My Ancho Butternut Squash Soup

This butternut squash soup recipe arose largely from one of my many aimless meanderings through the grocery store. I generally grab the first vegetable that looks good, and build a meal around it.

It turned out to be a perfect fall recipe, as well as a perfect soft food for this insane diet my doctor put me on to help heal my TMJ. I just try not to think of it as adult baby food. Ancho chili paste adds a wonderful smokiness to the soup, and just a little bit of spice to accent the squash's sweetnesss.

The benefit of buzzing down a soup into a smooth consistency is that you can include a bunch of vegetables besides the ones creating the main flavors of the dish. I added fresh green beans and tofu, and couldn't tell the difference. You could even add spinach or kale for some extra vitamins.

Ingredients

• 1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1" cubes
• 2 yellow potatoes, cut into 1" cubes
• 4 carrots, cut into 1/4" cubes
• 1/3 of a sweet yellow onion, roughly chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 head fennel or anise, sliced thinly
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 large tomatoes, diced
• 3 cups roughly chopped green beans
• 1 package silken tofu, cut into
  
• 4 vegetable bullion cubes
• 1 can vegetable broth
• 4 dried ancho chilies, stems pulled off
• 1 1/2 cup water
• 2 cups sour cream
• optional garnish, crumbled Gorgonzolla
  

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large stock pot. When it starts to glisten, add fennel, onion, and garlic. Cook until onions start to turn translucent. Be careful not to let garlic burn or brown. About five minutes.
2. Add 1/3 of the can of vegetable broth to deglaze the bottom of the pot and stir to incorporate any caramelized bits.
3. Stir in tomatoes and let them cook down. About eight minutes.
4. Add squash, carrots, potatoes, broth, and bullion. Pour in water until it comes to an inch from the top of the vegetables. The amount of water will depend on how much juicy the tomatoes are.
5. Bring to a boil, stirring lower vegetables to the top of the pot occasionally. Let cook for 30-40 minutes, or until carrots and squash are very soft.
6. While vegetables are boiling, microwave the 1 1/2 cups water in a wide bowl for two minutes. Set the chili pods in the bowl for about 10 minutes, until reconstituted.
7. Buzz chili pods and water in a blender or food processor until they become a paste.
8. When vegetables are soft, transfer contents of the pot into a blender or food processor, and buzz down to a smooth conistency. Add a little of the sour cream and tofu to each batch so they don't cool down the soup too much.
9. Serve immediately with garlic bread or crumbled Gorgonzola as a garnish.

My Tandoori Find

No idea where it came from, but it saved me from having to make a sandwich again today. Once again the food gnomes have left lunch out for me on the kitchen counter. Indian today.

I swear, sometimes it's like the ghost of my still-alive mother is protecting me from before the grave.

Tandoori chicken (spicy yum), basmati rice (eh), dahl soup (smooth yum), saag paneer (ick)

Again, no idea where it did come from but I'll take the chance to promote a great Indian spot nearby that has been fantastic every time we've been there: Lal Mirch.

My Catch Up (hold the ketchup and catsup)

Heh. Uh ... hi.

You may not remember me. I'm the blogger who writes My Cubicle Lunch.

I've been really busy lately. No, really. I've had lots of work, and classes, and dance parties, and season 5 of Smallville on DVD. It's just so much!

I just kind of haven't been ... blogging. But I have been photographing what I've made and/or reheated!

So here it is, folks, my list of recent cubicle meals for your mild voyeuristic amusement:

9.4.07
My Southwest Bean and Basil Salad













Ingredients:

• 3 cups fresh spinach
• 1/4 cup fresh Santa Monica Farmers (SMF) Market basil
• 1/2 cup fresh SMF green beans (they're really sweet when fresh), broken in halves or chopped
• 1/4 cup black beans
• 1/4 cup sliced red grapes
• parmesan or cotija cheese to taste
• crumbled tostaditas for texture, and to make the neat little spire on top

9.5.07
My Basil-Tofu Open Faced Sandwich














Ingredients:

• 2 slices oat bread (lots of fiber, with a little sweetness)
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon whole-seed dijon mustard (great texture)
• 1 small vine-ripened tomato
• 1/3 cup fresh spinach
• 1/4 cup fresh SMF basil (yeah, still trying to use it up)
• 1 patty firm tofu, drained and sliced horizontally
• 1/2 avocado, sliced
• 1/8 cup black beans
• pickle slices to garnish

9.13.07
My Doctored-Up Pad Thai Leftovers















From Original Thai. I just microwaved and added some un-cooked, sliced zucchini to get more veggies in it. I also like the crisp contrast of texture it adds.

