Soup and Muffins for a Snowy Day

I've been a shamefully neglectful blogger lately--I can barely lay claim to the title! But with this post, I can at least claim to have made a post every month in 2012.  Do I get a prize?  I do!  Some delicious curried butternut squash lentil soup and fluffy peanut butter muffins!  

Curried Butternut Squash & Red Lentil Soup
The inspiration for this recipe comes from a blog called Yummy Mummy Kitchen. I made just a few changes to the recipe--including using butternut squash puree instead of pumpkin.  We're still working our way through a bumper crop of butternut squashes that at this rate may just last until May!

2 tablespoons olive oil (or a neutral oil if you prefer)
1 small onion, chopped
1 small apple, peeled and chopped
2 teaspoons (or more, if you'd like) curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 1/2 cups red lentils
48 ounces (6 cups) vegetable broth
2 cups pureed butternut squash (or pumpkin--you could use a 15 ounce can)
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk (if you don't have coconut milk, you could use regular cow's milk or almond milk or  half-and-half or even some yogurt if you'd like)

Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, sprinkle with about 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, and saute until the onion softens.  Add the apple, a few more sprinkles of salt, and saute for about five minutes more until the apple softens as well.  Stir in the curry powder and cumin and cook until they're fragrant.  Stir in the lentils, coating with oil and spices, then add the broth, squash, honey and coconut. Bring to just a boil and then turn heat down to a simmer.  Simmer soup, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or so, until lentils are soft and soup thickens.  You can add fancy toppings if you'd like:  chopped cilantro, a tablespoon or two of some more coconut milk (or yogurt).  But it's pretty good just as it is.  This makes a big pot of soup--would serve 8 easily.

Peanut Butter Muffins
I expected the peanut butter to make these muffins heavy, but they're the lightest muffins I've ever made.  The original recipe comes from another blog, A Pinch of Yum, though I made a few changes to it as well.  The most significant is adding some baking soda to the batter to counteract the acidity of the honey.  I think that's what made them so light and fluffy.  I love that this recipe makes only 6 muffins.  It could easily be doubled, though!

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons peanut butter
2 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons honey
1 cup milk (could use almond or soy milk; I used skim)

Grease a 6-cup muffin tin and set aside. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, soda and salt.  In a smaller bowl, stir the peanut butter, oil and honey together until well blended.  Slowly add the milk to the peanut butter mixture and stir well until thoroughly combined.  Add the milk/peanut butter mixture to the dry ingredients and stir to combine using as few strokes as you can--you want the batter to be mixed together, but it's okay if there a few lumps.  Spoon the batter into the greased muffin tin and put in the oven, checking after 10 minutes--but will likely take 15 minutes for the tops to be dry and springy (and a toothpick inserted in the middle to come out clean).  Makes 6 muffins.

Butternut Squash Rolls for Thanksgiving

We had a bumper crop of butternut squash this year, which we didn't even plan.  A few volunteer plants popped up and then quickly had their way with a corner of our garden.  Luckily they keep well and are a great substitute for any dish that calls for pumpkin (with exception, perhaps, of pumpkin pie).  Mashed butternut squash is a lovely (literally!) addition to these rolls, turning them into sunny little saffron-hued pillows.  You won't taste the butternut squash in them, though I think it does add a bit of depth to the flavor.  You can, of course, substitute pumpkin or any winter squash for the butternut here.

They are adapted from a recipe that appeared in Bon Appetit Nov. 1996.


These rolls can be made ahead, cooled completely, wrapped in foil and frozen until the day you need them.  Take them out of the freezer and thaw for several hours, then heat them, covered, in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Butternut Squash Rolls
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 cup cooked, mashed butternut squash*

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 packet quick-rising yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 more tablespoons of butter, melted

Place the milk, butter and honey in a sauce pan and heat, stirring until the butter melts.  Whisk in the mashed butternut squash, stirring well.  Remove the liquid from the heat and let it cool for about 5 minutes (it should register between 125 and 135 degrees).

While milk is cooling, pulse the flour, yeast and salt in a food processor, combining well.  Put the milk mixture into a measuring cup (or pitcher) and, with the processor on, pour it into the flour mixture.  The dough will form a ball.  Process for about 45 seconds after that to give it a good kneading.

Butter a large bowl and put the dough in it.  Cover it and place it in a warm draft-free spot to rise for about 1 hour until the dough has doubled.  Butter two 9-inch cake pans.  When the dough has risen, turn it on to a lightly floured board and divide into 24 pieces.  Roll each piece into a ball and place them in the cake pans, not touching. Brush with 1/3 of the melted butter.  Cover and let rise again for about 20 minutes until doubled.  (The rolls won't be touching each other at the end of this second rising--but they will plump up in the oven!)

While the rolls are rising, preheat the oven to 375.  When they're ready, brush again with another 1/3 of the melted butter and place in the center of oven, baking for about 25 minutes.  You'll want to turn the pans halfway through to be sure they brown evenly.  Remove from the oven when they are nicely browned and brush again with the final 1/3 of the melted butter.  Makes 24 rolls.

*Bonus Recipe!  Whole Roasted Butternut Squash.  This is as simple as it can be.  Instead of cutting the squash in half and roasting, or slicing off the tough skin and steaming or boiling the squash to make a mash, you can just put the whole squash in the oven and roast it until it's done.  Here's how:  wash the squash if it has dirt clinging to it from the garden, dry it off and place on a lightly greased pan, cookie sheet or even a sheet of aluminum foil.  (You want something to catch any sugary drips that might sneak out while it's roasting.)   A large (3-4 pound) squash will take about 90 minutes to roast.  Smaller squash will take less time.  It's ready when a knife pierces easily all the way through the flesh. When it's cool enough to handle, you can easily peel off the skin and mash the squash for whatever you want to use it for.  When I roast a whole squash, I usually just compost the bulbous seeded end rather than try to scoop out the seeds, since the flesh is so soft, and that gets a bit tedious.