Cooking for the Continental Man - Vol. 2

I am so pleased to be able to report the following two things.

1 - the Ruks is attempting the Vol. 1 recipe tonight... Yaay! Before I know it, I'll have a following, and

2 - At this very moment I am in the process of giving birth to my fourth squash recipe, which I assure you is a thousand times more complicated and more delicious than that in Vol. 1.

Before I get down to the details of the Vol. 2 recipe I would just like to add a little tidbit to the recipe I put up yesterday, which is crucial in dealings with our friend - "the squash". That tidbit is, please do not hesitate to add a little olive oil or sunflower oil or whatever to the mix when you're frying the squash. Butter's great for the flavour but you need the oil to keep your pan constantly greased.

Okay... so...

Butternut Squash and Broccoli Cream Soup

Stuff:

Half a Butternut squash

Enough water to cover the squash in a pan

Splodges of single cream or double cream

Two thirds of an M&S pack of Broccoli

One Vegetable stock cube

Cooking Time: 25 minutes

What To Do:

First peel, core and chop the squash into chunks (can we just take this part as a given for the next 3 recipes? Thanks... we can refer to it as "prepping the squash"). Place the chunks into a pot and fill the pot with just enough water to cover the squash.

Boil the squash for as long as it takes to soften it. Now... be very careful at this part. I suffered a serious mishap that set my confidence back (but only for a couple of minutes... teehee!). You've got to keep an eye on the squash whilst its boiling. To some, that would be stating the obvious... but to me it really wasn't quite so obvious. I thought I could leave the squash boiling in the kitchen whilst I sent a couple of emails. What I forgot to consider was that because I was using very little water (to prevent as much sugar-loss as possible) the water evaporated pretty damn quickly! I'd also taken the cover off the pot so that the water wouldn't bubble over and spill onto my cooker top, which meant the water evaporated even more quickly!

So roughly ten or twelve minutes later a whiff of something rather alarming and rubbery made its way up my nose, I raced into the kitchen and found all the water missing from a very angry, very blackened, pot!

All was not lost however, as squash really is a gem (To be fair I think this was the moment our love affair began). The pot was pissed as hell... but the squash wasn't phased in the slightest. All I had to do was scoop the squash chunks out of the pot and onto a plate (of course leaving behind strips of black skin here and there), and from then I was free to continue with my rather ambitious soup. At this stage by the way the boiling (or rather, burning) had achieved exactly what I wanted, which was soft, mashed-potato-like, melt-in-your-mouth squash!

The next phase involved the broccoli. You should've begun boiling the broccoli at the same time as the squash by the way (in a separate pot obviously... duh!) but being a total amateur at that time, I didn't think to do that. I set aside my squash, mashed it up even more with a fork, before setting about boiling the broccoli. That took very little time though, to be honest.

Next... remove the broccoli from the pot in which its boiling, DO NOT chuck the water by the way. Then, cut the broccoli up into very tiny, very soft pieces. Then... return the broccoli and the mushed up squash to the swampy-looking broccoli water and twirl it around for a couple of seconds. You can decide to get rid of some of the water if you're looking for something a little more broth-like.

At this point, put your solitary vegetable stock cube into the mix (I have to confess, I used a chicken cube... pray tell, who has vegetable stock lying around in their cupboard waiting to be used on a whim? Certainly not I). Keep twirling the mixture to make sure the stock fully dissolves by the way, pick up your pot of cream and splodge as much or as little as you desire into the pot. Now the mushed up mix in your pot should finally begin to look something like soup.

I'm afraid this is where I stopped. I boiled and boiled and boiled the mix but it wouldn't get any thinner. It literally stayed put... as a mushy broth.

So.... I ate it that way. It was delicious, after being seasoned of course (yet another thing to be taken as a given even though I don't mention it). However it was just a little sickening as the texture really wasn't quite right. Another point to add is that I had more than enough for one in the pot by the way, so please ensure there's someone with whom to share the mushy love if you do decide to give it a try. Also, feel free to add mushrooms - I would've done, but was too lazy to chop anything else up after the tedious task of chopping up squash, and so stuck with squash and broccoli alone. But go ahead... jazz it up, and be sure to let me know how on earth to get it from the mushy stage to the soupy stage.

Cheerio

P.S. Vol. 4 is orgasmic! I'm literally this close to tears right now, because something so simple and so effortless has turned out be a masterpiece. As with all my other inventions, it isn't a jewel to look at, but you'll see... you'll have to stop yourself from moaning... and trust me, it'll be difficult.