9.17.07
My Empty Pockets














Broke, out of money, destitute, hungry. At least I have a few slices of bread and a jar of peanut butter left in my desk's nether realms. Also, I get to take the new plate I bought over the weekend for a test lunch.

PSA:
Please use non-disposable plates, cups and silverware at work. What you save in plastic and paper could be the earth's future.

(*step down from soapbox*)

9.27.07
My Paycheck Hasn't Gotten Here Yet













Another day of peanut butter toast for lunch, but at least I dressed it up with apricot preserves and banana slices. If I could only fry it, Elvis would be proud.

Thankfully, my coworker ordered too much at lunch (or saw me losing weight), and brought me her Original Thai salad role. She's such a good friend, I don't have the heart to tell her that I don't think these things are all that. But beggars and choosers, etc.















9.28.07
My Fatty Payback for a Month of Healthful Eating

















1 carne asada burrito with a ginormous horchata (no ice -- it's a waste of valuable horchata space)

I've been craving a good burrito all week. This was not it. Casita Taco al Carbon may be a convenient taco shop for my office, but it's far from a great one. The meat was mediocre and laced with too much un-chewable gristle, the tortilla was certainly not made on the premises, the rice and beans did not run consistently through the length of the burrito, and the cardinal sin of all: the salsa sucks (though their verde is pretty decent). The horchata is pretty rockin', though. It's a bummer about their salsa, because their chips are always great. However, it's the fountain variety, which is hard to mess up. I will say that the burrito was far from bad, but it's just not up to the quality that is so easy to find in most San Diegan establishments.

While musing over the differences between my beloved San Diego's Mexican food and what I am so often disappointed by in LA, I found what is possibly the coolest food-related website EVER ESTABLISHED (besides MyCubicleLunch). It's user-generated Burritophile, a guide to the nation's best and worst in the tightly wrapped world of burrito joints. They cover most of the great spots in San Diego and LA, as well as the far reaches of Mexican cuisine's influence, like Wisconson. My only complaint is that some people are far too generous in their ratings. Case in point.

My Law of Kitchen Scavenging

The first law of office kitchens is that any catered food left on the counter is up for grabs for anyone who comes by. You just have to leave a little for those who come after you

(a) unless there is such a small amount left that it makes no sense to split
OR
(b) unless it's late enough in the evening that most people have gone home

For natural-born scavengers like myself, this is one of the few benefits of working in a hive environment.

Today's freebie (and the best one in quite a while): California Pizza Kitchen.

On the menu, and on my plate, is the following:

• shrimp summer roll (SOOOOOoooo fishy -- urp)
  
• rigatoni in marinara (barely passable)
• taco pizza (better in concept than in practice)
• coleslaw (very fresh -- I don't usually do coleslaw, but ... it was FREE!)
• Caesar salad (unremarkable, but the croutons had rye seeds -- yum!)
• Asian chicken salad (a meal unto itself, and surprisingly good)

I wouldn't go to CPK with my own money when there are so many other unique spots in LA, but still, they didn't do too badly.

The great thing about the Asian salad is they laced it with chopped basil.

Take it from someone who's had basil ice cream and basil cocktails: Basil makes everything good.

My Inadvertently Chocolate Milk

Just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean they really aren't out to get you. There's something inherently evil about my office. I've already had my motorcycle pushed over in the parking garage, gotten my milk stolen, and had my favorite plate stolen.

And now someone is actually putting things into my food!

When I was pouring the milk I keep in our communal fridge into my bowl of cereal this morning, I thought it looked a little dark. Seeing as it's under a week old, I chalked it up to the bad fluorescent lights in the kitchen, and happily munched away on breakfast at my computer.

