisp a bit and give off their scent.  Take care not to burn.  Keep warm, and set aside.   

 

 

 

let's not confuse the two

Let's be clear: this is no eating squash.  It is a pumpkin, and not the pie variety, either.  The sort brought home from pumpkin patches, destined for eyeballs, mouths, moustaches.  The carving sort.  

Not that we're the sort to carve pumpkins post-Halloween.  This was one we carved just before.  But between politics and procrastination and twenty- (thirty?-) some loads of laundry, I have only just recently pulled up the photos. They are very orange.  And more than a little confusing.  Because during the same stretch of days we carved our jack-o-lanterns, we also consumed a few butternuts.  And several carnivals.  And a kabocha or two.  It seems it was a squashy October.  November seems set to continue at pace.  

(Of course, if you do have an edible pumpkin, I cannot recommend Heidi's soup highly enough.  Fry the onions in coconut oil, if you love its sweet aromatic whiff as much as I.  Triple the ginger, for a warming boost.  Make the browned butter ginger rosemary gunge, no excuses, as it tastes like stars look on a cold clear November night.  Not that we're here to talk pumpkins, or soup. Didn't mean to confuse. But superior soups must be noted.)

To keep things straight, then, let's do it this way: ornamental squash in first position, edible in second.  Am I pigeon-holing, here?  Why don't we anthropomorphize butternuts, also?  Two twigs up top, one bright crabapple in the middle, a few carved eyes, and bingo!  Rudolph.  But it would be tricky. Those long, thick necks would give you a real run for your money.  There's just so little hollow in a butternut squash. They're the solid chocolate Easter bunnies of squash, heavy, dense, substantial.  Which makes them particularly fine for eating, optimal bang for the effort buck.

The effort being no small matter, with squash.  Squash can be hard, unyielding beasts, thick of skin, wobbly of stature.  When my children were babies, I would tuck them in a sling and carry them about while I cooked dinner.  They loved this set-up, because they could, in turn, snuggle, sleep, sway, and see everything.  I loved this set-up, because it meant that we weren't restricted to cheerios and toast, that first year.  

This sling arrangement worked beautifully, until mid-fall, when the squash started rolling in.  The squash months were difficult.  Over time, I arrived at a terrifically awkward yet effective body-perpendicular-to-counter maneuver, babe turned this way, shoulder angled that way, heavy chef's knife at one fully extended arm's end, other arm doing its best Elasti-Girl imitation, reaching up-and-over-and-around baby, to hold said squash something like still.

It was nuts.  But I loved—love—squash.

(Oops.  Here I go, muddying the waters, again.  That second position pic is neither pumpkin nor butternut, but a blue plastic Lego whale.  For what it's worth, I was breaking down a butternut when it ran aground.  And do you see that yellow square?  It's a secret compartment.  Pull it out, and inside, hidden away, there's a single red brick, a heart.  

I heart that.) 

Things are a little safer, these days.  I can set them up across the table, carry conversations instead of humans, give them something to stir and scoop and spread and count and arrange and salt.  Stirring buys me five minutes, easy. Scooping and arranging, at least as much.  Not every child takes such pleasure, of course, in the orchestration of squash seeds.  I've others who subscribe to the Scoop and Dump School of seed management, still others who invoke the "EWWW!!!  No thanks!" clause.  Results may vary.  

But salt, salt is a universal, at least among my sample size of three.  It is small, and administered in pinches, and magically, I always seem to need exactly as many pinches as the child is years old.  Until they're too old to want to add pinches.  (It happens.  Quick as a wink, doing double-time.)  At which point, they occupy themselves.  Also magic.

Apparently, I take my squash with a serious side of nostalgia.  All asides aside: I came to talk salad.  Salad squared up with sweet cubes of roast squash.  And a dice of tart apple.  And toasted pecans.  And feta.  And dried cherries.  And have I lost you yet? 

Because I would have lost me, had I read this salad before I ate it.  On paper (on pixel?), it sounds, I don't know, baroque?  Even now, after eating my way through a dozen helpings, it sounds unlikely, excessive, too too. Apples and squash?  And also dried cherries?  And don't dried berries evoke bad aisle 7 "salad kits", the sort with week-old lettuce and stale croutons and tiny mummified packets of the aforementioned for color?  Let's not confuse the two. This isn't that. This is none of the above.  This is wonderful.  

I wish I could talk to your tastebuds, direct, slide a plate through the screen, bypass the brain.  Because this is how I first experienced this salad, straight from a bowl, brought by a friend.  There was pizza, also, hot and good, the sort I ordinarily eat three or four slices of.  That night, I didn't finish my first.  Too busy, I was, making a salad fool of myself.  Although, in retrospect, I would've been a fool to do otherwise.

Because this salad's so got it figured out.  There are tender, sweet caramelized cubes of squash, plus crunchy tart bites of juicy apple.  Briny, creamy nubbins of feta bridge the yielding and the crisp, the honeyed and sharp, the raw and the cooked.  Toasted pecans bring their own caliber of crunch, shattery, roasty, deeply mapled.  

