This twist on the classic winter soup is one of those happy accidents that happens when you don’t have quite enough of one ingredient — or in this case, a very petite butternut squash. I supplemented with two sweet potatoes and loved the richer flavor it gave the soup. It’s light on the curry, for the boy’s sake — and the husband and I just supplemented the spice with a dash of smoked paprika on top. Easy and tasty. Enjoy with grilled cheese sandwiches, or a side salad and rolls for an easy weeknight dinner.

Recipe: Curried Sweet Potato and Squash Soup
Adapted from MarthaStewart.com

Ingredients:

• 1 smaller butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 15 ounces coconut milk
• smoked paprika, to garnish

Instructions: Heat olive oil in soup pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until softened and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add curry powder, ginger and salt and sauté another minute. Add squash, sweet potatoes and broth and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to medium low and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the coconut milk and simmer another 10 minutes. Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender or in a blender. Serve, with a pinch of smoked paprika (and swirl of reserved coconut milk), if desired. Makes 4-6 servings. Enjoy!

I hope you haven’t had your fill of apple recipes just yet, because we have several more to share for the very first round-up of Kids Cook Book Soup. Thanks to all for sharing your apple inspiration, and please read to the end for the November theme announcement! With no further ado…

From Jen at The Gould House, “Eldress Bertha’s Applesauce”

Jen and her 2-year-old daughter, Ella, used apples from their farmers market to make this applesauce. Jen writes, “Ella enjoyed counting the apples, catching the apple peels as they fell into the bowl, and mashing the apples after they were done simmering on the stove.  She also ate her first whole apple while I was doing the chopping.  The applesauce was delicious and it made the house smell so “autumny”—definitely a keeper!”

From Melissa at Little Locavores, Sausage-Stuffed Acorn Squash — with Apples

Melissa created this fall recipe with the thought of appealing to those who don’t like squash unless it’s doused in sugar. I don’t know if it won her farmer’s sons over, but this flavorful dish has extra kid-appeal when served in an acorn squash bowl. (Melissa and her son recently went apple-picking at Seedling Orchards in South Haven, Michigan.)

From Kelsey at The Naptime Chef, Spiced Apple Cookies

Kelsey and her toddler daughter made these scrumptious cookies, with New York McIntosh apples, to occupy a rainy afternoon — just one of many recipes in her “Apple Mania” arsenal.

And here at FoodieTots, Spiced Apple Hand Pies

We picked apples at Virginia’s Crooked Run Orchard, reviewed How to Make An Apple Pie and See the World, and baked kid-sized apple hand pies. Yum!

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And if these aren’t enough ideas to use up the apples in your crisper, here are a few more kid-friendly apple recipes:

• Roasted Cauliflower with Apples and Red Onion – 1 family. friendly. food
• Caramel Apples (with Bacon!) — Backseat Gourmet
• Baked Apples from the White House — courtesy of Obama Foodorama
• Apple Sausage Skillet Cornbread, Apple Celery Soup , and Pork Chops with Apples and Maple-Rum Sauce — FoodieTots


Kids Cook! November’s challenge will be: Family Recipes. With Thanksgiving and the December holidays on the way, please share your favorite family tradition that includes your little ones in the holiday preparations. Entries will be accepted through the end of November and posted the first week of December. Just send an email to foodietots @ gmail . com to participate!

Have you heard of Meatless Monday? We don’t eat meat every night. When do eat meat, it’s local, hormone-free, free-range/grassfed, etc. So on the whole I’m not too concerned about the carbon footprint of our protein choices, but I do think it’s important to have a varied, balanced diet and would like to expand my meatless repertoire beyond pastas and quesadillas. So I’ll periodically be posting Meatless Monday recipes that emphasize beans, whole grains and other (soy-free) forms of protein. Please suggest your favorites, too!

This week’s recipe was inspired by the beautiful piece of fresh ginger and two small acorn squash we got in our CSA bag from Potomac Vegetable Farms. Butternut squash would be a little easier to work with here, as its smooth skin can be easily peeled eliminating the extra cooking step with the acorn squash. But use whichever you prefer. If you do use the acorn squash, reserve the shells for a fun serving dish with high kid-appeal.

Recipe: Curried Squash, Potato and Bean Stew

• 2 medium-sized acorn squash
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 small yellow onions, chopped
• 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped (about 1 tablespoon)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup water
• 8 fingerling or banana potatoes, chopped
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans,* rinsed and drained
• cilantro, optional

Instructions:

If using acorn squash: Halve squash and remove seeds. Place cut side down on lightly-oiled baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until slightly soft. Cool, then scoop flesh out and cut into 1/2-inch chunks.

If using butternut squash: Peel, halve and remove seeds. Cut into 1/2-inch chunks and add to stew with the potatoes.

Heat olive oil in dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and cook 4-5 minutes, until soft and translucent. Add ginger and cook 1 minute. Stir in seasonings and cook 1 additional minute. Add water, stir, then add potatoes and coconut milk to pan. Cover and simmer 20 minutes, until potatoes are fork tender. Add beans and acorn squash to pan and cook another 10 minutes. Makes 4-6 servings.

