Recipe Marketplace: Vichyssoise Football Squash
by Monica Pless
VICHYSSOISE: This is a fantastic leek and potato soup, served cold. (Coincidentally, it is a wonderfully satisfying food when you get your wisdom teeth removed and can’t eat solid foods).
INGREDIENTS:
2 leeks, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup thinly sliced potatoes
2 1/3 cups chicken stock
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
1 1/8 cups heavy whipping cream
DIRECTIONS:
1. Gently sweat the chopped leeks and the chopped onion in butter or margarine until soft, about 8 minutes. Do NOT let them brown.
2. Add potatoes and stock to the saucepan. Salt and pepper to taste; do not overdo them! Bring to the boil, and simmer very gently for 30 minutes.
3. Puree in a blender or food processor until very smooth. Cool. Gently stir in a swirl of heavy cream.
Baked Acorn Squash
My brother and I are not typically big cooks - the last time we had Thanksgiving together, we went to the Casino for dinner, so the only food we made ourselves was an apple pie. This recipe, however, is easy enough for even a 28-year-old bachelor to make.
Ingredients:
1 acorn squash
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons brown sugar or 2 cups of soup
(optional: 1-2 apples)
Right before the football game starts, preheat the oven to 350 F. Cut an acorn squash in half. Scoop out the seeds and save to bake as you would pumpkin seeds (they can then be consumed like sunflower seeds during the 2nd half).
Put about a quarter inch of water in a shallow baking pan, set the 2 halves, cut side down, in the pan and bake for 30 minutes (check after the first quarter) at 350 F. (you can bake the seeds at the same time). Take them out and spread butter on the insides, and put them back in until they’re soft (10-20 more minutes - should be done by halftime for sure!). Then take them out, spread with more butter, and add in brown sugar and chopped walnuts. If you are really adventurous, you can sauté apples in butter and toss them in as well. You can now eat right out of the squash halves, you don’t even need a bowl!
(Variant: cook as directed, adding only the butter, not the brown sugar, and then heat up soup and pour it into the squash halves to create the less famous “soup in a squash bowl” - This can be messier though if your squash bowl splits, so it’s best to put the entire bowl inside a larger bowl or pot)