And then, those dried cherries.  I'm still baffled by those cherries.  Baffled, because I don't like cherries in my salads.  So baffled, I tried leaving them out, once, only to come face to face with an uproar.  From the cherries, and the bowl, and yours truly: those cherries belong there.  Those cherries act like edible sequins, condensed winey bits of glitter and charm.  A few bites without, and without meaning to, you find yourself, and your fork, poking about, searching for garnet, until, score!  You spear one, add one square of squash, one apple, a pecan, a blip of white, a few leaves of green, until you've achieved The Perfect Bite.  

(Does anyone else do this?  Construct carefully composed bites?  Little still lifes, arranged on four tines, with life spans that make Mayflies look geriatric?  Maybe you're more the mindless salad eater, jabbing up forkfuls that just hold together, loading them in while you read The Times.  I tend to go 17th century Dutch Tuesdays and Wednesdays (Science, Food), distracted shoveler on all the rest.  Graciously, this salad holds up to both.) 

Two final footnotes.  Loads of flavor needn't equal loads of work.  Take the squash.  Roast a whole one (or two) hours (or days) in advance.  The cubes must be cooled, anyway, and you'll have a bowl at the ready all week. Witness the multiple slumped squash, above.  I roast several at a time, whole, sliced, or cubed, just to have their sweet goodness on hand.  

Ditto the toasted pecans.  We go through pounds of nuts, around here, both out of hand and in stuff.  Toasting improves nuts immeasurably, underscoring their oil, amplifying their flavor.  A toasted pecan is me, after my morning coffee, perky, sharp, tip-top, brimming with personality.  Unlike me, pecans keep their gains a dozen days or more.  Fill a sheet pan, toast a slew, keep cooled nuts in a jar, leverage your ten minutes' work all week.

Finally, play around.  This is the iteration of the salad I've settled on, and there are some pillars I wouldn't change: crisp apples, soft squash, salty feta, crisp nuts, the occasional bling and chew of dried berry.  Beyond that?  Latitude, galore.  The original had pepitas, not pecans, and they were awfully wonderful. Good candied nuts, the sort you'd set out with drinks, would, I think, be a slam-dunk.  You may prefer cranberries over cherries.  Blue cheese and feta are a toss-up, to me.  Roast the squash in coconut oil.  And perhaps smoked paprika, Sara-style.  Add maple syrup to the vinaigrette.  Or walnut oil.  Or whatever piques.  The three salads here?  Three different days, made three different ways.  Let's not confuse framework with formula.  The fun and yum are in the flex.  

A Salad of Greens, Squash and Apples for Autumn
with tremendous thanks to Tricia

If your squash has been roasted and refrigerated, allow 30 minutes, if you're able, to come to room temp.  Likewise, if you roast it same day, it will hold at room temp a good 4 hours.  I adore the tart Montmercy cherries from Trader Joe's, although any unsweetened, tart cherry will do.  

8 loose cups salad greens
2 cups cubed, roasted and cooled butternut squash*, approx. 1/2 a small squash 
1 large, tart apple (Honeycrisp or Pink Lady), cut into bite-sized bits
heaping 1/2 cup pecans, toasted**, roughly chopped
1/2 cup feta, crumbled
1/4 cup dried sour cherries, roughly chopped, or dried cranberries

dressing:
1/2  teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons cider or sherry vinegar
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
plenty of freshly ground pepper

In a lidded jar, add vinegar and salt, return lid, and shake to dissolve.  Add oil and pepper, and shake vigorously to emulsify.

In a large salad bowl, add all salad ingredients.  Pour half of dressing over all, toss to combine, and taste for seasoning.  Salad will likely need more, though not all, of the dressing, plus additional salt and pepper, to taste. Adjust, toss, adjust, toss, clink a glass to fall, eat.    

*Roasted Butternut Squash:
Since reading Sarah's method for Perfect Roasted Squash, I've never looked back; it yields perfectly creamy, caramelized cubes, every time.  

Preheat oven to 425°, and place a rack in the lowest position.  Top and tail your butternut, peel, and slice neck from body of squash.  Halve both pieces, and scrape seeds from bulbous end.  Set each quarter on flat side, and cut into 1" slices.  Dice each slice into rough 1" cubes, set on a rimmed, parchment-lined baking sheet, and toss with two tablespoons' olive oil and 1 teaspoon kosher salt.  Cover sheet with foil, place in preheated oven, and roast 12 minutes.  Remove foil, return squash to oven, and roast another 12-15 minutes, until squash is deeply tender and caramelizing at the edges.    

**Toasted Pecans:  
Preheat oven to 350°, scatter pecans on a baking sheet, and place in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until the entire kitchen smells toasty and nutty and mapled, and until the nuts have darkened slightly.  Set a timer, and don't walk away; nuts burn in a wink.  Remove to a plate to end cooking, and set aside to cool.

 

this won't do

It appears I have neglected fall. 

Obviously, this won't do.

