Thanksgiving Week 2016 – November 27, 2016

It’s been awhile since I posted – I have a small kitchen that overheats in the summer…that’s my excuse for cooking less this summer! 🙂 I am back now, and happy to be at the cooking again.

We started a tradition last year to travel at Thanksgiving and be home with the whole family for Christmas.  Last year we took on London; this year we went to Las Vegas!  It was my son’s first time in Vegas, and he had a blast.  We ended up having Thanksgiving dinner at Sushi Samba, making the most of their gluten-free menu. I should mention this was my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner – butternut squash and clementine bellini! 🙂

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We also had a dinner at Yardbird with gluten-free fried chicken and a delicious iceberg wedge salad – YUM!

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Before heading out to Vegas, we spent a few days in California with my sister.  The weather was so much better than NYC, and we had a few great cooking days.

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We made a butternut squash soup that was amazing – a low FODMAP diet seems to allow for small amounts of butternut squash.

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Ingredients

  • 1 large or 2 medium size butternut squashes
  • 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 onion
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 2 sprigs sage
  • 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock (confirm that the stock does not contain onion or garlic)
  • 4 tbsp. butter
  • 1 tsp. dried parsley
  • 1 bay leave
  • 2 – 3 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. ground pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. peppercorns
  • 1 tsp. nutmeg, and more to taste as needed
  • 2 tbsp. heavy cream, as tolerated
  • Sour cream, as needed and tolerated

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with aluminum foil.  Cut the butternut squash at the neck, and then down the middle.  Scoop out the insides of the bulb and discard.  Cut the neck into 1 inch slices.  Drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper on each section of the squash and flip the bulbs face down.  Under each bulb, place onion, garlic and sage (this will allow the onion and garlic to roast and provide flavor to the squash without having to cook the remainder of the meal with it). Place in the oven and cook for about 1 hour, or until tender, flipping the squash as needed throughout.
  2. Remove the squash from the oven and scoop from the skin, chopping into 1 inch squares.
  3. Add the additional olive oil, roasted squash,  1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon peppercorns, parsley and bay leaves into a large saucepan and simmer for about 30 minutes.
  4. Remove from the heat and remove the bay leaves from the soup.  Puree with an immersion blender.  Stir in the nutmeg and heavy cream until nicely blended.  Season with additional salt and pepper as needed.
  5. Serve with a dollop of sour cream if you like 🙂

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