Sunday Chores, Sourdough Flop and Butternut Squash Soup

I accomplished some strategic Christmas shopping on Sunday. I mapped out what I wanted and where I was going, then started early…well 10:00, which is pretty early for me. I was able to get in and out pretty fast and even got home in time for my Sunday nap. Ok, so maybe some chores got waylaid in order to squeeze in a luxurious nap. Eh, I have enough clean underwear to get through without doing laundry for another week…barely.

I experimented with my sourdough recipe this weekend, with sorry results. The crumb was tight, and the loaf didn’t rise very much in the last rising. My theories of what may have gone wrong: 1. I may have possibly over kneaded it. I used the mixer, and I let it go longer than I think I should have. I think good evidence of this was when I was trying to roll the dough into a batard shape; it kept trying to spring back to a tighter form; 2. I added too much flour. It is hard to tell when the dough is still shaggy if it is too wet, so I added some more. Definitely, not worth a picture. Perhaps I need to error more on the side of wet next time. The one thing that has improved is the splitting of the loaf. The scoring turned out a lot better this time, now that I am actually getting the blade to cut and not pull. Well, I think I need to get back to reading Hamelman’s book, Bread: The Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes and work out of that.

Since it was rainy and cold outside, I thought some nice hot soup would be nice, so I decided to prepare a butternut squash soup, which has a lot of flavor and I really enjoy. I adapted it from a bisque recipe; however one of the changes I made was instead of adding heavy cream to the soup, I limit it to a garnish at the end. That way I still get the rich cream taste and body, but am not killing myself with the fat.

Butternut Squash Soup Recipe
1 butternut squash
Olive oil to coat
½ cup diced onions
½ cup diced carrots
½ cup diced celery
1 tbsp vegetable oil
½ tsp allspice
56 oz. of chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
heavy cream

Clean and de-stem the butternut squash.
Split the butternut squash in half lengthwise.
Coat the halves and place open side down on a baking sheet with sides.
Place in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 35-45 minutes, until the squash is soft.
Allow squash to cool, then scoop out the flesh.
Heat vegetable oil, add onions, carrots and celery. Sautee until soft.
Add the butternut squash flesh along with the spices to the mire poix.
Once the mixture is combined add about 28 oz of chicken stock, let simmer.
Once the vegetables are soft, puree with immersion blender or food processor.
Add remaining stock until preferred consistency.
Add cream upon serving to taste.

Mmm, too bad I only had a dense sourdough bricks to dip in my soup.