Summer Squash Soup + Cheesy Zucchini Crispies
Our friend Terry said something to us last week about how culture is like a thumbprint embedded on our souls. Like a lot of things we don’t pick or ask for, that thumbprint is predetermined for us when we’re born; it surrounds us; we swim in it. Like the air we breath, our culture is part of everything we think and do, affecting us, being affected by us, and yet virtually unnoticeable. I am a different person because I was born into the geographic location of the Chicago suburbs and not South Florida or small-town Texas or northern California, I realize, the first child of a Midwestern couple who were starting a new business, not working at office jobs, and a new family, not a big one, in the early 1980s. My personality and perspectives have been affected by a childhood in private school instead of public school where my mom and not my dad cooked most nights and my family ate out often. I went to northern Wisconsin most summers, not the East or the West. It was normal to me that people sent annual Christmas cards and gifts required thank-you notes and when someone came over to your house you should try to be a good host.
Most of the ways I’ve been affected by the culture I grew up in are so tied up into the way I look at things and do things, I can only see them when I step outside that culture into a new one, like I’ve done over the last three years, surrounded by different people who didn’t grow up in Naperville, Illinois. Until I’m confronted with someone else’s reality—in a new place or in a new conversation, in a story over coffee or in a story on a big screen—it’s hard to see the world as bigger than what I experience with my own pair of eyes.
I’ve always been fascinated by this. It’s why I like books and blogs and meeting open people who will talk about their lives. It’s also part of what’s drawn me to a new book, Smitten with Squash (Northern Plate)
If you didn’t grow up in the middle of the United States, you may or may not be familiar with the annual bumper crop of squash everybody’s talking about around this time of year. But when I was a kid, summer meant people would bring bags of zucchini to school or to church, handing them out to anyone who wanted them and would use them up. People put zucchini in cakes at church potlucks. There were zucchini gratins and zucchini slices roasted on the grill. And apparently what I experienced in Illinois is not too different from what others experienced in Minnesota, nor what Tim and I experienced at our farm pickup last week when there was a take-as-much-as-you-can approach going on with the plethora of summer squash.
“Summer squash is promiscuous without even trying to be,” Amanda writes. “It’s a shame they are sometimes taken for granted, which most often happens when they are growing at the speed of weeds.”
It’s funny, but when I read those words, I mostly think how much it makes sense to me, how alike a life in Minnesota can be to a life in Illinois, how people in certain regions have relatable experiences simply because of weather and the way things grow. I like when it’s easy to picture what someone else is talking about. I like it when what someone’s saying makes sense, even if that something he or she is saying is about a simple, fairly basic thing like food.
I watched that popular
I am learning to recognize that initial struggle, that wanting to push away the they’re-too-different problem to focus on something else, is a symptom of my own unique culture and perspective. It’s a sign that this person isn’t exactly like me, not in the obvious surface ways of summer squash soup recipes and harsh winters and families that celebrate birthdays by going out to eat, and so I must force myself to remember he or she is like me, too. Even with different geography and genetics and birth order and finances and interests, all of us humans are people birthed onto the earth without warning, without asking for it, without getting to pick the family we’ll live in or the town we’ll call home. Part of the great human experience is dwelling in one place while realizing it is not the only one, living one kind of life while interacting with people who live different ones, being present in the day you’re being given while being open to entering into someone else’s. And even if you live in a town with two people, if you’re reading this blog you have an Internet connection and the ability to read and that means you have endless windows available to you, letting you into other people’s souls. Everything everybody’s doing is telling you about himself or herself. There’s so much to learn about one another if we’ll listen.
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By: FoodLovesWriting.com
Serving Size: 2 for soup / more for crispies
As mentioned above, the idea for this recipe comes from Amanda Paa's Smitten with Squash (Northern Plate)
As written, this recipe makes simple, fresh, squash-flavored soup for two and cheesy zucchini crispies for a crowd. This is because I quadrupled the original cheesy crisps recipe in favor of the rather large amount of squash I had shredded in the food processor.... and I made extra. If you, on the other hand, want just a few crispies, reduce the crisps recipe by four (i.e., try shredding 1/2 squash to start).
Public service announcement: I don't recommend eating more than five crispies in one sitting, just from my own personal experience, even though once you taste a bite, you'll want to.
Ingredients:
- for the soup:
- 3 yellow zucchini squash, chopped into rounds
- 1 leek, chopped into rounds
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/8 cup milk
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- for the cheesy zucchini crispies:
- 1 1/2 large yellow zucchini squash, chopped (or 2 cups shredded zucchini)
- 3 3/4 cups shredded Pecorino cheese
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons Italian (or za'atar) seasoning
- Optional extra fried basil:
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 6 to 10 leaves of fresh basil
Directions:
Fill a large stockpot with three quarts of water (and a pinch of salt, if desired), and bring to a boil over medium to high heat. Add chopped squash and leeks, cover the pot and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook for about 20 minutes or until vegetables are fork-tender.
Meanwhile, start the cheesy zucchini crispies: Preheat the oven to 375F/190C and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the chopped zucchini in a food processor until it's shredded. Then, place the shredded zucchini in a tea towel and wring it out over the sink as much as possible to remove the excess water. In a large bowl, combine the wrung-out squash with cheese, olive oil and seasoning. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and scoop spoonfuls of the mixture onto prepared baking sheets. Flatten each one, leaving room between each mound. Bake crispies for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown and shimmering. (I did this in two batches, i.e., four sheets total.) When crispies are done, remove from oven and let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a serving dish.
Once vegetables are softened, drain the water from the pot. Then, in the same pot, mash vegetables with a large fork or a potato masher until smashed throughout. Add butter, milk, salt and pepper, and mash with a large fork until combined. Then, use an immersion blender to smooth out the mixture (alternative: transfer mixture in batches to a Vitamix or food processor). You want to almost purée the mixture but not quite, so that there are still some chunks throughout. Taste and adjust for salt as you like.
Serve soup hot, topped with cheesy zucchini crispies and, if desired, the fried basil leaves (see below).
Optional extra step:
Warm a tablespoon of coconut oil in a small saucepan until hot. Lay basil leaves inside for a minute or two, until crisp. Remove to a paper-towel-lined plate to dry. (This is very easy and very fast but fairly impressive and fun.)
2.5 http://foodloveswriting.com/2014/07/18/summer-squash-soup-cheesy-zucchini-crispies/
The post Summer Squash Soup Cheesy Zucchini Crispies appeared first on Food Loves Writing / Real Food Recipes.
