Gingery Roasted Squash Soup and Apple Cheddar Biscuits

(is it finally fall in SoCal?)

Hi friends and welcome! I’m so glad you are here with me today. Happy Friday.

As always, if you’d rather listen than read, the audio is posted above.

It’s the first day of November and it is finally feeling like fall here in Southern California. Today I’m actually wearing a long-sleeved shirt for the first time in months. It’s put me in a holiday shopping mood.

Easy Holiday Gift Shopping

Have you started your gift shopping yet? Hanukkah and Christmas are the same week this year, so if you celebrate both, you get to feed two birds with one scone.

Here are two gift ideas that any foodie friends will love and appreciate.

And no gift wrapping is needed!

• 15 Dinner Recipes for the Rest of Your Life. My first cookbook! An easy-to-download eBook that includes recipes and menu plans. The perfect holiday gift or stocking stuffer for all the cooks in your life. Buy it here: 15 Dinner Recipes for the Rest of Your Life

• Annual Subscription to the Betty Eatz Newsletter. It’s a great gift for someone who loves to eat, cook, or read about both. Buy it here: Gift Subscription

Thanks for supporting small business owners like myself!

Traditions

In the U.S. we are anticipating Thanksgiving in a few weeks. The customary meal includes turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, and rolls. And pumpkin pie. For my family, those items are engraved in stone and absolutely NO ONE wants those dishes changed out or altered in any way.

It used to bother the creative side of me, but I have accepted this and even embraced it. I realized that I do have the other 364 days to tinker around with recipes.

But! Starters and pies are fair game. So this is where we can get down and get funky. The next couple of Fridays you can look forward to recipes for fun starters and pies. There is always room on the table for a creative appetizer or two. And pies! I love playing around with an extra pie with which to end the meal.

But we have to eat dinner between now and Thanksgiving, don’t we?

This week there are two recipes that are great together. The first is a roasted squash soup filled with aromatics and warming spices. It’s so cozy! Second is an apple cheddar biscuit that has become my new favorite quick bread. You can serve the soup as a starter or make it a very autumnal meal on its own.

Before we get to the recipes, I can’t resist sharing some favorite books that are perfect for this time of year.

Thanksgiving Books

When I was homeschooling my kids, we did a lot of read alouds when they were elementary age. As part of our study of early American history, we read the books Sarah Morton’s Day, Samuel Eaton’s Day, and Tapenum’s Day which chronicle the daily lives of a pilgrim girl, a pilgrim boy, and a Wampanoag Indian boy living in 1620s Plimoth (now Plymouth, Massachusetts).

My kids would pore over the pages and photographic reenactments of these people who lived in a time so far removed from ours. They marveled at the daily chores of these children which included making butter, milking goats, cooking meals, hunting, fishing, and harvesting. I was impressed by the perseverance of these children through illness, death of loved ones, and other challenging situations. Something my kids found amusing was the number of under- and over-garments that the pilgrim children had to put on each morning.

All three books are a lovely Thanksgiving read, especially if you have little ones at home or grandchildren you spend time with. You can find these books at just about every public library, so no need to order one more thing from Amazon.

Recipes

Gingery Roasted Squash Soup

Serves 4

Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

All the fall flavors have entered the chat! Tender squash, apples, and a mirepoix with leeks all cozy up to ginger, curry, and turmeric for a soup that is autumn in a bowl. It can also be a nice starter served in small bowls or mugs. Many thanks to my friend Anita for making a version of this for me and to Making Thyme for Health for the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 small acorn squash, cut in half, seeds removed

• 2 Tbsp olive oil

• 3 small leeks, diced white parts only

• 3 carrots, diced small

• 3 celery ribs, diced small

• 3 garlic cloves, minced

• 2 Granny Smith apples, cored and diced

• 2-inch piece fresh ginger, minced (or 1 tsp ground ginger)

• 1 tsp curry powder

• 1 tsp ground turmeric

• 1 tsp kosher salt

• 2 cups chicken or veggie broth

• 1 can (14 oz) full fat coconut milk

• Fresh chopped parsley for garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F/200 C. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil or parchment and set aside.

