Butternut Cider Bisque

Okay, so this is one of my blog posts that has a long involved back-story, and since there is nobody here to tell me to cut to the chase except for the dog (who can't talk) and the Southern husband (who is WAY too smart to say anything of this nature) I'm going to go ahead and tell it.  Take comfort in the fact that it will be broken up with some entertaining pictures.  At least I think they are entertaining.

So to start at the beginning, a while back I was invited to take a series of pictures of chefs from restaurants in our area.  For a food groupie like me, this was a fabulous assignment, and I met a bunch of terrifically talented people this way (and got to sample some rocking good food along the way.)  Here's the first chef I photographed for this project:

Chef Chris Calcagno.  I know, it was a hard assignment, but someone had to do it.

Anyway.

Part of the assignment was to photograph each chef holding a copy of their favorite cookbook, which worked out to be double bonus points for me, because what better recommendation can a cookbook have then to be a chef's favorite?  So of course, I followed the directions and asked Chef Calcagno to please bring a copy of his favorite cookbook to be photographed with.  He selected THE NEW RED LION INN COOKBOOK.

Now on this particular shoot the Southern husband was helping me.  Which he is great at, and which has the added benefit of me being able to order him around and not get any back-talk.  Anyway, he was browsing through this book while I was doing the rest of the shoot, and he must have liked what he saw because lo and behold, I came home to find my very own copy sitting on my desk a couple of weeks later.  (Which made me feel a little tiny bit guilty about the whole ordering-around thing.)

I promise there is a point to all of this and here it is: this fabulous butternut soup is taken from this great cookbook.  It's a thick, delicious soup that involves cooking up chopped onion, carrots, celery, fresh thyme and a whole lot of butternut squash in a mixture of chicken broth and cider, and then pureeing the whole thing.  When you have it all nice and smooth and pureed, the recipe gives you the choice of thinning it down with either more broth, more cider or heavy cream.  I had about 1/4 cup of heavy cream in my fridge and it seemed like destiny to  me, but honestly, it would have been pretty much close to perfect even without that.  I swirled a teeny bit of cinnamon on the top and got this:

But I couldn't leave well enough alone.  No, I knew in my heart of hearts that there was one more thing that could push this soup over the edge to true greatness.

Yep.  Popcorn.  (Red Lion Inn people, if you are out there, I hope I didn't just horrify you.)  But it brought just the right amount of salty crunch to this sweet and scrumptious soup.  I put the popcorn in a bowl right there on the table and we scattered it on top as we ate...the popcorn will sink pretty quickly as it absorbs the soup, but trust me when I say this is a GOOD thing.

I will be quiet now and give you the recipe already.

Butternut Cider Bisque, adapted from the New Red Lion Inn Cookbook

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 large onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, sliced
• 1 pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into cubes
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 5 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups apple cider
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (optional but great)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Cinnamon sugar for garnish
• Popcorn for garnish (also optional and also great)

1. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat and saute onions, carrot and celery for about 5 minutes.  Add squash and thyme and saute, stirring, for another two minutes.

2. Add stock and cider and simmer until squash until very soft, about 30 minutes.  Remove from heat.

3. Puree with immersion blender or in blender until smooth.  Return soup to pot and add cream if using, and salt and pepper to taste.  Reheat over low heat.

4. Serve, garnished with cinnamon sugar.  Put popcorn on table for diners to add as desired.

Click here for printable recipe 

Bacon Cashew Caramel Popcorn

Now you have to admit, I have been very well-behaved in terms of the bacon recipes lately.  I didn't put any bacon in the pumpkin granola, or the marshmallow frosted cupcakes, or even in the spaghetti tacos.  I am practically going through bacon withdrawel over here.  And the only antidote might be this CRAZILY good popcorn.  Bacon, cashews and popcorn, all held together with just a little bit of caramel and with a little red pepper tossed in just to keep you on your toes.  It's hard to describe how completely, totally, addictively good this is.  All I will say is, one minute that jar was full up with popcorn, and the next it was empty.  It's all kind of a blur to me.  A happy, sweet, salty blur.

This recipe comes via the wonderful Saveur magazine (who called out my little blog as one of their "Sites We Love," so I in turn will love them forever), and they got it from someplace in Denver called Colt and Gray.    I had never heard of Colt and Gray before this recipe, but based on this popcorn recipe alone, I love them too.  It's part of their bar menu (don't you just love bar menus???) and I could easily eat it for dinner all by itself.

