Curried Butternut Squash Soup

Recipe from:

http://www.foodierelations.com/2011/04/curried-roasted-butternut-squash-and.html

Ingredients

• 1 butternut squash
• 2 apples
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbsp curry powder
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper powder (or more to taste)
• 6 cups water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup plain non-fat yogurt

*I also added some ground coriander

First you roast the squash and apples.

Brush them with some oil and then sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Maybe my oven wasn't hot enough because the squash and apples didn't look as roasted as I had expected.

I even left the squash in the oven for an additional 20 minutes!

Onion and lots of spices are added into the soup.

Cook soup on the stove top.

Then puree the soup to desired consistency.

Sweet Potato Upsidedown Cake

I was first impressed by this dessert when my mom made it one night when I was over for dinner  at the Manthei homestead.  She said that my sister had picked out the recipe, and she made it with some skepticism, but the end result was not only visually stunning, it was amazingly delicious! It was so good I wanted to make it again, soon after, in order to feature it here on the The Hungry Oryx, and to share it with my coworkers at the museum.

My mom got the recipe from the October issue of Oprah's magazine.  I found the recipe online as well:

http://www.oprah.com/food/Sweet-Potato-Upside-Down-Cake-Recipe

The first step is creating a  caramel syrup.  Basically you boil sugar and water without stirring, and then you add in butter.

You pour the syrup into a 9" cake pan, and then you layer the thin slices of sweet potato.

Then you mix together the cake, which included rye flour, regular flour, one egg, yogurt, baking soda, vanilla, and other spices.  You put the cake batter on top of the sweet potatoes and then bake at 350 for about 50 minutes.

You let the cake cool for about five minutes and then you can flip it out onto a plate.

I think that when my mom made it, it came out better looking!

Also I forgot to add butter into the cake batter, but the cake still tasted OK with out it!



Strawberry Basil Scones

Strawberry Basil Scones...need I say more??

I used the recipe from this blog:
http://traceysculinaryadventures.blogspot.com/2009/08/strawberry-scones.html
And then added some chopped basil to the mix for that little extra something ;)

Strawberry Scones

from Confessions of a Tart (as seen on The Food Librarian)

1 cup strawberries (or other fruit)

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons butter, in cubes, slightly softened

2/3 cup half-and-half or cream or cold buttermilk

Topping:

1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

If using larger fruit, cut into bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle fruit with 1/2 tablespoon sugar; set aside. Be sure to make the pieces small, or they tend to fall out of the dough. They'll still be plenty prominent in your finished scones.

Combine remaining sugar with flour, baking powder and salt. Add butter to the mixture and cut in using a pastry cutter or 2 knives. Stir in fruit; then add cream/half-and-half/buttermilk all at once. Use rubber spatula to gently stir dough until it holds together.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times to incorporate dry ingredients. Be gentle so you don't break up the berries and don't overwork the dough. Sprinkle dough with flour if it gets sticky.

Press (pat) the dough into a circle 3/4 inch thick. If any berries peek out, push them into dough. Cut circle into 6-8 wedges, then transfer wedges to the cookie sheet, leaving at least 1/2 inch of space between them. Bake 15 minutes.

Sprinkle with sugar and bake 5-10 more minutes or until the tops are beginning to brown and spring back when you push them. (The sprinkling of sugar over the top for the last few minutes of baking creates a simple, sparkly topping.)

Yields 6-8 scones.

Strawberries, Basil and Sugar

Dry ingredients and strawberries ready to be combined in perfect harmony..

.

Presliced and Ready to go into the oven.

(I didn't have any parchment paper around, but these didn't stick to the pan.)

Scones fresh out of the oven!

Carnitas

This was my first time ever making carnitas and it turned out AMAZING!

A lot of the recipes I looked at used a slow cooker or dutch oven to cook the meat, but since I have neither of those items I decided to go with this recipe where you first boil the meat for a few hours and then crisp it in the oven for about 20 minutes:

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/718/Chipotle-Carnitas118108.shtml

7 pounds pork butt
1 1/2 quart chicken broth
1 large onion, quartered
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
2 teaspoons oregano
4 canned chipotle chilies en adobo
2 tablespoons adobo sauce from canned chilies
2 bay leaves
water
salt

(* I also added in an orange quartered and 5 or 6 whole cloves of garlic.)

Cut pork butt in large chunks. Add remainder of ingredients and enough water to cover the pork. Cover the pan and bring to boil on high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until meat pulls apart easily with fork (2-3 hours).

Remove pork from broth with slotted spoon and place in a baking pan. Let stand until cool.
Bake pork, uncovered in a 450 degrees F oven until lightly browned and sizzling (about 20 minutes).

I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use my bird bowls :)

All the fixin's guacamole, cilantro, salsa, onion, limes..

Warming up the tortillas.

Dinner is served!

Delicious!

Strawberry Basil Popsicles

Had some basil leftover from making my Lemon Basil Cupcakes so I decided to make some Strawberry Basil Popsicles.  Used this blog's recipe as a guideline:

http://cookingbride.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/beat-the-heat-enjoy-a-treat/

I changed the amounts though, because my popsicle molds are small, so they don't hold as much.

Basically, you make a simple syrup from brown sugar and water, then puree strawberries and basil in a food processor and then mix in the syrup.

Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for at least 8 hours.

Cat on the kitchen counter! Guarding my knives..

She was not impressed with my popsicles..

These are one of my favorite pops I have made so far!

Lemon Basil Cupcakes

Recipe from:

http://www.lafujimama.com/2011/08/lemon-mochi-basil-cupcakes/

A lemon and basil treat for my coworkers at the NAT.

Of course I have been daydreaming about making this recipe for ages...I have been a bit obsessed with fruit paired with herbs like basil, rosemary, thyme etc.

Anyways, the batter is a mix of mochiko rice flour and regular flour.  Also the usual suspects butter, baking powder, sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon zest and plain yogurt.

This is all the ingredients right before I put my electric mixer to work.

Cupcakes ready to go in the oven.

Basil for the frosting!

The recipe called for cutting a well into the center of the baked and cooled cupcakes and then piping lemon curd into the center.  I had my dear associate Molly Muffinz assist me with this task. :)

Then the lemon basil butter cream frosting was applied to the cupcakes.

Yum yum! These were well received by my coworkers.  I found the lemon curd filling to be a bit too sweet for my liking, but overall these cupcakes were pretty darn good!  In my opinion the basil was very subtle.  Look for more fruit and basil recipes appearing soon on the Hungry Oryx....