After all, fall is my favorite season, October my favorite month.  Or maybe it's my almost-favorite month; I may pull a switcheroo in a few weeks, re-cast my vote on behalf of November.  I can't possibly commit, this early on.  Better to go with the season itself.  

Either way?  I can't help but bear witness. 

Because fall is when the weather turns lovely, becomes what I think a summer should be.  The nasties—heat, humidity, mosquitoes—leave town, with plenty of rain taking their place.  The nights are cool, the days, sometimes sunny, punctuated by plenty of gray.  Temperatures swing between fifties and seventies, sweaters and shirt-sleeves, hot oats and cold cider.  Absolutely perfect, in other words.  The summer of my dreams, slightly delayed.

(Did I mention I'm from Seattle?  Where summer as often means fleece as one-piece?)      

There are puddles for jumping, and breezes for bicycling, and just-sunny-enough days for fairy-house building.  

(Apparently, in Ohio, fairies need more than the standard issue leaf-and-twig hut.  I didn't ask Zoe for details, but she seemed certain they needed four walls and a roof.  It does get nippy.  I can't blame them.)

Fall is when every clearing of the table for homework winds up looking like some trite still life.  Like the colors can't help themselves.  Like sunset and harvest are the only hues allowed.

Fall is when coat zippers need waxing, after their long summer hibernation.  And while we're at it, satchel zippers, also, and bird feeders, filling, and the last of the garden tomatoes, gathering.

And the very last.  

And the very very last.

And the very very very last.  

We've harvested our last at least six times, now.  Ditto the zucchini, which by rights should be toast, two tinies of which were spotted, just yesterday.  Ditto also the green beans, transitioning toward shelly, still putting out, despite a few frosts.  

Apart from the chard and kale, both champs, the harvest is nothing to write home about.  The tomatoes are on the sour side; the bean yield, miniscule.  But the thrill, for some reason, is inversely proportional.  And the amounts allow beans to become a math moment.  Which leads to groan-worthy bean counting jokes.  All of which makes me feel endlessly better about putting off "rip out vegetables" for three weeks.  Maybe four...

The flowers have proven no less generous, soldiering on despite several nighttime freezes.  As everything around them goes withery brown, the stalwarts carry on, all the more stunning for it.  There are mums, of course, which never fail to tickle, so boisterous and raring, all "Winter?  What winter?"

But it is the others, the true blooms and elegants, that dazzle and astound in equal measure.  Mums, I don't know, they just look hardy.  Like the Land's End of flowers, ubiquitous, sturdy.  But windflowers, toad lilies, pink-petalled roses? They seem fragile things, wispy, frail.  To the eye, anyway.  Underneath?  Abs of steel.    

(And with all due respect to Mademoiselle Dickinson?  

Hope is the thing not only with feathers, but with petals and buds at the end of October.) 

The foliage isn't too shabby, either.  Our morning school walks are a russety shuffle, as the oaks finally begin to let loose.  Afternoons, when our route takes us under maples, we might as well be Sigourney, so crimson's the carpet.  

Driving into the country, yesterday, it felt for all the world like blizzard conditions.  Only blizzard conditions brought to you by Ted Turner, all brilliant color, no black and white. 

For all that, we've a few weeks of splendor ahead yet, as we stand on this cusp between full and empty.  Our hawthorne and honey locust are almost bare.  Our crabapple's so bald, it might as well be February.

But our dogwood and hyacinth are just now turning color.  The oak delivers leaf piles right up through Thanksgiving.  Their days are numbered, and they well know it, and they seem intent on going out in a blaze of glory.  Amen.  

Most days, fall follows us right indoors.  My hand slips into my pocket for keys, comes up instead with acorns galore.  Pinecones and tissues go through the wash.  Walnuts and small nuts we can't quite identify accumulate everywhere. After last year's hiatus, due to the crud, we were doubly happy to get in a batch of leaf-dipping.  

Fall may, to you, smell of apples and spice, the leaves' funk and ferment, the thrill of fresh air.  Yes, those.  But to me, I think it will always, also, be tinted with beeswax's honeyed sweet. 

Fall, to my kids, means unearthing The Fall Box, which to them might as well be The Halloween Box.  Or, more properly, "THE HALLOWEEN BOX!!!!!!"  Yes, it contains our acorn and bat stamps.  And indeed, there are the odd wool felt leaves.  

But the immediate excitement is directed toward all things All Hallow's Eve: the old outgrown costume bits, and artifacts from Octobers past, and especially the excellent loot from what we have come to realize are Mamo's annual Halloween box.  

Thus begins weeks of glow-in-the-dark necklaces, and goofy glasses, and appropriately-themed duct tape bracelets.  (You didn't think we were all beeswax and dried leaves, did you?  When there is outrageous duct tape to be had?  Oh, c'mon.)  

And, since this year's haul included twenty tiny spiders, we hung two bags of fake webbing, out front.  I do not, as a rule, decorate for Halloween, but can I tell you, four dollars have rarely delivered such fun?  

Of course, there are bad jokes.  Halloween begs bad jokes.  

