Easy Peasy "Pashtida" - Dairy free

You can call this a quiche, pie, casserole, or pashtida. I call it yummy.

Ingredients:

• Something sweet and starchy (butternut squash), cooked to soft
• Something green (frozen peas and corn)
• bread crumbs (preferably Panko Japanese bread crumbs)
• About 5 eggs
• About 1 cup of soy milk
• salt
• garlic powder (optional)
• nutritional yeast (optional)

1. It starts with something you need to use up. I had two butternut squash that I peeled and steamed/boiled in my pressure cooker. Mash well.
2. Then look in the freezer and add something green. I mixed about two cups of peas and corn into the hot squash. Baby peas, broccoli, and spinach would all be good choices.

Roated Veggie "Chips" PLUS Quinoa

A friend wrote to me:
"i'm sure you know this and might already prepare it but...this is a wonderful treat we have been feasting on. we got an extra virgin olive oil infused with roasted garlic ... not a cheap overpowering one...we've been slicing eggplant very thin (especially when it's the long lavender ones) brushing them with olive oil, sprinkling some seasoning and baking them on an olive oil brushed cookie sheet. some come out like chips and others are softer and all are addictive!

 on the bigger fatter and darker eggplants we put the kosher salt on the thins slices until they sweat, wash that off to kill any bitterness and then bake at 350 like the aforementioned ones. they are filling and fabulous."

Easy Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

DISCLAIMER: Maybe I had a really good squash. I can't promise your soup will be as amazing as mine.

Pumpkin (or squash) Soup & Easy Lentil Soup

I thought I would share the following two non-recipes I wrote down for my Aunt Nan after I made it when she was visiting last Thanksgiving.  I actually served it in the toasted hollowed out pumpkin.  In America I had more tools and seasoning.  Here in Israel, I just bought a food processor and I don't use boxed broth.

I scraped out all the meat from the pumpkin (or roast the squash until you can peel off the skin easily) (toss the seeds). For Pumpkin - I would start this roasting in the oven if you have that available, but you'll need a really big pan (otherwise just add raw and cook longer).  Then I fried up 3 chopped carrots, 3 stalks of celery, I think 1-2 onions, a couple cloves of garlic, mushrooms and anything else you want (less for smaller squash).  When it's soft, add more oil and flour (I guess this is optional, but I like the flavor it adds to creamy, non-dairy soups.)  I use grapeseed oil, canola is fine.  Let the flour cook and keep scraping the bottom.  Add a little broth now if it's sticking too much.  Add the pumpkin (if it's still raw, it just takes longer)  Here I added a whole carton of "Imagine No-chicken broth", but you could use other liquids, and scrape up all the flour.  Add any fresh herbs like thyme, sage, or rosemary.  My soup comes out a little greenish, but it's yummy, use less herbs if this would bother you.  While it's cooking/simmering add other seasonings.  I like to pull my spices out and sniff them to decide on a good combination, but for this soup, I used a mix of savory (listed above) and sweeter: nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice...  Sea salt, a little fresh ground pepper or chili pepper, I added a drop of honey and agave syrup...You could probably get away with less or different ingredients, I'm just trying to remember what I did.  When everything if soft and smells good, blend with a hand blender or in food processor.

For an easy lentil soup:  You start as above, but skip the sweet flavorings, and use fresh thyme or lavender (leaves only) and definitely use flour.  You will use about 2 cans of lentils (I like the organic red lentils), but blend after adding only half a can and all the spices.  You can blend out a few chunks or random areas at the end, but I like the mouth feel of having a creamy soup with lentils still intact.

A delicious variation I just tried was more Indian style I used more fresh garlic, lots of Cumin, chili powder, a little ginger, and cinnamon, and a can of tomatoes (added in the beginning and completely blended).  Good luck!

You might also like: Hearty Lentil Soup

Butternut Squash Soup

This evening I made butternut squash soup.  Next time I'll try to take better pictures, but I only decided to start this blog after my husband said, "WOW this is so amazing I have goose bumps."

This afternoon I asked my husband to stick the butternut squash in the oven, not knowing what it might become.  I think it was in there a couple hours.  I only remembered about it and pulled it out after I smelled something burning.

After I put the kids to bed (and the squash was cooling) I fried up two carrots, a medium onion, and two cloves of garlic (with canola oil), followed by some baby-bella mushrooms, a tablespoon of margarine, and a tablespoon of flour.  After it was getting all sticky a brown I added some beer.  Normally I'd opt for veggie or chicken broth, but we've had this single beer in the house a couple weeks, and no other appropriate liquids. 

Then I added some more water, maybe 1.5 cups, and the squash, peeled, no seeds.  I let that simmer while I seasoned it with a little black pepper, quality powdered ginger, paprika, and cinnamon.  Salt and fresh herbs would be good, but I just realized I forgot salt, and I didn't have herbs.  Honey or a couple pinches of sugar would also work, but taste to make sure your squash needs it.  I used my food processor to smooth it out, then brought it to my sick hubby in bed and got the reaction above.

This would freeze well.  You can add some water and reheat it on the stove.  You could garnish with roasted sunflower or squash seeds, fried thyme, a dash of paprika, a drop of sour cream...

You might also like Easy Roasted Butternut Squash Soup.