Help, I’m Drowning In Summer Squash (AKA, here’s a great Curried Squash Soup Recipe!)

  I was desperately looking through recipes trying to find something to do with all of this extra squash I suddenly have on hand. Normally, I have tons of zucchini and have found ways to use it up BUT for some reason none of my zucchini plants were happy this year. May have something to do with being on bed rest, ya think?

No luck on something sounding like a recipe my overly finicky tastebuds would like right about now. Yellow squash is, well, slimy if not handled correctly. Most of the recipes seemed like they just encouraged that in the final dish.

Unlike most normal people, I actually enjoy a nice soup when the weather is hot. Simple to prepare, light and not too heavy on the calories. An added plus is finding yet another way to get more vegetables into my diet. So I looked at some ideas from other peoples recipes and decided to use a trick I learned when I came up with my cream of asparagus soup- add potato for richness and to balance out the slippery mouth feel that pureed squash is known for.

I liked the idea of adding curry and ginger to give the soup an oriental twist. Sure enough, the recipe works for me. You may feel the need to adjust the amount of curry, even adding more chicken broth if you feel the need- go ahead, it’s your soup after all!

Curried Yellow Squash & Potato Soup

• 1 onion, minced
• 1 potato, diced
• 2 medium yellow squash, diced
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp Fresh Ginger, minced
• 1 clove Garlic, minced
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 Tbsp Curry Paste or Powder (add more to taste)
• 4 cups chicken stock
• ½ tsp salt (or to taste)
• 1 Tbsp Fresh parsley, finely minced

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and sauté the onion, potato and the squash until golden brown, about 10 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add the ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes and continue cooking for a couple more minutes to allow the fragrance of the ginger and garlic to come out.
3. Add the curry and stir in well. Now add in the stock and salt to taste. You may want to add a little more curry depending on how it tastes to you.
   Allow the soup to cool and using a stick blender, puree (or just pour into a regular blender if that’s what you have)
4. Reheat and place the soup into 2 soup bowls and sprinkle with the fresh parsley.

Serve with fresh, crusty rolls or flour tortillas that have been grilled  over high heat until brown spots appear.

Related articles

• Soups For The Summertime (jovinacooksitalian.com)
• Summer Squash Fritters from Aggie’s Kitchen (blogher.com)

Lemon Balm Pesto Pasta (Use for our herbs #5)

Lemon balm is a delightful mint herb that has a lemony fragrance and taste. In fact, it is often used in recipes in place of citrus zest.

I started growing lemon balm when it was listed in an AARP magazine article on how certain herbs can help you stay sharp as you get older. It seems that some herbs such as lemon balm have been proven to help improve mood and mental performance in older persons.

According to Wikipedia, it also has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties. I think I am going to add this to my citrus sage tea for yet another tasty boost of flu prevention!

BTW- if you don’t have lemon balm handy, use basil- it will still be great!

If you love pesto, you will love Lemon Balm Pesto Pasta for 2:

• 1/3 cup Napa olive oil
• 1 cup freshly picked lemon balm leaves (discard the stems)
• 2 cloves garlic, halved
• 2 T fresh parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 t lemon zest
• 4 T Walnuts (about 2 whole walnuts will do)
• salt and pepper to taste

Place the olive oil in the bottom of your food processor.
Add all ingredients except salt and pepper.
Add the salt and pepper a little at a time until it tastes right to you!

If you don’t have a food processor, finely chop the above ingredients and blend well.
Toss with your favorite pasta.

More Great Uses:

Poach some tilapia fillets and serve them over a bed of sauted spinach.
Top the fish with the pesto and serve.

Make Pesto BLTs using: crispy bacon, heirloom tomatoes, lettuce, whole barley bread.
Butter the bread well with the pesto and layer on the goodies- guaranteed to be a favorite!

Wine Suggestion: Try a Sauvignon Blanc with this one.

Related Articles

• Taking Basil Beyond Pesto (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Make it Yourself Monday: Pesto (momblognetwork.com)
• Recipes for Health: Beyond Pesto: New Ideas for Basil (nytimes.com)

The Best Fried Chicken recipe starts with farm raised chickens

Image via Wikipedia

I am often asked about the best way to cook our chicken so that the wonderful taste doesn’t get lost in the ingredient list. The best answer is to just relax and use your favorite recipes- but there are a couple of things to keep in mind to get the best results.

One of the first things that people notice if they choose the Amish Ranger chicken is that the meat is darker. It is also denser, and the pieces of meat are usually larger than what you may be used to cooking.

That being said, when cooking this meat, go for a little longer cooking time and a lower temperature. Personally, I prefer to brine my poultry for a couple of hours before cooking so it stays moist and tender.

We are big fried chicken fans here at the ranch. I recently discovered a great recipe by Tyler Florence called the Ultimate Fried Chicken Recipe. He starts by brining the chicken for 2 hours and goes on from there. The results are fabulous!

Related Articles

• Thomas Keller’s Fried Chicken Recipe (averagebetty.com)
• Recipe makeover: Lemon-ginger fried chicken (cnn.com)
• Healthy Chicken Adobo with Quinoa (thismamacooks.com)

Note: If you look at Thomas Keller’s recipe above, he calls for a smaller younger chicken than you usually find. We can supply the chickens at that age for you if you can let us know in advance!

1001 ways to quickly prepare healthy chicken meals

Cover via Amazon

Ok- that should have got your attention.

I really wasn’t planning on typing out 1000 recipes, more like sharing some of my tricks for getting good food onto the table fast. What to do with that tasty free range bird you brought home after you exhaust the usual options of roasting or bbq’ing?

We (for obvious reasons) eat a lot of chicken here on the ranch. I prepare all the usuals- picatta, fried, sweet and sour, pot pie, etc. But being super busy (we have no outside help as we are just too small an operation to hire anyone- yet) my all time favorite way to cook my chickens is to poach a couple of birds and freeze the cooked meat in little pouches that will thaw quickly when needed.

I was pleased to see an article in the San Francisco Chronicle recently on the very subject! It explains the poaching process and gives several delicious ways to use the bounty when cooked.

They point out that a 5 pound chicken makes up at least 2 pounds of cooked meat once you take away the bones and the skin. Because there are normally only the two of us for dinner, that will make a generous 4-5 meals.

See the Poached Chicken master recipe (included in the above article) that can be used for many types of recipes. This can easily be adapted for other uses by leaving out the ginger and adding vegetables or herbs of your choice.

I also love the tip for making Uncle Yuen’s Chicken Sauce:

Combine 2 parts double strength chicken broth (the extra water is boiled off at the end of the chicken poaching time)

Add 1 part Oyster Sauce
A dash of pepper
A drop or two of toasted sesame oil

A recipe for summer vegetable salad with poached chicken, Banh Mi-Style Chicken Sandwiches and Glass Noodles with Napa Cabbage and Poached Chicken is also included for you to try. Thanks so much to Lynne Char Bennett

Homestyle Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

The next page of the newspaper brought yet another great use for poached chicken from the Green Chile Kitchen in San Fran (leave out the ginger for this one). If you don’t have access to fresh new mexico or anaheim chiles, go ahead and substitute canned ones.

Thanks Tilde Herrera for the great article!

Well that is 4 recipes to get you started but you won’t need to look very hard to find the other nine hundred something more. My favorite resource when I get stuck is my 1950 something edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook. It has so many good uses for “leftover” chicken (try the chicken ala king over toast points for true comfort food).