Q: "Why are witch twins so confusing?"  
A:  "You can never tell which witch is which."  

(Told you.)

Fall is when we riffle through the construction paper for orange, black, yellow and green.  When jack-o-lantern patterns are trialled in 2-D.  When ghosts appear everywhere, on paper, in meringue.  

It is first (double) batches of everyday cocoa mix.  And ruling one mini-marshmallow per year, reasonable.  Then re-considering.  Twelve marshmallows?  Really?  Yeah, no.  Because, come middle school, that makes for a lot of marshmallows.  Revision to Parenting Code 139.00179:  one mini- per year, up to age 10.       

In fall, pumpkins come home from farm field trips, an easier "yes" than the alternative, newborn piglets.  This necessitates the cooking of a pumpkin, which all but requires the baking of a pumpkin pie.  I highly recommend the baking of a pumpkin pie, several weeks prior to Thanksgiving.  (Actually, I highly recommend the baking of a pumpkin pie, several weeks prior to anything.)  But right now, absent turkey and trimmings, pumpkin pie has the spotlight all to itself.  Few things are as worthy.  

Does it sound like I'm here to talk pies today?  I am not.  I am no baker of pies. I love them, pumpkin particularly, and can muddle my way through, inelegantly. But all I can tell you by way of wisdom is that homemade pumpkin makes for an especially delicate filling, and to tip in a heaping teaspoon of cardamom, and to otherwise follow Libby's label to a T.  (Yes, I'm suggesting you follow the canned pumpkin recipe.  Without, you know, ever opening the can.)    

No, I'm here today to talk up another orange lovely, specifically the sweet potato.  Specifically, the sweet potato and fellow fall veg, aswim in a warm, fragrant coconut milk curry.  Specifically, and delightfully.  

I wrote this up first for the fall Edible Columbus, and nearly forgot to mention it, here.  It's easy to do, the forgetting, magazine deadlines being what they are.  There are those among you for whom this is standard, and I'm finally beginning to bend my mind around it.  But it still seems awfully peculiar to me to be hunting down sweet potatoes in high July.

No excuse, mind you, for missing this korma.  Missing this korma won't do at all.    

A korma—and I'm generalizing wildly here—is a catch-all for an Indian braised curry.  Eloquently spiced, often creamy, deeply flavored, always balanced, a korma is a treat and a half.  There are chicken kormas, and lamb and beef also, and all manner of vegetable-based kormas, my favorite.  Today's korma fits into that last category, and eats like a love letter to fall.   

Like all good kormas, this one is built on aromatics—onions, garlic, a pile of minced of ginger—softened and mellowed and sincerely browned.  Mustard seeds fry in the oil alongside, adding their nutty addictive crunch. Warm spices bloom briefly, coriander, turmeric, plus just enough chili for background blush. Firm vegetables follow, white potatoes, cubed sweets, plus, if you wish, cauliflower and/or kale.  These are joined by tomatoes and coconut milk, the former a foil to the latter's rich lush.  As the tubers and crucifers braise away in the sauce, the sauce thickens and intensifies.  Meanwhile, the aromatic gunge built at the outset infiltrates both, a rather excellent incursion.  

Toward the end, I like adding some sweet green thing, green beans in season, frozen peas, any time.  I also like a tin of chickpeas tipped in.  The buff velvet nubs blend in like old friends.  Once everything's in, there's the matter of seasoning, a final, brief, critical step.  First bites may be dull, as the real seasoning must wait until the braising and reducing is done.  Never fear.  Salt, and sugar, and lime juice, in turn, are added and sampled and tweaked until grand.  Don't be shy.  When the quantities are right—and your buds will know—sauce and vegetable will suddenly sing.    

We ate it tonight with a mound of basmati, which soaks up the mellow, rich sauce brilliantly.  Naan is nice, also, and I'm already anticipating leftovers wrapped in tomorrow's crêpes.  

This sounds strange, I realize, like leftovers without borders, like tupperware run amok.  But it comes off like a cheat's curried sweet potato dhosa.  A well-fed, albeit inauthentic, cheat.  I'm not normally keen on shortcuts and cheating, no more in cooking than anywhere else.  But when cheating involves a scoop of sweet potato korma?  This will do, very nicely indeed.        

Fall Vegetable Korma
adapted from Plenty, by Diana Henry

This is a mild, ecumenical curry, which travels well throughout the season. Add the last zucchini, or the first cauliflower, or ribbons of kale, as summer’s green beans give way to fall’s greens.  As with all curries, leftovers are wonderful.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
4 garlic cloves, minced (2 teaspoons)
1 ½ inch fresh ginger, peeled, finely chopped (2 tablespoons)
1 fresh red chile, seeded and chopped, or 1 whole dried arbol chile
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt, plus 1 teaspoon, or to taste
2 small sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1” chunks (3 cups)
6 ounces waxy white potatoes, peeled, cut into 1” chunks (1 cup)
12 ounces fresh tomatoes, chopped (or 15 oz. tin diced tomatoes, drained of juices)
1 cup regular coconut milk, well-shaken
1-3 teaspoons sugar, to taste
8 ounces green beans, cut into 2” lengths (optional)
1 15-ounce tin chickpeas (optional)
1 cup frozen green peas
juice of ½-1 plump lime
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

In a large, heavy saucepan, heat oil until shimmering. Add onion and fry, over medium-high heat, stirring regularly, until browning, 5 minutes. Add mustard seeds, and continue to cook until onions are bronzed and sticky, lowering heat as needed to prevent burning, 2-3 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and chili, reduce heat to medium, and cook 3 minutes. Add turmeric and coriander and cook another minute, to meld.