Here's the deal.  Pop up about 15 cups of popcorn (which is about 1/2 cup of unpopped popcorn kernels, which doesn't make sense to me but it's true.)  This will mean your popcorn ends up with just a tiny bit of caramel on each kernel, which was perfect from my point of view, but if you like more caramel on your caramel corn, cut the popped popcorn down to 10 or 12 cups.  Cook up some bacon, crumble it up and toss it in with the popcorn.  Add in some cashews, some coarse salt and some red pepper.

Now comes the fun part: making the caramel.  You bring some cream to a boil with a tea bag, and let it sit for a while.  (Tea bag?  I don't know, and I wasn't going to ask any questions.)  Then you boil up some sugar, water and corn syrup in a large saucepan until the sugar melts and turns amber-colored.  Now comes the dramatic part: pour in the cream...it will bubble up and then before your eyes you will have a pan full of beautiful molten caramel.  Quickly pour it over your popcorn mixture, quickly stir it up to coat everything with just a touch of caramel loveliness.  Now turn the whole shebang onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and let it cool until the caramel hardens.  Then comes the hardest part of all: trying not to eat it all in one fell swoop.  Good luck with that part!

 Bacon Cashew Caramel Popcorn, adapted from Saveur

• 1/2 cup popcorn kernels, popped to make 12-15 cups popcorn
• 6 ounces bacon, cooked and chopped
• 1/2 cup cashews
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tea bag (regular black tea)
• Cooking spray
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1. Combine popcorn, bacon and cashews in a large bowl.  Sprinkle with salt and cayenne and toss to coat,.

2. Bring cream and tea bag just to the boil and remove from heat.  Let sit for 15 minutes, press on tea bag and remove.

3. Line baking sheet with foil and coat with nonstick spray.  Spray two large spoons with cooking spray as well.

4. Stir sugar, water and corn syrup in large saucepan over medium low heat until sugar dissolves.  Increase heat to high and boil without stirring until  syrup turns amber, occasionally swirling pan.  This will take about 15 minutes.  Remove from heat and immediately add cream - mixture will bubble up - don't panic!

5. Immediately pour mixture over popcorn, being Very Careful - it's hot.  Toss with the sprayed spoons until well-combined  and transfer to baking sheet.  Cool completely and then break up into chunks.

Click here for printable recipe

Peanut Butter Popcorn

We are big old popcorn lovers in this house.  And not just the microwave variety of popcorn, although I am perfectly okay with that in a pinch.  No, we have a jar of the old-fashioned kernels, and a great Cuisinart popcorn popper than involves a little oil and some salt and melting up some butter.  And I thought that was pretty much the best route to old-fashioned popcorn.  Until my friend L sent me this.

And I have to admit, I was a doubter.  Six ears of rock-hard corn.  It sat in my cabinet for a good long while, until the day that I decided to try this recipe I had kicking around for peanut butter popcorn.  And since I knew the popcorn was going to get drenched in a coating of peanut butter marshmallow wonderfulness, I thought, why not try the corn-cobs?  So I hauled them out of the cabinet and took a look at the label.

The deal is that you take one of those ears, put it in a brown paper bag, put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, and voila!  Perfect and delicious popcorn without a chemical in site.  What took me so long???   I'm a believer.

So then it was on to the peanut butter popcorn, which as I mentioned above, involves making a mixture of marshmallow and peanut butter and regular butter, melting the whole thing together and stirring it into a bowl of popcorn and peanuts.  Spread it out on some wax paper, let it cool and harden, and life is pretty close to perfect for a while.  

Next time I am going to drizzle just a little melted chocolate over the whole thing - what do you think???

Peanut Butter Popcorn, adapted from Allrecipes

2 3.5 ounce packages microwave popcorn, popped (or the equivalent)

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup peanut butter

20 large marshmallows

1/2 cup salted peanuts

 1. Pour popcorn and peanuts into a large bowl.  Preheat oven to 250.  Line cookie sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray.

 2. In a glass or plastic bowl, combine the margarine, brown sugar, and marshmallows. Cook at 1 minute intervals in the microwave, stirring between each time, until the mixture is melted and smooth. 

 3. Stir in the peanut butter until well blended. Pour the melted mixture over the popcorn, and stir quickly to coat the corn before it cools.  Pour in single layer onto cookie sheet.

 4.  Bake for 30 minutes, stirring after 15 minutes.

 5. Cool, and I dare you not to eat the entire batch in one sitting.  :)

Click here for printable recipe