Butternut Apple Harvest Soup w/ Pulled Chicken

Butternut Apple Harvest Soup with Pulled Chicken

I love apples all year long.  Probably eat 2 a day.  So you can imagine what its like for me during the fall season when the pickings are abundant and plentiful.  So many varieties with so many flavor profiles and textures.  Great to cook with and of course eat right out of hand.

In this soup I use 2 style of apples.  One is a crisp type that holds its shape a little better with cooking and the other that breaks up easier and serves the puree purpose even better.    Marry those flavors with a another fall favorite ingredient, butternut squash, and you get a delicious and satisfying soup that is perfect for any fall or winter day.   

This is a simple recipe to follow.   

Ingredients:

- 1 medium size Butternut Squash:  peeled, seeded and medium chopped

- 1 Macintosh Apple:  can substitute Cortland

                                   Peeled, seeded and medium chopped

- 1 Pink Lady Apple:  can substitute Honey crisp, Taylor, Braeburn, Gala...any crisp variety

                                   Peeled, seeded and medium chopped

- 1 medium Onion:  peeled, chop ends off and small diced

- 4 cups Chicken Stock:  or just enough to cover squash and apples

- Juice of 1 Lemon

- 2 tsp Thyme: chopped fine

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

 - salt 

- pepper

- 2 cups Pulled Chicken:   Use already whole roasted chicken found at most supermarkets already

                                         cooked and sold warm.  Pull meat while the meat is still warm.  Either do it

                                         the minute you get it home or if you are taking out from a refrigerated state,

                                         loosen the cover and place in the microwave oven and reheat in bursts of 45

                                         seconds.  Once warm enough to handle...pull meat.  Discard the skin.

- 1 cup peas:  frozen are fine.

- Chives

Preparation:

Place the squash, apples, onion and stock in a medium to large pot.

Cover and bring to a boil on high heat.

Once at a rolling boil, lower heat to low medium heat and leave cover on.

Cook until squash and apples are very tender.

Remove from heat and add lemon juice, thyme, nutmeg and cinnamon.

With a whisk gently stir enough to bring to a rough puree leaving chunks and lumps in the mix.

If you want it looser add a little more stock.

Once pureed to desired consistency fold in pulled chicken (add as much or little as you want).

Fold in peas

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Place pot back in medium heat and heat back up for another 2 minutes stirring gently with a spatula

without breaking up the consistency.

Remove from heat.  Add chopped chives.

Serve.

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Playing with Plantains

Often times I look at ingredients and get bored with the same approach to cooking them or preparing them.   Then there are times where I have a "Duh!" moment and realize the obvious things that can still be done with said ingredient.

Today it happened to be with Plantains.

I grew up eating this wonderful fruit in two basic and popular ways:

Patacones

1. Under ripe savory fried "patacones"...or as some call it also

    "tostones".   The under ripeness is evident in the green hue in

    which the plantain skins are still visible.   At this stage they are 

    peeled, sliced, fried, smashed, refried and lastly salted.  

2. Ripe sweet fried "platano maduros".    These are the darker 

    skinned (marbled in black and yellow) softer plantains.  These are 

    simply peeled, sliced on the bias and longer than the patacones and simply deep fried 'til 

Maduros

    GBD....Golden brown and Delicious.   Although not required to

    season at all with anything right out of the fryer some people do go

    further into the dessert realm by adding sugar and cinnamon. 

So these were staples in my house and in basically many of the Latin American friends and families homes I knew growing up.    Sure there were other uses for them like in stews or soups but the two basic ways were always so good as is.  

Now one thing that most new comers to this ingredient ask....is it a banana?  Yes....to some they are.  But in other areas of the world they are distinguished separately and simply as part of the same family but different in constitution.  I.E Plantains are more starchy than regular bananas we come to know commonly here in the U.S.    Due to this nature of the ingredient it is most often required to go thru some cooking process.  Especially when under ripe.  

Anyway, today as I was recovering from a half marathon I ran yesterday.  I was slothing it out on my couch wondering what to do with these 3 lonely over ripe plantains sitting around.  I bought them about a week ago and intended to wait for them to go ripe and obtain that black and yellow skin tone.   But there was one problem.....I had NO desire to start frying these guys up.   Although I know my wife and kids love them just like that more than anything.....I was, in simple terms,  BORED with that idea.

Ripe (sweet) Plantains

I wanted something different or another approach.

Then it hit me......What if I made a dessert out of it?  What if I treated them similar to sweet potatoes, squash or even pumpkin?   The vision came to me in the form of a CRISP but with firmer filling like a cheesecake?    

So ......I went off to the kitchen to create a Sweet Spiced Plantain Crisp!!!

Here is the basic recipe for what I came up with.

INGREDIENTS:

Filling

3                over ripe plantains

1/2 cup      cream cheese (room temp)

1/2 cup      brown sugar

1 whole     egg

1 tbs          Molasses

1 1/2 tsp    cinnamon

1/4 tsp       nutmeg

1/2 tsp       fresh ground pepper

dash          salt to taste

Crisp

1 cup        Whole Wheat Chex Mix

1/2 cup     Sliced Almonds

1/3 cup     flour

1/3 cup      brown sugar

1 tsp          cinnamon

3 tbs          melted butter

METHOD of PREP

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small cake pan place peeled plantains whole*

Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake in oven for roughly 30-45 minutes.

Once plantians are tender and have some caramelization on the flesh remove from oven.

Let cool for 5 min.

Remove cooked plantains and place in medium size bowl.

Add remaining ingredients.

Use a sturdy whisk, start smashing and whisking the mixture around.

Whisk until it forms a nice smooth puree. 

Taste an adjust any seasonings to your liking.

In a buttered 9x5 or 8x4 glass pan (like pyrex) spread mixture.

Use the back of a spoon to spread around evenly.

In a separate bowl add the Chex Mix and Almonds.

Hand crush well until they form crumbs.

Add flour, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Mix well again.

Then drizzle butter into the mix well until crumbs are slightly moistened.

Spread the crumb topping over the top of the filling evenly.

Pat gently to even it out but do not pack to hard.

Place in oven and bake for approx 20-25 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool slightly before digging in.

To serve you can accompany it with fresh whipped cream or even drizzle some maple syrup over it.

Enjoy!!

Serves 4-6

*option would be to peel the plantains but to use the skins to "jacket" the plantains before placing in pan and covering in foil.  

Sweet Spiced Plantain Crisp

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