2. Lightly oil the squash on the outside and cut sides and place cut sides down on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes or until flesh is soft when pierced with a knife. Remove from oven and let cool.

3. While the squash roasts, heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Tip in the leeks, carrots, and celery and sauté for 5 to 7 minutes to soften them. Add the garlic, apple, ginger, curry, turmeric, and salt, stirring to combine. Cover the top and let cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until the apples and fresh ginger are tender.

4. Scoop the squash flesh out of the skins and add to the soup pot. Use a large spoon to break up any clumpy pieces. Tip in the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for another 5 minutes to ensure everything is tender.

5. Reserve 1/4 cup of the coconut milk for drizzling, if desired, then pour the rest of the can into the soup. Remove the pot from the heat.

6. Now, you have a choice to make. If you like your soup silky smooth, you’ll need to pour the contents into a blender and puree until completely smooth. But, if you like a little texture in your soup like I do, use an immersion blender in the pot and blend just until everything is cohesive but some texture still remains.

7. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls, drizzle with a little extra coconut milk, and sprinkle with parsley.

Apple Cheddar Biscuits

Makes 6 biscuits

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Smoky, savory, and slightly sweet, these American-style biscuits bake up flaky and delicious. Upon tasting them, I decided they are my new favorite thing to eat with soup. They are so good! Thanks to Real Simple for the biscuit recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar

• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp kosher salt

• 1/4 tsp baking soda

• 10 Tbsp frozen butter

• 3/4 cup smoked cheddar cheese, shredded

• 1/2 cup Cosmic Crisp, Gala, or Honeycrisp apple, diced small

• 1 Tbsp finely chopped green onion (white and green parts)

• 1/3 cup apple cider

• 3 Tbsp sour cream

• 1 egg, beaten for egg wash

Directions:

1. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment and set aside.

2. Tip the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda into a large bowl. Grate the frozen butter on the large holes of a box grater directly into the flour mixture. It’s okay if your butter is not frozen. You won’t be able to grate it but just dice it into small pieces. Rub the butter and flour together until the mixture is crumbly. Add the cheese, apple, and onion and toss to coat.

3. Stir the apple cider and sour cream together, then pour into the flour mixture and stir until combined. There may still be pockets of dry flour. Using your hands, fold the mixture together, pressing lightly to make a sticky dough.

4. Flour a cutting board and tip the dough onto it. Lightly pat the dough into a rectangle (around 8 x 6”), then fold into thirds like you fold a letter to place in an envelope. Pat the dough into a rectangle again. Repeat the fold and pat it out again to a rectangle. What you are doing here is creating layers of dough and fat that will bake up into flaky layers.

5. Once the dough is patted out to a rough 8 x 6” rectangle, cut into 6 or 8 equal pieces. I like my biscuits big so I did 6 pieces, but do what you prefer. If you like round biscuits, use a 2 1/2” round cutter.

6. At this point, you can cover and refrigerate the biscuits for several hours or overnight before baking. If you plan on baking them right away, place the cut biscuits onto the prepared baking sheet and place it in the freezer. Chill for 20-ish minutes.

7. When ready to bake, heat oven to 425 F/220 C. Brush the tops of the biscuit with the egg wash. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden and completely baked through. Ovens vary, so check them at the 15 minute mark and adjust accordingly.

8. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for a few minutes before serving.

More Recipes

If you want to round out your meal (or are looking for more apple-y things), you’ll find Baby Kale Salad with Apples and Walnuts and Apple Galette with Frangipane on the Betty Eatz website, where the recipes are always free.

Tell Me

What are you looking forward to, or fearing, this month as we approach the holidays? I want to hear about it!

Next week: Two beautiful pies for the holidays. See you next Friday.