Butternut Squash & Almond Soup

This is now the second (edible) soup I've made with almonds. The other one (African nut butter stew) is pretty filling, as vegetarian soups go. This one is much lighter, and is good for a small snack or as a precursor to a glorious almost-in-a-food-coma-while-still-eating dinner (i.e. Thanksgiving). This comes from a friend, LG.

Pictured with Cedar Circle Farm's Trukenbrod whole spelt bread, which is amazing and delicious and you should try it if you live around VT/NH.

Ingredients
1 butternut squash
4-6 cups broth
1 cup almonds
curry powder, to taste
black pepper, to taste

Procedure
Boil about 3 cups of broth. Peel the squash (this is really not too bad if you just use a sharp vegetable peeler -- takes a minute and you don't lose much of the flesh). Cut it into cubes, and put it in the boiling broth. Add as much broth as you need to completely cover the squash. For one medium squash, I used about 5 cups of broth (not including the 1/2 cup that comes later; see below) and got a thin soup, which was delicious and not as heavy as squash soup usually feels. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, until the squash is completely cooked through -- about 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, blanch the almonds (i.e. pour boiling water over them and let sit for a minute). Rinse with cold water until they're cool, and peel the skins off. They should pop off pretty easily at this point. Put the peeled almonds with about 1/2 cup of broth into a food processor, and process until the nuts are as finely processed as you'd like to have in your soup.

When the squash is cooked, remove it from the broth (don't toss the broth!) and process it with the almonds. When it's all pureed (or to whatever chunkiness level you prefer), add the almond and squash puree back into the broth and mix everything together thoroughly. You may want to use a hand mixer or immersion blender if you have one, but a whisk would do the trick as well.

Serve hot. Keeps for a while in the fridge, though the puree may start to separate a little when it sits.

Two kinds of dog treats

The Obscenely Healthy Dog Treats

We're out of dog treats and we're going on vacation next week so we have to use up a bunch of stuff... hence, healthy dog treats. They look kinda gross, but they're healthy and (at least our) dogs go nuts for them. One of our dogs stole two treats before I even got them in the oven, though he also steals whole bags of hot dog buns, so that rave review is kind of irrelevant. We tried them ourselves and they're actually human-tasty, too. They're also pretty easy to make, given that you have a bunch of veggies and some meat lying around. You can replace the ingredients with anything dog-friendly (the ASPCA has a list of foods to avoid, and you can find others online/ask your vet) that has roughly the same texture. Here's what we did.

Ingredients
(Makes about 50 small treats)

• 1 cup ground meat (we used leftover kotleti, which is very roughly something like this, but that's neither here nor there; any meat will do, including uncooked ground meat)
• 2 medium carrots, shredded
• 2 stalks celery, finely diced
• 1/2 cup spinach, steamed and drained
• 1-2 tsp. dried parsley (or 1-2 Tbsp fresh parsley, minced)
• 2 tsp. turmeric
• 1 egg
• ~1 cup flour (add as necessary) -- gluten free flour can easily be subsituted if your dog has a wheat intolerance

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray (or otherwise grease it up). 

Mix all ingredients together except for flour. Add flour and keep mixing to see how much you need. Mixture shouldn't be so sticky that it's hard to work with, but it shouldn't be nearly as dry as a cookie dough, either. 

If things aren't forming into balls (or whatever cookie shape you desire) then you may want to add a second egg. Once that's all sorted out, shape the mush into whatever shape you like. I made little flattened balls, something like a stack of 3-4 half-dollars in size. 

Place the treats onto the baking sheet and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Let cool completely before feeding to pooches. 

The Far Less Obscenely Healthy Dog Treats

OK, these are pretty good too. I swear I'm not eating my dogs' treats.

Ingredients

(Makes 130-140 small cookies)

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup chicken broth

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with foil.

Mix the first three ingredients together in a bowl. Add as much broth as it takes to get to dough-like consistency. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it's thoroughly mixed. Roll it out to the desired thickness (I made cookies roughly 2 coins thick) and use a cookie cutter that's to your liking. I used the top of a pill case because I wanted small biscuits that could be used for training without having to be broken in half. 

With that size of cookie, bake for about 20 minutes -- adjust time according to size. Let cool completely.