Fancy-Pants Sausage Squash Soup/Stew

Normally, I wouldn't bother making a fancy soup that involves putting the soup into the blender and back into the pot. However, I tried it recently and realized that it is worth the few minutes it takes to transform a simple squash soup into something similar to what I would get at a restaurant. When you puree the squash, it looks like a creamy soup even though you didn't add any cream or milk. Some people would insist on adding cream or dairy to make it richer but honestly, I don't think it was necessary. So, for vegans, this might be a good way to have a fancy soup that suits your diet needs. As a bonus, according to MyFinessPal, this recipe is loaded with Vitamin A and Vitamin C. Eat a bowl of this and you'll have enough of those vitamins for the day. Eat a big bowl of this and you'll be overdosing on those vitamins, which is not such a bad thing to do.

The ingredients can vary according to whatever you like but you definitely need some winter squash to create a creamy-looking soup, whether it's acorn squash, butternut, or whatever's on sale at the market. Pureeing at least some of the potatoes and chickpeas with the squash will also make the soup a little thicker.

Ingredients:
(serves 6 to 10 people, depending on their appetites and whether this is the meal itself or an appetizer)

1 package of Turkey smoked sausage sliced into thin coins (e.g. 14 oz Butterball) (leave out if you're vegetarian and add something else that has salt and spices in it)
A bunch of kale (or whatever green stuff you have in the fridge) chopped
3 to 6 cloves of garlic (as you like) chopped
2 to 3 tomatoes (diced)
1 to 2 onions (diced)
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 medium potatoes (diced)
2 small winter squash or 1 medium/large winter squash (cubed)
2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 cup of water
possible seasonings: cumin, soy sauce, finely diced jalapenos, Frank's hot sauce, black pepper, nutmeg

After everything is chopped and sliced, put it all into a slow cooker for about 4 hours at around 150F. If you have time and would like to be extra fancy, saute the garlic and onion in olive oil before adding to the pot. If you don't, just dump it all into the pot. At the end of the 4 hours, put the squash and vegetables into a blender with some liquid. Leave the sausage in the pot. There should be plenty of liquid in there because the vegetables give off a lot of moisture in addition to the cup of water that you added at the start. The trick is to let the soup cook and to avoid opening the cooker while the soup is cooking. Puree the squash and liquid in a couple of batches. The soup is hot, so if you put too much in, the blender top might fly off. Put the pureed soup back into the pot to warm until it's time to eat.

Also, you don't have to puree all of the squash and veggies. It's nice to have a few chunks in there for texture. Actually, I like leaving most of the potato in there in chunk form. The chickpeas also add some interesting texture to the dish. If you're trying to impress someone, drizzle some olive oil on top of the soup when you serve it.

JP Kitchen - in Jamaica Plain

The first time I went to JP Kitchen, I ordered the seafood special. It came with a bread roll instead of rice. Whatever. When I got home, I was a little surprised to see that it was deep fried, which is not a bad thing but I was expecting that it was cooked in a wok. Whatever. There were a few chunks of fake crab and the jalapenos kinda threw me off. I liked the squid and shrimp though. It was tasty but I wanted to try something else. This is the kind of dish that needs another dish to go with it.

Salt & Pepper Seafood

A couple of days later, I tried their combo #34. It included lobster sauce, which is actually made of pork. I really liked the fact that it came in a separate container with a lid, within the box. At some places, they just  put it in one of the dividers of the box so it spills all over the place. JP Kitchen's lobster sauce is also unique because there are scallops in the sauce! At first, I was wondering what that round white thing was and was pleasantly surprised to find not just one, but 3 scallops! The rice was good and had plenty of shrimp. Not too salty either. I'm usually ambivalent about crab rangoon but these were actually quite good. I'd actually order this combo again in the future. As you can tell in the picture below, it's a lot of food and enough for at least two meals. You might want to add some sauteed veggies to make it a healthier meal though.

Combo #34 - shrimp fried rice, crab rangoon, and lobster sauce

The lobster sauce has scallops in it!

If you can't finish the lobster sauce, save it to use for cooking some vegetables such as Chinese cabbage or spinach. It's a tasty sauce that you can put in a frying pan, add your chopped veggies, and make a nice side dish in about 10 minutes or less. Or, if you're just really lazy, make some rice and pour the sauce on top for a meal.

More dishes from subsequent visits (to be updated with each visit):

 Click on the pictures for a larger image.

Scootin' in Boston - Searching for Ribena

In this episode of Scootin' in Boston, the Poor Student rides from Route 9 to Kiki's Kwik-Mart (in Brighton) via Washington Street. For those of you who are not familiar with Ribena, it's a British black currant syrup that used to be available in Asian markets. However, the only place in town that carries it in Boston now is Kiki's in Brighton. If anyone knows of other places that carry Ribena, please leave a comment.

The video footage was from a Sunday afternoon ride at the end of August, before the students moved back to Boston. There was very little traffic and it was nice ride.