Add tomatoes, sweet potatoes, white potatoes and 1 teaspoon salt, then stir to coat with aromatics.  Cook 4 minutes to relax tomatoes, then add coconut milk, plus enough water to just cover vegetables, ½-1 cup.  Bring to a steady simmer and hold, cooking until potatoes are tender, 10-15 minutes. The sauce will thicken, and should generously coat the vegetables. 

Add beans, and simmer until just tender, 4-5 minutes.  Add frozen peas, and simmer 1 minute.  Remove from heat, add juice of half a lime, and begin the final seasoning.  The first bite will be underseasoned, intentionally, to allow for all the recent reducing.  In this final step, you'll add salt, and likely sugar, and pepper, and possibly more lime juice, in turn.  Add pinches, stir, taste, and adjust, until everything is bright and in balance.  You will want more salt, and likely sugar, possibly pepper, probably more lime, until everything is bright and balanced and round.  Pinch and stir and taste and repeat, until dull is a distant memory.  Stir in chopped cilantro, and serve.   

goodbye, hello

It's a little blurry.  Sorry about that.  There was a small leaf situation in front of the lens.  Shouldn't be a recurring problem.  They're all gone now, blown down in last week's bluster.

Fall flew the coop last week.  I realize we've another month yet before it's official, but we all know a season's soul doesn't much mind the datebook.  

(I, on the other hand, often do, and I noticed Thanksgiving's rapidly approaching.  So do please feel free to scroll right on down to a bang-up sweet potato side, if you're in the market.  Sweet potato and bacon fat.  No offense taken.  I'll be down soon.)

(And actually, while we're on the topic, much of our menu hails from here: cream biscuits, bacon-braised brussel sprouts, maybe this shaved fennel + mushroom salad, definitely this chocolate pie.  In case you have any loose ends to tie up.)

Me, I wanted to pause a moment, say a proper goodbye to fall.   I'm in need of a little eulogy.  No, better, a commemoration.  Maybe both. 

To autumn, then.  It's been swell.

Ginko, oak, pear, sweet gum: your stamina pleases me no end.  You are, I've learned, the final act, and you don't take your duties lightly.  Under any other circumstances, your flamboyant crimson-amber-gold would be gaudy, but in quickening, dark November?  Spot on.  A final riot to ready us for winter's monochrome.  

So long, filigree trees, stained glass leaves, filtered light from threadbare canopies. 

Au revoir, actually, all you leaves.  You've filled our hands, our pockets, our boots, our days.  We never got back to the beeswax this year, but instead painted and stamped and pressed and compiled.  And built and buried and tunneled and jumped.  I've decided each season comes equipped with its very own abundant building material: fall's leaves, winter's snow, spring's mud, summer's sand.  (Dear Universe: Excellent planning, and well done.)   

We've got one final rake to do, then to the shed's archives they go.  Time to move snow shovels to the head of the class. 

Bye for now, pleasant weather and shirtsleeve afternoons.  We've been flirting with freezing, all month long, but we've also enjoyed a stupendous November.  Several days in the sixties, a red letter seventy.  On my birthday, no less.  (Dear Universe, P.S.: Many thanks!)   But there's this palpable shift, brisk to bracing, that happens here, sometime around the end fall.  This fall, that shift happened last week.  And even if you Seattle folk beat us to snow (???), we've already dabbled in the lower twenties. 

We'll catch up with you yet, just wait and see.

Farewell, zinnias.  You rocked our garden for months, early July right through the first frost.  But crisp doesn't suit you in the least.  Let's re-seed next spring. 

Dear ancient roses: how do you do it?  You're this neon spark in an otherwise-brown landscape.  You, and those industrious orangeity-orange daisies.  We may have fresh flowers on our groaning board, yet.  Fingers crossed...

Adios, for now, outdoor field trips.  I wondered whether even November was pushing it.  But with a hearty band of fifth-graders and a Surviving in Nature theme, it seemed within the possible realm.  And the day dawned crisp but dry and clear.  And I learned so much I'd be embarassed by my ignorance, if I weren't thrilled with my newfound knowledge.  (Don't burn logs with vines: poison ivy smoke can kill.  Gypsy moths can wipe out whole tree stands in a weeks.  If looking for water, first find the sycamore, because "it likes to keep its toes wet".  Who knew?  And how many lifetimes would it take to scratch the veneer of the surface?)  