Not much later, a devilish temptress e-mailed the department to say that she had brought in Krispy Kremes. Despite the overt rebellion my stomach always throws when I eat a donut, I had to indulge in a glazed sour cream ring. In order to preempt the upset tummy I went to pour myself more milk.

This time, with no cereal and bananas to obscure the view, I was certain that my milk was not only darker than it should be; it was actually BROWN. A faint brown to be sure, but still, not the bluish-white pallor that typifies nonfat. A smell test returned a surprising result. Instead of the sour stench of rotting lactose I expected, there was the slight but unmistakable smell of ... chocolate.

Someone has added chocolate mix to my carton of milk.

But who? Why? It wasn't like this yesterday, so the when is sometime since yesterday's breakfast.

Is this a malevolent act, or someone trying to sweeten my day? It could be a goodhearted practical joke, or someone hoping I have a chocolate allergy. It might also not even be chocolate ... maybe poison. Or worse: laxatives.

Upon inspection, my coworker advised that I write off the milk as a loss and dump it. But there was still the question in my mind as to why?

Also, there was the donut.

So, did I drink it? Well, I can't have a donut without milk.

Come on. I don't think I've done anything to anyone here (that's absurdly terrible) to deserve poisoning.

What's the worst that can happen?

My Salmonella Lunch

--- NEWS FLASH ---

A former US Naval midshipman who would only give his name as "Popeye" was rushed to an area hospital this morning with symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea. Doctors say the veteran is stable, but suffering from a nasty combination of salmonella and e. coli infection. Officials at the CDC quickly traced the vector of his illness to contaminated bagged spinach.

The sailor man was barely coherent during an interview, but blames someone named "Bluto" for poisoning him under pretense of inviting him over for a spinach omelet breakfast. A police spokesman said they cannot comment on whether an investigation is underway, though she did say that several cans of spinach were hidden on Popeye's person upon arrival to the emergency room.

A gangly female "family friend" read this statement on behalf of Popeye.

I asks for prayer during this difficult time in me life. I wasn't strong to the finish, but I'll be back on me boat soon. Then I'm gonna find Bluto and show that big palooka what's what. Also, Wimpie, if you're listening, it's past Tuesday ... you owe me for that hamburger, and I'm coming to collect. Eh, ge, ge, ge, ge, ge, ge.

----------------------------

In honor of this poor, brave soul -- and in spite of the bagged spinach scare -- I made myself a salad for lunch with the spinach I always keep in the office fridge.

Spinach Basil Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 cups hand-shredded spinach (or whole baby spinach)
• 1/3 cup fresh shredded basil
• 3 tablespoons crumbled feta
• 4 tablespoons hummus
• Optional: dried cranberries for garnish

On hot days like we've had lately, this was a light, refreshing afternoon filler. Actually, filler is a bit of a misnomer. I had to make myself a couple plates in a row to feel full, but the hummus gives the recipe some heft, while simultaneously providing moisture and acting as a bonding agent so I don't need dressing. Sadly, I ran out of dried cranberries in my desk larder, and was forced to use dried blueberries.

It's just not the same.

My Day of Rabbit Food

I was in the mood for vegetarian goodies today. A coworker had to run into Burbank on an errand and offered to bring back some food from her favorite Chinese place, Joy Feast. Apparently, my last paycheck writer lists it as the best in class.

I proceeded on said coworker's opinion that the veggie dumplings are top notch, and ordered such.

I hesitate to base my opinion of a restaurant on one rapidly cooling dish driven half way across town, but this was pretty pathetic. When I, of all people, have a hard time finishing a dish, you know it isn't all that. The fillings were pretty sparse: cabbage, ginger, and carrot. The wrapping was too thick, which combined with its doughiness made for a chewy, gummy workout for my already TMJ-ridden jaw.

I will withhold judgment of the Joy Feast as a whole until I revisit (though I'm not in any particular hurry to go back).

Thankfully, my palate was refreshed thanks to another coworker who brought in tomatoes from her lush Pasadena garden. They were perfect, and I spent most of the day sniffing them for pleasure. Dare I say apple-style-eating-worthy? With juice dribbling down my chin, I say most certainly yes!