Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we only eat fall foods. Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.
Butternut squash bisque with carrots and cream at home
From All Recipes.
When you go to flip your wall calendar and realize there is only one page left of 2021, and you never fathomed you would make it this far into the year (not like you would stop, or time would stop, or anything like that; just that it seemed so daunting it was unthinkable), and you count the eight weeks remaining and you both get a little scared and excited of what is yet to come, there is only one thing you can do: Make butternut squash soup. Life is full of what-ifs, but let me tell you what is: It is November, and that means you must cook the gourd. This is your only job today, that is to obtain and cook something that is orange and sweet. Butternut squash is easy to love in any form, but where it really shines is as the star of a soup. Itās amazing how just an onion, a handful of carrots, a big squash, and a dash of cream can transform into something so rich and filling. I didnāt even use the stock recommended in the recipe, just water, and it was still very flavorful. I like to warm up a big bowl and top it with freshly baked kale chips, for the ultimate Basic Bitch Autumn dinner.Ā
Spiced oatmeal with apples and butter at home
Itād make the perfect Sunday breakfast.
When you treat oatmeal with love and care, the results can be divine. Maybe that is a metaphor for life, but for now, letās keep talking about oatmeal. There are as many methods to make apple-pie oatmeal on the internet as there are ways to live. A lot of them call for sauteing the apple in butter and sugar and spices and then adding the water and oats, and boiling that whole thing together. But I donāt like that, I donāt like it at all, because all the flavors get muddied together. I like to make oatmeal in the same method as congee (albeit much more quickly) -- making the perfect base and then adding toppings right before eating -- so that each element retains a bit of its flavors separately, and you only bring them together on your spoon. To do that, first youāll want to set a cup and a half of water to boil on the stove, and add a big pinch of salt. When the water has come to a full boil, stir in half a cup of old-fashioned oats, a big dash of cinnamon, and a smaller dash each of nutmeg and cloves, and then turn the heat down to medium. Cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, dice half an apple, and add a big pat of Good Butter to a pan. Add the apple, sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar, and cook until soft. When the oats are cooked to your desired texture, let stand for a minute or two to thicken. Scoop into a bowl, drizzle with a splash of whole milk or half-and half, top with soft apples, another chunk of Kerrygold, and sprinkle with brown sugar. Enjoy with a hot cup of tea, and a coffee-house jazz soundtrack.
Frozen chicken chile verde burrito at Trader Joeās
At your neighborhood TJās.
Just like my love for frozen pizza, I pretty much never eat burritos out in the wild, but I love me a frozen burrito for an office lunch. Maybe itād be different if I lived in California or something, but also maybe not, because I live in the Pizza Capital of the World, and Iām still sticking hockey pucks in the toaster oven. (Sorry!) There are many reasons I like to eat frozen burritos for lunch. Itās convenient, itās cheap, but most of all, unlike a āproperā burrito, frozen burritos are often kind of small or underfilled, and tbh I like that. Recently Iāve been digging the chile verde chicken burritos from Trader Joeās, where all my freezer meals hail. I like them because thereās neither rice, nor beans, nor cheese inside, just chicken meat and chile verde sauce, which is perfect for me. Is this a restaurant burrito? No. But is it satisfying for a trash panda/garbage cat like me? Yes.
Amaro and orange low-alcohol spritz at home
I only keep one bottle of alcohol in my house at all times (aside from Special Occasion Ichiro), and that is amaro. I love anything that tastes like Chinese medicine with a burning passion and amaro is like that, except more floral and woody and, unlike the magical cough syrup with the mysterious ingredients, something you can order at fancy cocktail bars. It also makes for amazing cocktails. Iāve posted about Chiot montamaro in my Rainy Day Red Wine Spritzer recipe before. This is less of a stormy night cocktail and more like a Monday evening sip, light and refreshing but also woody and fall-flavored. All you have to do is combine 1.5oz of your favorite amaro (mine is Chiot, linked above) and a big splash (0.5oz) fresh orange or tangerine juice in a rocks glass filled with ice, and then top off with club soda. As a bonus, itās lower in alcohol than your average spritz, but just as fancy-tasting.
Strawberry-rhubarb pie crust cookie at Janieās Life-Changing Baked Goods
212 W 80th St, New York, NY 10024, also online
Itās a pretty bold move to put āLife-Changingā in the title of your bakery, so I walked into this tiny, subterranean store-front with plenty of skepticism. That is, until I was hit with a wall of absolutely delicious, buttery, freshly-baked pie scent. It smelled so good in the bakery that the perfume wafted past my mask. The pie crust cookies come in all different pie flavors, like pumpkin, pecan, and peach, but I, of course, went with my favorite pie flavor of all time, strawberry rhubarb. And folks, Janie is not lying -- these might be the cookies of my dreams. The pie crust cookie is basically a round-ish confection with a thin layer of pie filling inside of a very flaky, very buttery pie crust and what tastes like pie crumble on top. AKA my favorite parts of my favorite baked good, in a cute little palm-sized package. It tastes even better warmed up and I wish that I could figure out a recipe to make my very own.
Have a good weekend,
Soph
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