Even if the flint was devilishly difficult to work. 

I'm not moping, mind you, not mourning in the least.  Fall is my favorite, but winter's a close second, in my (possibly) oddball book, anyway.   

There are candles to glow, and fires to burn, and indoor pleasures masquerading as escapes from the cold.  And outdoor adventures, I'm counting on it.  No hunkering down, here, just a turn of the dial. 

So goodbye, fall.  You've had a fine run.  Same time, next year, we'll be ready and waiting.

And hello, winter.  Welcome back, old friend.  Hello hats, mittens, balaclavas, board games, cold noses, colder toes, carols, Christmas, birthdays, brrrrrr days, sleds, snow.  All that lovely jazz.  I am so ready. 

And hello, sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes, of course, are no more citizens of winter than are these next several pre-solstice weeks.  They've been popping up at our market, in these parts anyway, since the early days of September.  But I always hold out, while summer's best bleed into fall, the eggplant and greens and last windowsill tomatoes.  It seems a shame to squander the bounty.

But right around the time of that first bone-chilling breeze, a line invisible to all but me is crossed, and my own personal sweet potato season begins.  That line is behind me.  I'm ready for that, also.

My sweet potato love runs deep, if not wide, usually teeter-tottering between straight-up baked sweet spuds in their jackets, and this roasted salad with black beans, lime, feta and cilantro.  It's a rut, I admit, but a delicious rut, one I'm more than contented to settle into.  Or was, I guess.  Until last year.           

Last year, I tasted a sweet potato like no other, prepared on the fly by my mother-in-law.  There were sweet potatoes, clearly, cooked and puréed, and I thought, when I dolloped, that that was that.  And then I tasted.  And paused.  And had to begin again.  Because behind that ordinary earthy-sweet, lay this wicked backbone of smoke and salt and flavor and what exactly?  I couldn't quite pin it, had a second spoonful, a third, and finally inquired after all the other mystery ingredients.  

You, dear reader, of course already know the answer, seeing as I gave away the ending at the outset.  But on that first day, with that first bite, my tastebuds went through more twists and turns than The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo.  And I was about as surprised by the ending: bacon fat.  Not a lot, either, a tablespoon or so per potato.  But one ingredient.  That tasted like twenty.  I waited all last spring, and on through summer, and even into fall to try it myself.  I've now made three batches in as many weeks.  I'll understand entirely if you beat my record.

This is one of those recipes that's more art than science, a firsthand dabble in balance and preference.  It is, on the one hand, no more than cooked sweets and bacon fat, with a bit of salt and sugar to round out the flavors.  But each time I've varied the quantities a bit, as both root and fat are variable.  Some sweet potatoes are notably less sweet than others, and so need four teaspoons of sugar, not two.  One brand of bacon is saltier than the next, its fat going farther in seasoning the spuds.  The one indisputable truth I've learned is to use the best bacon you can find, and to cook it p-a-t-i-e-n-t-l-y.  I got antsy with a batch this past week, cranked the heat, "gained" two minutes, and gleaned a panful of burnt drippings.  Lesson learned: smoky good; charcoal bad.

But don't be fooled by all this talk of finesse: this is child's play, steam, blitz, and eat.  Or better: cook your sweet potatoes a few days early, leverage a little saved fat (from, say, those aforementioned brussels), and just before serving, warm gently and purée.  Sides don't get much simpler than that: no oven, no prep, no sweat, yes please.  To date, they've been everday, busy night fare, and they fit this bill most comfortably.  But these sweets, they've got the swank-rugged flavors of a side with pride of place at the table and personality to spare.  I'm speculating here, but I suspect they'd sidle up to a Thanksgiving spread with no trouble at all.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.  And thank you, always, for stopping by.

 

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Bacon Breath
with great thanks to Julia
yields: 4 side servings

Ordinarily, I prefer my sweet potatoes roasted, but here I like the clean sweetness of them steamed.  The sweet potatoes can be cooked (and the bacon fat rendered) several days ahead.  Just warm both over low heat in a small saucepan, to reheat.  Double or triple, as you wish.

2 medium sweet potatoes
2-3 tablespoons good, fresh bacon fat
2-3 teaspoons sugar (white or brown)
1/2-1 teaspoon kosher salt

Cook sweet potatoes: peel, slice, and steam over simmering water, 20-30 minutes, until knife pierces easily at thickest point.  Use immediately, or cool and refrigerate, for later.

When potatoes are cool enough to handle (or after warming them, if re-heating), return to a small saucepan with the bacon fat, 2 teaspoons sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Blitz with a stick (immersion) blender until no lumps remain, bacon fat is incorporated, and potatoes are creamy-smooth, 2 minutes or so, pausing to scrape sides with a spatula a few times.   Taste for deliciousness: the major themes here are smoky and earthy, with just enough salty-sweet to italicize the above.  Smoky, earthy (salty, sweet).  Seasoning is especially variable (and important) here: it will depend on how sweet your potatoes were, and how salty your bacon, and your materials may demand more or less of the above quantities.  If the spoonful tastes flat, add another pinch of salt and two of sugar, blitz again, taste again, and repeat until everything sings.  Sings.  It will.  You'll know.  Nom nom nom...

accessorizing

 

You've either got it or you don't.  This, I've decided.

