Happy Halloween: pumpkin many ways

 Happy Halloween !!

We had fun this year with our Jack-o-lanterns.

We have been enjoying the winter squash as it shows up at our farmer's market as well.
With Halloween over, tomorrow you can pick up pumpkins and winter squash cheaper from those "pumpkin patch" stands. Look for the varieties other than those grown purely for carving: sugar pie, butternut, kabocha, delicata, blue hubbard, etc...

In looking back through my blog I was surprised by the number of recipes using winter squash.

Pumpkin Cake
Pumpkin Cupcakes
Pumpkin Cornbread
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Pumpkin Pie
Winter Squash Biscuits
Stuffed Baked Squash
Kabocha Spice Soup

So buy some squash, steam or roast them, puree them and start cooking !!

Ode to Soup...and a recipe for minestrone.

Oh Soup, how I love thee, let me count the ways...

Over the past few years I have fallen in love with soup.
It used to be a fall and winter thing for me but now I make soup all year round.
 I love pureed soups and chunky soups.
Soup seems to be the best medicine for cold and flu season too.

I have been battling a chest cold the past few weeks and soup has been my saving grace.

I have made carrot ginger soup, green soup, minestrone soup and Hippocrates soup.
I love that soup can be a hearty dinner or a light lunch.
It can be made with one or two ingredients or everything you have in the vegetable bin.
It can be mild or spicy, thick or thin. A meal in a bowl.

Here's how I made my minestrone soup. I like it with lots vegetables and no pasta. It's one of those soups that can use whatever is in the fridge, substitutions are welcome.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1-2 small potatoes, chopped into chunks
1-2 carrots, sliced into coins
1 onion, chopped
1 -2 summer squash
a handful of green beans, snapped into pieces
1-2 celery stalks chopped
1 cup finely chopped cabbage
1-2 cups  cooked white beans
2-3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 cup tomato juice
2-3 cloves grated garlic
sprigs of fresh herbs: oregano, thyme, rosemary ( Dried will work too, easy on the rosemary.)
1 quart stock, vegetable or chicken
1 quart water
salt & pepper to taste
1 Parmesan cheese rind (optional)


1) Saute the onion until is begins to soften, add the celery, continue to cook until it softens.
2) Add the carrots, squash and potatoes, saute some more, stirring the veggies around so they don't burn.
3) Add the stock, water, cabbage, both kinds of beans, herbs, the cheese rind, tomatoes and juice, bring to gentle boil and allow to simmer for 30-40 minutes or until the vegetable are tender but not mushy.
4) Add the grated garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy with a crusty baguette and some cheese.
Sorry I didn't take any photos, it's been a challenging few weeks...I guess I need MORE SOUP !!
Next I 'll make curried chickpea soup or Bob's favorite red lentil.

Red Stick Road Trip Finale: Baton Rouge and New Orleans !

It's time to finish this trip and get on with posting recipes and another travel adventure.

As you may remember the whole point of this road trip was to get Genna to Baton Rouge where she is attending LSU graduate school.

Genna's new home is in the Garden District of Baton Rouge.

 

Here's a house nearby in her neighborhood, so beautiful and classic.

 Here is the cat that lives with her.

I loved Baton Rouge. It was full of charm, very verdant and a bit warm.

Bob found his own way of dealing with the heat as we helped Genna settle into her room.

 She knew she had made the right choice when our first evening in BR she managed to capture not one but two little toads.

While most of our time was spent with the moving in process, we did spent a little time sightseeing in downtown BR, it is the capitol of Louisiana. This castle is the old governor's mansion !!

Bob and I enjoyed touring the USS Kidd, a huge battleship/museum on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River.

Here he is in the "mess",  happy he only has to clean up after me in our small kitchen.

Speaking of food, which had to come up sooner or later, right ??













We did find a couple of fun places to eat in Baton Rouge.

Chimes is the LSU hangout with lots of beers on tap and a high decibel atmosphere. We ate there several times and enjoyed our meals and the beer selection.

My favorite part was the half price oysters on the half shell during happy hour: 4:00 to 7:00.
This is a challenge we were prepared to take on.

The three of us impressed our waiter with the speed with which we consumed our first dozen.

Of course, that was just the beginning...

One morning Bob was desperate for breakfast and the cook at the hotel cafe had not shown up for work...so he went out exploring. He had trouble finding any place open for breakfast but finally found Christina's, it is your classic breakfast place. I was so happy to have my first grits for breakfast.

Bob stuffed himself with biscuits and gravy.
I am sure I don't know what the fascination is with this particular breakfast tradition.











We found a very charming lunch place near Genna's new home. Yvette Marie's Cafe is set amid a cluster of interesting antique and collectable shops.

Since we were so close to famed Big Easy, Genna took a break from moving and joined us for a couple of days of sightseeing and fine dining.

Summer is not the best time to experience New Orleans because it is HOT, very HOT !!
It's hard to walk around in that kind of weather which is our favorite way to explore a city.

I think NOLA suffered too due to our recent time in Paris. It was hard not to compare it to that most amazing of cities.

We did the Garden District and Lafayette Cemetery Tour. While the houses, their history, architecture and current star status was interesting, the cemetery just couldn't hold a candle to all those fabulous ones in the City of Lights. Lafayette had been vandalized by an unscrupulous antique dealer, who was currently serving time for his crimes.

The French quarter seemed to be full of shops from which to buy either cheap souvenirs or expensive antiques. We are not the kind of people who shop much while on vacation. There were also plenty of places to drink, and get drunk...another activity not high on my personal list of thrilling vacation ideas. I do realize that NOLA is known for this.

We did have several very good meals.
One night we dined at Peche.

 While the dish to the right looks messy it was a delightful plate of smoked drum ( fish) with fried white beans, basil and chili aioli.

In order to maximize our taste experience we ordered lots of small plates.

These little fried balls were the restaurant's take on hush puppies. They were crunchy and flavorful, with some kind of dipping sauce I have forgotten ;-)














Our second dinner out was at Emeril Lagasse's NOLA. From the starched white table clothes to the attentive, impeccable service to the fabulous food, it was an great dining experience.

 Here is our pre-dinner family selfie.

I asked for a fun non-alcoholic drink to start with, usually this request is met with disdain or blank stares. At NOLA, I got my first ever virgin Cosmos.

Again we ordered lots of items and shared them around.

 This catfish was so good, crispy and served with dirty rice and pork cracklings, how Southern :-)

The dessert trio of creme brulee was the perfect foil for the rest of the meal. Intense little pots of rich, creamy custard, sigh.


Down the street from our hotel was a fun breakfast place: The Ruby Slipper.

 

I enjoyed several versions of their Pain Perdu ( french toast, literally translated to "lost bread".)

 While we weren't willing ( at least one of our party was not) to wait in line for a table at the famous Cafe Du Monde. We did get him to wait while we got beignet to go. Wish we had had more time to explore the whole beignet world.

There was one other notable place we stopped for lunch after our tour of the Garden District and cemetery. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of it which is too bad, we had the best shrimp and grits there made with a smoked Gouda cheese.

Their farmer's market salad was a welcome addition.

I will leave you a few random photos from our wandering in New Orleans, it is a very colorful and quirky city.