New blog series: The Food Matters Cookbook

I'm starting an experiment here in the New Year - stick with me and let's see how it goes.

One of my most favorite birthday presents this year was The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman, thanks to my wonderful Aunt Susan.

I'm a big fan of Mark Bittman's - I've watched his cooking shows on PBS, I read his blog, I read his column in Bon Appetit and his Minamalist column in the New York Times, I follow him on Twitter, and I've made his recipes many a time. (I seriously am not stalking him, though now I realize it kind of sounds like I am ...)

Regardless, I am really drawn to his philosophy of eating more plants and fewer animal products and processed foods. In addition, his recipes are generally simple and straightforward and, from what I've tried, very tasty!

I love reading cookbooks of all types, and have an entire overflowing cabinet in our kitchen devoted to them, though I generally turn to the internet or the most recent cooking magazine when I am looking for something to cook. I like to make new recipes all the time and only rarely return to make the same thing twice, and it must be very good for me to do so (thanks for this personality quirk, Mom). I was excited to read this new cookbook, but was thrilled to find that I wanted to make almost everything in it! How often does that happen?

So, I made our grocery list today with items for 4 recipes from the book, for just this week. I was practically licking the bottom of my soup bowl tonight and thought maybe this would be a good blog feature ... not Julie and Julia, mind you ... but keeping me on track with my goal to try new things from this book.

Wanna play along?

Here we go with Roasted Butternut Chowder with Apples and Bacon
*adapted slightly from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook

*I'll try to take better pictures next time, since this one was a (messy) afterthought.

Makes: 4-6 servings
Time: about 1 1/2 hours, mostly hands-off

1 butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled, seeded, and cut into cubes
1 large onion, chopped
2-3 large apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
4-5 bacon slices, chopped
4 cloves garlic in skin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh sage, or 1 teaspoon dried
1/2 cup dry white wine or water
6 cups vegetable or chicken stock

- Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spread the squash, onion, apples, bacon, and garlic in a deep roasting pan or on 2 baking sheets. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Toss with your hands. Roast, stirring every 15 minutes, until everything is tender and brown and the bacon is crispy, about 45 minutes.
- Remove the roasting pan(s) from the oven. Separate the 4 garlic cloves and set aside. Scrape the rest of the veggies and bacon into a soup pot on the stove.
- Pour the wine into the roasting pan, swishing around to get all the good flavor bits, and pour into the soup pot.
- Add the sage to the pot.
- Cut the tip off the garlic clove and squeeze out the roasted garlic into the pot.
- Add the stock and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook, uncovered, until the squash, onion and apples break apart to thicken and flavor the broth, about 25 minutes. You can stir with a spoon or mash with a potato masher to speed it along.
- Taste, adjust the seasoning, and serve!

Mr. Bittman suggests making this with any combination of root vegetables (celery root, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas) substituted for the butternut squash.

Tips:
- The final soup can be as chunky or smooth as you want it. Cut your pieces of fruit and vegetables to a size that you could easily eat with a soup spoon.
- Do you battle with butternut squash like I do? I love eating it, but hate cutting it. I finally got it right today - carve it like you would a whole pineapple. Slice a little bit off the stem end and the root end to make it stable. Cut the squash in half, right where the neck meets the rounded end. Stand up the neck and slice the skin off (carefully!) with a sharp knife, just like you would the peel of a pineapple. Cut into cubes. Stand up the rounded bottom, and again slice the skin off carefully, like if you were removing the peel of a grapefruit. Slice in half and remove the seeds with a spoon, if you wish. I slice the rounded end into eighths and just cut out the seeds and strings. You don't lose that much squash and it is so much faster!