My girl, she's got it, the instinct for ornament.  From where, I don't know, but the evidence is everywhere.  Zoë can accessorize like nobody's business.  She's the only gal I know who hears, "Let's take that glider out," and immediately thinks, "This calls for a purse!"  I don't remember carrying one until I had a job, and hard-won funds, and the wish to preserve them.  Silly me.  I always was a little slow. 

I have learned from my sunshine that money's the least of it, that purses are modern-day ladies in waiting.  They're always good for a spare pair of socks, and a stash of little Golden Books, and for keeping that little crook in your arm company.  At the moment, I think it's stuffed full of fall color.  I probably ought to "lose" it before snowballs arrive. 

Not everyone can pull off cargo pants and pearls.  But then, she's got a way with jewelry.  We have a tangle of Mardi Gras necklaces that get trotted for special events: walks around the block, park afternoons, lego sessions and the like.  But really, they're only the tip of the iceberg.  There's a chapter in the hilarious The Passion of the Hausfrau that is titled something like, Every Stick A Gun.  In it, Nicole Chaison recounts the way in which her pacifist home produced a weapon-loving son, who can manufacture a fire-arm out of any rock, twig or thumb.  So it is with Zoë.  Except it's Every Rubber Band a Bracelet. 

She just has this knack for seeing baubles in frim-fram.  I'm not exactly sure how else to explain it.  I don't know how many stern post-nap talks we've had, about the importance of circulation and not wearing rubber bands to bed.  That smart black set down there?  K'NEX roller coaster chain, re-purposed from her brothers' six-foot-tall set.  I'm fairly certain the Cobra's Curse Coaster designer never envisioned this particular end-use for their product.  Works, though, if you can command the look.

The clothes thing is just beginning to get interesting.  Some mornings I can bring her an outfit, and we're off.  Others, she's emphatic about choosing her own.  Either way, she lobbies to change out pieces on the flimsiest of pretexts.  I'm trying to teach her one water drop does not a wet shirt make.  We look for other outlets.  Her Woodkins are well-dressed.

And then there are the glasses.  Mamo brought them back in May, along with the purse, and not a moment too soon.  Zoë's rather fond of them.  I've only recently realized how much.  We were stuck in line, a few weeks back, and Zoë was rapidly veering toward peevish.  In an effort to distract her, Papa Bear asked her a question which, if memory serves, ran something like this:  "Zoë, if you had to choose one or the other, would you pick Winkie Blinkie or your sunglasses?"

I was a little dumbstruck.  A prisoner's dilemma for a two year old?  I mean honestly, how terrible would a Toddler feel, having to cast aside her sweet grandmother-given shades in order to save her beloved baby doll?  The guilt!  The treachery!!  The—  "My Sunglasses!" she answered, almost instantly, all smiles. 

Well.  Okay, then.  Baby overboard.

She has a special way with adhesives, the potential of which I've obviously neglected for decades.  We've gone through more band-aids in the past twelve months than in my prior nine years as a parent.  (No, she's not particularly accident prone.) 

She invented a new superhero, Tapron Man.  I'm not sure he's got Superman's same cross-merchandising appeal, but he's won a fairly keen following in our home.  And really, what would you call a green army man, done up in a yellow masking tape apron?  (He's aboard a block of Scharffenberger dark, up there.  Can't remember whether it was a boat or a final resting place.  I can think of worse fates.)   

Stickers are a topic unto themselves.  Max and Henry scowled when offered them at check-out.  Zoë adores them with wild abandon.  Potty training was a relative breeze last Spring, all because we offered bright tiny sticky bits.  I'd heard this was a motivator from many moms before me, but my boys were not cc:'d on the memo.  They held out for chocolate chips and toy cars.  I'm only now realizing all those moms had daughters.

Not that we're through with them now; not hardly.  Every day brings with it brand new sticker possiblities.  Off to dig?  Better look the part.  Writing a letter?  Envelopes need not be dull!  Yesterday, she did something especially well, and I left her alone a few moments to choose a sticker.  You wouldn't know it by looking, but her listening and counting skills are really quite good.  Embellishment trumps accuracy, I guess.

(I haven't had the heart to tell her about hats, about how they are technically to be taken off indoors.  She wears them at least as often inside as out, in preparation for reading, or writing, or breathing.  Perhaps we're over that propriety nonsense, anyhow.) 

Don't misunderstand: Zoë's no princess.  People always ask, what with two older brothers and all.  She recently declared an end to all skirts; jeans are the way, truth and light.  She went as a wizard for Halloween (a little like that one, but sub out starry cape for wings).  And anyway, in my experience, princesses don't do Power Ranger with such gravity and chutzpah.  I think she just has this slightly more evolved sense of what fully dressed involves, exactly. 