Notes: I served this stew over brown rice. I intended to use garbanzo beans, but didn’t have any on hand so navy beans stood in instead. You can garnish with cilantro, but it’s actually some spinach from our CSA in the picture.

Get more Meatless Monday recipe ideas from Kim O’Donnel at True/Slant … and please leave a comment with any meatless recipes you’ve enjoyed recently!

We’re already more than a third of the way through our CSA season, and we’ve finally left the abundant leafy greens behind and moved on to the baby vegetable phase. Well, there were some full size sweet onions this week, but everything else seemed perfectly sized for the toddler — baby beets, baby yellow squash, baby potatoes (white and blue), and even a few small tomatoes. One of the things that surprised me our first year with our CSA farm was the lag in the bags behind what’s at the market. Something about quality over quantity, yada yada yada. (Seriously, the farm’s vine-ripened tomatoes are worth the wait, but some weeks can be a little frustrating.) Faced with a shortage of fridge supplies after a week away, the hodge podge of veggies, cheddar from our “emergency” stop at the Wednesday King Street Market for some of Mr. Tom’s cheese, and some random pieces of meat unearthed from the freezer, I came up with this summer veggie nacho supper.

Recipe: Mid-Summer Nachos with Squash and Tomatoes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 bag tortilla chips*
• 1/2 cup tomatillo salsa*
• assorted chicken pieces, diced
• 1 sausage, preferably chorizo but I had Italian
• 1 large or 2 small yellow squash, halved length-wise and sliced
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Instructions: Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Add chicken and crumbled sausage, cover with salsa and cook until meat is cooked through. Remove from heat. Meanwhile, spread tortilla chips on rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with half of the shredded cheese and arrange squash, tomato and onion over top. Spread meat over and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Place under broiler and cook 4-5 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly. Cool slightly and enjoy! Makes 4 servings.

*Chips and salsa from Las Glorias at the Crystal City/Crystal Farms Market.

One Local Summer is an annual challenge in which people around the world join together for 13 weeks of seasonal eating, supporting local farmers and exploring their local foodsheds. Visit FarmtoPhilly on Tuesdays for the weekly round-up; here’s what my neighbors in the Southern region cooked up this week.

We had a July 4th engagement party/barbecue to attend this year {congrats R & A!}, so the menu was out of our hands. The boy and I did make a cherry cobbler to take, though (recipe coming soon). And then we grilled Sunday night instead, a batch of Cheerwine-marinated spare ribs with eggplant and summer squash.

Cheerwine, for those who’ve never had it, is a cherry soda produced in North Carolina. We enjoyed routine deliveries while my little brother was stationed at Ft. Bragg, but have had it less frequently since he relocated.  While made outside the One Local Summer (OLS) 100ish-mile challenge border, we found it while stopping in a Food Lion on Virginia’s Northern Neck to stock up on another regional favorite, Northern Neck ginger ale. I don’t usually drink soda, let alone douse my dinner in high-fructose corn syrup*, but once a year or so we embrace our adopted Southern home and make Cheerwine ribs. This version used small pork spare ribs that were quickly grilled; lower and slower grilling will produce more tender ribs, but this was just fine for an easy meal to wrap up the long weekend. To up the health/OLS factor, we brushed the ribs with a fresh cherry glaze. I prefer a semi-tart cherry like Rainier or Queen Anne, but be warned that those produce a yellow sauce — so go with classic red cherries if you want that red color.

Recipe: Cheerwine Spare Ribs with Cherry Glaze

Ingredients:

Marinade:

• 1.5 lb. pork spare ribs
• sea salt
• pepper
• 2 garlic scapes, thinly sliced
• 1 can Cheerwine (or other cherry cola)

Glaze:

• 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil
• 1 spring onion, white portion, minced
• 1 cup cherries, pitted and halved
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

Ingredients: Season spare ribs with salt and pepper and place in shallow glass pan in a single layer. Sprinkle with scapes and pour Cheerwine over. Cover and let sit in refrigerator (turning if Cheerwine does not completely cover ribs) at least one hour, preferably half a day or longer. To make the glaze, put all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium low heat. Simmer on low until cherries are falling apart, about 20 minutes. Smash cherries with a fork or blend glaze in a food processor or blender until combined.

To cook the ribs, heat the grill to medium high. Reduce to medium and cook ribs for 3 minutes per side. Brush with cherry glaze and cook an additional minute per side. Serve with additional glaze (”cherry ketchup” for dipping if that appeals to your kids.) Serves 4. Enjoy!

Farms of Origin: Smith Meadows Farm (VA, spare ribs), Kuhn Orchard (PA, Queen Anne cherries), Potomac Vegetable Farms (VA, scapes, spring onion, zucchini), Three Way Farm (VA, eggplant, pattypan squash), VA honey. (*You can find glass-bottled Cheerwine made with the original cane sugar formula, but they’re even harder to come by this far north.)