Slow Cooker Thai Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut squash is typically associated with fall but its season is fall to winter when evenings are getting cooler and the amount of sunlight begins to noticeably wane.

This is a super easy yet slightly exotic soup and it is the perfect accompaniment to the changing weather. It would be a great weeknight treat. It's also a good soup to have by the mugful on a chilly weekend while you're reading a book.

I ran into this recipe while continuing my search for ways to use the slow cooker. Karen Raye's Kitchen Treaty food blog is a nice one and is worth exploring. I've added it to my list on the right.

Her Thai Curry Butternut Squash soup is great because there are only five ingredients. The one thing you have to be careful about is the Thai Curry paste. It packs a punch. If you don't like spicy then start with 1 teaspoon. I did two teaspoons and I thought it was good but my spouse thought it was too spicy. You will need to find your comfort zone and/or the comfort zone of those you will serve this to. You can find the paste in many supermarkets these days. If not, you can order it through Amazon.

Thai Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients:

• Butternut squash - 1 medium to large
• Yellow onion - peeled and chopped
• Broth - 4 cups
• Thai Red Curry paste - 1 1/2 teaspoon or to taste
• Coconut milk - 1 14 oz. can (not light)

Directions:

The night before:

• Peel, seed, and dice the butternut squash
• Peel and chop onion

Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

The morning of:

• Add squash, onions, and broth to your slow cooker
• Cook on low for 8-10 hours

That evening:

• Turn off the slow cooker and remove the lid to lower the temperature
• When cooler, use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth
• Stir in the coconut milk
• Stir in the red curry paste

Let the flavors marry. Taste to see if you want to add more curry paste or salt. You can garnish with some roasted pepitas or pine nuts. A sprig of parsley or cilantro can also be added.

Note: One of the questions that came to mind as I was making this is whether or not I could freeze it since it has coconut milk in it. The answer I found online is that it's perfectly acceptable to freeze it. 

Sweet Potato & White Bean Soup

A long time ago, I picked up a slow cooker with the intention of trying to utilize it and take advantage of the convenience. I made a pretty good bean stew and promised to try more. But I haven't really done that and whenever I look at slow cooker cookbooks I always notice how meat-heavy they are.

While walking through the cookbook section of my local library (which I do every time I visit it), a cookbook caught my attention: The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester. I checked it out of the library, brought it home, and proceeded to page through it reading through the recipes. There were easily a dozen recipes that I wanted to try. No more needing to skip through entire chunks of the book to avoid the meat recipes.

With the author being vegan, there are parts of the book dedicated to workarounds particular to vegans. And some of the recipes looked a little bland; written perhaps with the entire country in mind. Here in California, we have so many exotic ingredients available to us. So I immediately noticed places where I could add some changes and upgrades.

I decided to start with this recipe because we had multiple bags of sweet potatoes delivered that needed to be used up. I doctored up the recipe a bit.

On this particular December day, I was able to come home for lunch and get all of the ingredients into the slow cooker. I had an after-work holiday event to attend so I knew I wouldn't be home until a few hours later than usual. So I set this up to be our late dinner.

It was nice to walk through the door and pick up the scent of the simmering soup. This is a great weeknight meal for cooler fall and winter nights. Some good bread and olive oil goes along nicely.

Sweet Potato and White Bean Soup

Ingredients:

• Sweet potato - About 3 medium to small potatoes, peeled and chopped into mostly equal-sized chunks
• Garlic - 3 cloves, minced
• Celery - 3 stalks, cleaned and chopped
• Diced tomatoes - 1 14 oz. can
• White beans - 1 14 oz. can of beans, drained and rinsed
• Veggie broth - 5 cups
• Greens - 1 15 oz. bag of prepared greens. I used a bag of baby kale leaves.
• Parsley - leaves of 2-3 sprigs, chopped
• Bay leaf - 1-2 leaves
• Parmesan cheese - grated
• White pepper - 1/4 tsp or more to taste
• Salt and papper - to taste
• Flour - 4 tbsp

Directions:

The night before:

• Prepare the celery and sweet potatoes and store in air-tight container in the refrigerator.

The day of:

• Add sweet potatoes, celery, herbs, beans, tomatoes, minced garlic, white pepper and broth to the slow cooker and heat on low for 6-8 hours until potatoes are softened. 
• Remove bay leaf and parsley sprigs. 
• Before serving put the flour in a bowl. Ladle some broth into the bowl. Whisk to dissolve the flour. Once it is fully dissolved add it all back to the slow cooker and stir to mix.
• About 20 minutes before serving add in greens and let them cook down.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• Top with some cheese and garnish with chopped parsley leaves.
• Serves 4.

Slow Cooker: Tuscan Bean Stew

I picked up a slow cooker for an incredibly low price recently. It seems they are the media favorite right now. Everywhere you look, (from the supermarket check-out magazines, to emails from Sunset, to the latest cookbooks) someone is touting the virtues of the slow cooker. And then my friends and colleagues were all glowing when I asked them about their slow cooker experiences.

Well, I'm still early in on my journey but so far I've been pretty underwhelmed by the vegetarian slow cooker recipes I've seen and tried. They seem fairly bland and unimaginative. It seems that someone found the recipe book from the 1970s and put those recipes online. Haven't we learned some things since then?

Of course, I realize that I've added the extra challenge of trying fit the slow cooker into a vegetarian/pescetarian household. So I always have to be thinking about the substitute for the meat in recipes.

But I shall continue on my slow cooker journey and report out the worthy ones here. I have a few recipes on deck to try out in the near future. I've added a "slow cooker" label over to the right. too.This slow cooker recipe was actually pretty good. Definitely a great starting point. I might add some additional seasonings next time to make it bolder.

I was also drawn to how this recipe used unusual beans which I have been wanting to explore. The recipe calls for Borlotti beans which I made here for the first time. I was surprised to find them at my local Whole Foods. If you are looking for a good mail order store for rare or heirloom beans then be sure to check out Rancho Gordo.

This recipe was adapted from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle and instead of chicken I used Soyrizo. Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Tuscan Bean Stew

Ingredients

• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 Parmesan rind
• 1 14 oz. bag dried borlotti beans, soaked overnight in water
• 1 14 oz. bag dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight in water
• 5 cups of veggie broth
• About 10-12 crimini mushrooms, sliced
• 1 Soyrizo, squeeze it out of the casing
• 1 28 oz. can San Marzano tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Place the onion, tomatoes, carrots, garlic, rosemary, oregano, bay leaf, Parmesan rind, beans, and broth into the pot of a slow cooker. Turn the cooker on low for 6 hours
• Remove bay leaf, rosemary sprig, and Parmesan rind. Add the mushrooms and cook for 1 more hour
• Add the Soyrizo and cook another hour
• Season with salt and pepper to taste