 
Me?  Not so much.  By which I mean, not at all.  I'm overdue my annual order of seven white Favorite-T's, my uniform for years now.  All my necklaces (all two of them) now reside in the dress-up trunk.  I've no idea if my ears are still pierced; I last wore earrings before Henry was born.  I've made peace with hats and scarves, but that's more Darwin than decoration. 

I do wear a wedding ring.  Diamond, even.  The smallest, simplest one I could find.  Though I did have it lowered, which took a little doing.  Apparently, to judge from the way the jeweler's jaw hit the floor, no one had ever said, "It's just too dang sparkly.  Please lower the setting as much as you're able."  My mom can pull off bakelite bracelets with panache.  Maybe it's one of those skip-a-generation genes. 

Or maybe it's just that the direct object changes.  I do rather like to accessorize my soups.  Puréed soups in particular, which I adore.  For about five bites.  Then they bore me to tears. 

The problem, I think, is their signature texture, which goes from velvet to Gerber's, just like that.  For ages, I'd whip up some smooth, sultry number, then grumble my way to the bottom of the bowl.  Their vegetable-centric flavor was grand, their plush demeanor obviously appealing, but they always failed to feel like dinner.  At least for anyone over, oh, 10 months of age.  It took me years to realize that a little edible bling was all these soups needed.  Adding smoked trout to potato-leek was a turning point.  Heidi's potato croutons pretty much sealed the deal.  

I should confess, I've never made potato croutons.  But I did take the idea and run with it.  The idea being, instead of fried cubes of bread, crisp up some cubed roots to top your favorite soup.  Or, in my case, in the fall, caramelize small-diced apples to gussy up a bowl of butternut.  This, my friends, is so not baby food.

What it is is a bright, vibrant, warmly spiced soup, rich with butternut, tickled by chili.  There's fresh ginger for warmth and a splash of cream for softness and it would all be for naught if it weren't for what's next.  Because after you simmer everything into softness, and blitz it into a silken purée, you top it all off with a heap of those apples, sweet-tart and golden and powerfully good.  If you're me, you add also a plunk of greek yogurt, plus a smattering of cilantro and pumpkin seeds.  I may not have style—we can't all be Zoë—but at least I've got a great bowl of soup.  And a fetching little companion to dine with. 

 

Butternut Squash Soup + Caramelized Apple Croutons
yields 4-6 main-course servings

How to peel a butternut squash?  If you have a Y-peeler, use it here.  A regular peeler will do the job also, so long as it's sharp.  I go over the entire squash twice with the peeler to remove the entireity of the thick skin.  This is quicker than it sounds, two minutes, maybe.  Alternately, you can whack the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and roast it until tender.  I'll often do this at the end of some other oven-session, and tuck it into the fridge for later in the week.  Just scoop into the soup after sauteeing the aromatics, and you're that much closer to dinner.  Clever. 

To my taste, this makes a fragrant, not-too-hot, warmly-spiced soup.  My soup-girl, however, did not prefer it.  You may wish to dial down the spices a bit, if you are serving this soup to small children. 

Butternut Squash Soup
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
fresh ginger — 1 thumb-size knob, roughly chopped to equal 1 1/2 Tablespoons
1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1 butternut squash (2 1/2 lbs., give or take), peeled, seeded and cubed
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp. nutmeg, freshly grated
1/4 tsp. aleppo chili, or to taste
1/2 tsp. salt
1-2 tsp. sugar
1 plump lime, juiced
4 Tablespoons cream

To garnish:  chopped cilantro, greek yogurt, salted pumpkin seeds, apple "croutons" (recipe below)

In a large sauce pan or small dutch oven, warm olive oil over medium heat.  Add onion and ginger, and sauté until translucent, 8-10 minutes.  Add squash, apple, broth, nutmeg, chili, salt and sugar, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low-medium, and simmer, uncovered, until squash is falling-apart tender, 20-30 minutes.  (This is a fine time to make the apples.) 

Blend soup to a smooth purée, 60-90 seconds, either in the pan with a stick blender, or in a jar blender.  (If using the latter, blend soup in batches and with care, as a full jar of hot soup will cause excess pressure and outbursts.)  Stir in lime juice and cream, and taste for seasonings.  I'll usually adjust salt, sugar and heat (chili, nutmeg) at this point.  When the soup is warm, vivid and bright, accessorize to your liking, and enjoy. 

Caramelized Apple "Croutons"
inspired by Heidi Swanson, 101cookbooks.com

4 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced into 1/2" cubes
2 Tbs. butter
1 Tbs. sugar
pinch of salt

In a large skillet, wide enough to hold apples in a mostly even layer, melt the butter over medium-high heat.  Add the diced apples, sugar and salt, and shake the pan to coat apples with butter and seasonings.  Cook over medium-high heat 4-5 minutes, undisturbed, until apples are going gold along the bottom.  Shake or stir to re-distribute, and continue to cook another 4-5 minutes.  Shake again, and judge doneness.  When apples show good color on many sides, gold in some spots, bronze in others, they are ready.