Butternut Squash Soup with Caramelized Onions, Rosemary, Goat Cheese and Bacon

From the time I was very small my need for punctuality has caused great anxiety, and still does today, although I feel things have greatly improved. Who can say for sure where it comes from? Most people I am close with are not timely individuals, my family included. Perhaps it's thanks to my grandfather on my mom's side who was a general in the US Air force? His capacity to be precise and punctual is something worth seeing. Whenever we go out for dinner he puts his suit on and parades around the front of the house, frequently announcing in a terrifically booming voice Are you ready yet? It's time to go! Which is met with much frantic grumbling and scurrying about as everyone else tries to catch up. Truth is though, he's just early.

For the past five years, it's as if I've been living in a windstorm of Jude and her madness over time. Madness about getting things done, about being the best, about loving, about not loving, about trying to conquer the world in a day and achieving everything I could and more. It's made me really ill, to be honest, this racing, this frenzy. No, I haven't been in and out of the hospital etc., it's been more of the old western maladie: anxiety over mere existence and losing what we wanted to keep forever. Oh dear. But when you hurry hurry hurry so that you won't miss out, or when you squeeze squeeze squeeze so that you won't lose what you have, it will surely end, as I have unfortunately (and very fortunately!) found out, in tears and madness.

It's because I fear the end of things. It's because I love this place so much, this life, this world, and I don't ever want it to go away. Oh but it will go away! I know. And the only way to be happy while it's slowly going is to know that it is, and that things will change, for better and for worse.
I've spent a lot of time fretting about not having enough time. At the old wise age of 23, I appear to have found a sort of thread of rationality somewhere in the depths of my dramatic exuberant mind, and I know time is tick tick ticking away, but it doesn't seem to bother me as much. When it does, I don't slip so hard and crash to the ground, I just kinda stumble, and then take off running again. I still get up every day and kinda do a little fist pump, a little skip and a hop, ready to tackle mountains of sometimes unachievable tasks; I still plan my days, make lists, worry, grumble, cry etc., but this is drive and this is living and there is a lightness, a warmth, and an ease of acceptance that wasn't there before. It just doesn't feel so heavy, and I'm glad, because with so little time, why and how could we spend so much time worrying about it all?

But how in the heck does this relate to soup?! Well, I was thinking about this while I made the soup and while I wandered around today, going to the library, translating some for work, riding my bicycle. And how I cook with much more patience these days, how I don't look at the clock, how I don't panic about overcooking things (ahem, most of the time). It's like I've let Time have his way with me a little, like I've let him lead.

I've been creating this soup in my head for four days and excitedly planning when and how I was going to make it. Finally tonight I did, listening to Dvorak's New World Symphony super loud, and man, she was a tasty little one.

Butternut Squash Soup with Caramelized Onions, Rosemary, Goat Cheese and Bacon

Makes lots!

3 C chicken stock
1 big butternut squash (about four cups of squash I'd say)
1 massive white onion
1 1/2 C apple juice (or cider)
some rosemary (about 2 TBS)
8 strips of bacon
a small round of goat cheese
salt and pepper

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees C
- Cut the squash in half and place it face down on a baking sheet. Bake until soft (about an hour).
- Cut the onion in half and then into very thin slices. Put the sliced onion into a skillet with butter and olive oil. Fry over medium heat until soft and golden (about 1 hour). Set aside.
- Chop up the bacon into small bits. Fry them in the onion pan. Set aside.
- Chop up the rosemary. Set aside.
- Reduce the 1 1/2 C apple juice to half in the same skillet, so you collect all the good left over charred bits from the bacon and the onion.
- When the squash is done, remove the skin and add the flesh to the stock, already in a pot.
- Add 3/4 of the onions.
- Add the reduced apple juice.
- Blend with a hand blender, or a food processor.
- Taste.
- Add rosemary and some salt and pepper.
- Dish up the soup into bowls, add a dollop of reserved caramelized onion, cover with goat cheese and a handful of bacon. Let the cheese melt for a couple minutes, and then eat.

On the side, I recommend the following Spiced Cranberry Chutney on buttered biscuits or a loaf of homemade bread!

Spiced Cranberry Chutney
As adapted from Lucy Waverman

We made this for Thanksgiving and it was really TO DIE FOR on those sweet potato biscuits. Holy! Plus it cooks itself, which is terrific, and it's not too spendy.

1 green apple, peeled, cored and diced (about 1 cup)
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
½ cup cider vinegar
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon chili flakes
3 cups fresh or frozen cranberries (375-ml package)

Place all ingredients in a medium pot over medium-low heat. Bring to a boil and let simmer gently for 10-12 minutes or until apples are soft and some of the cranberries have popped.

PS I bought some sausages to go along with everything, but I wasn't so hungry, so I kept them for another day. However, if you have more mouths to feed, or some protein hungry monsters on your hands, some sausages would be a welcomed addition, I'm sure. Maybe accompanied by a spinach salad with a honey mustard vinaigrette, dried cranberries and walnuts on the side? Delicious. Also, I have this feeling that putting the chutney into the soup would be quite sublime.

Enjoy dear friends and readers, enjoy.

Asparagus cannot go unmentioned!

Well, here it is, my asparagus post.

Thank goodness I love to cook, I'd be way more stressed out if I didn't (although sometimes I get so excited about what I'm going to cook my heart beats in leaps and bounds) and it's the best way to spend time with people, especially if they are equal food enthusiasts.

Here's what happened: a friend from work, Leigh, with whom I talk constantly about food instead of putting the Arcteryx and North Face jackets back in order, came for dinner with her boyfriend Pat. We made a tomato soup with cream and cognac from the Vegetarian Epicure (if you don't own this, you should get it quick out of the library, or purchase a copy), grilled cheese with gruyère, bacon and roasted asparagus, and tapioca pudding à la vanille.

As far as I'm concerned grilled cheese never fails to impress. In Belgium, they got me through some fiercely lonely rainy days. And in high school, I frequently came home, collapsed dramatically into a chair and said, "Dad, will you please make me something to eat?" He'd say, after a bit of convincing on my part "How 'bout a grilled cheese." And then he'd whip up these neatly browned and buttered cheesy sandwiches, adorned with some ham and tomato we had lying around = comfort food to the T. However, if I ever tried to replicate this experience, it was never quite the same; I always impatiently burned the bread and never let the cheese melt.

So, aside from growing older and much wiser, here are some notes about grilled cheese:

Turn the pan on to medium high, when drops of water sizzle, turn the heat down to medium low. In the meantime, assemble your sandwiches. Then put some fat into the pan. I used bacon fat tonight, but butter is lovely, and even olive oil is supreme. Place your sandwiches in the pan, cover with a lid and wait. Then, when you see the cheese is melting (doesn't have to be completely) and the underside is browning, flip them over.

Make sure you use your imagination! I think my next one will involve black beans, cilantro and chipoltle chile powder.


Hooray for spring and deliciousness!