Slowcooker Chicken Dishes

I normally don’t buy boneless skinless chicken breasts, because I find them expensive and frankly extremely over-priced.  Skinless-boneless chicken breasts may be a healthy cut of meat, but they are not the tastiest, and anyway, removing bones nor skin is not a big issue for me. (In fact there is something perversely satisfying about removing skin in a similar way that it’s satisfying to peel an orange or chestnut.) It’s easy to remove skin from chicken, and if you’re using a slow cooker, the meat should pretty much fall off the bone if cooked properly. But lately, chicken of all kinds has been on sale, so I’ve purchased quite a bit of it, including the skinless boneless variety.  And I’ve been experimenting with creating my own slow cooker meals.  It’s pretty fun to create a meal of your own imagination, and it gives you extra satisfaction if the food turns out remotely tasty, because the credit is all yours.

Recently, I invented a dish I call Slowcooker Mediterranean Chicken, which included skinless-boneless chicken breasts, peppers (red, yellow and orange, which were on sale – I love it when brightly coloured peppers go on sale!) sliced onion, a clove of garlic (also sliced) and some sundried tomatoes and capers.  I poured about a third of a tin of diced tomatoes in, was generous with the olive oil, and added some balsamic, salt, pepper, and hot pepper flakes.  It made quite a tasty dish and yielded quite a bit of food.  Tonight I ate the rest of the leftovers by slicing up the chicken and filling up a couple of whole wheat tortillas with the mixture, topping just with some sour cream.

Pictured above is another dish I created; Chicken with Bok Choy & Thai Broth.  Okay, so the thai broth may not be completely authentic, but it tasted great.  I mixed some olive oil, red wine vinegar, soy sauce, thai fish sauce, and red curry paste, and maybe a cup of water.  I poured the sauce over chicken breasts that were layered with bok choy, onion and red pepper; the red pepper added some nice sweetness.  I was pleased with myself for being able to make a tasty broth that seemed at the very least reminiscent of thai flavours.

My one word of caution when cooking this kind of meat in the slow cooker is to be cautious about not overcooking it. I almost always overcook chicken breasts and I most certainly did in the case of the Bok Choy Chicken.  Cooking on low for just a few hours, maybe 4, is probably all that’s needed. Cooking for 8 hours as you may do another dish could dry the breasts right out. Obviously you will want to make sure the chicken is done, but test it earlier than you would expect.

Are you making any chicken slow cooker dishes that you love?

Making meat affordable

As I’ve written about before, I tend to eat a semi-vegetarian diet, cooking with meat perhaps once, maybe twice per week. My strategy for purchasing meat is usually to buy large packages of meat when they go on sale. For example, Food Basics and FreshCo have had many sales recently of bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks for $5; each package yields about 8 pieces of meat. This is a good price, but because I may eat just one or two pieces of meat per serving, I end up eating the same dish over and over again until I’m absolutely sick of it.

In response to this, I first tried making two dishes out of one package of meat. For example, I split up a recent purchase of Italian sausages to create two dishes; one, a slow-cooker dish of Kale, Sausage and Tomatoes, the other a Stir-fry. But this still meant that I was still eating meals containing sausage all week long.

So I adjusted my strategy: Buy a large package of meat, and then repackage it and freeze in small portions – putting 4 pieces of meat in one bag. This allows me to cook 2 – 4 meals at a time.

I find that when the meat is incorporated into a larger meal including lots of vegetables and grains, one or two pieces of meat is all that is necessary, and this leads to meals that are very low on the cost-per-serving ratio. Some of the meals I’ve calculated have come out to less than $2.50 per serving. This includes: Honey-Mustard Glazed Drumsticks with Roasted Carrots & Potatoes, served with Cauliflower Soup & homemade Garlic Croutons (about $2.30 per serving including the soup) and Chicken & Basmati Rice Bake with Peppers, Onions, Tomatoes & Green Beans (about $2.60 per serving.) Another meal I made with the drumsticks was a hearty Black Bean & Chicken slow-cooker Stew. All of these meals, by the way, were delicious.

When possible and depending on the dish, I may separate the chicken from the bones and put them into a freezer bag. Once I have enough bones (coupled with vegetable scraps like onion peelings, celery leaves, broccoli stocks, etc.) I make a delicious chicken stock, which can then be used for soups or infusing rice with more flavour.  Considering this eliminates the need to buy chicken stock from a store (and improves the flavour as well as the nutrition of the stock), this makes the meat purchase even more economical.  It’s this “minimal waste” philosophy that lets me eat for $150 – $175 a month. For example, the Cauliflower soup I mentioned was made with a cauliflower on sale for $1.49 and homemade croutons with leftover stale french bread and my own window-box herbs.

I also repeated this same strategy when buying stewing beef to make meals like Goulash and Beef Coconut Curry. These items are easily frozen so it makes sense to make a large batch and then freeze is smaller portions.

A final tip? When buying the chicken, I pick the greatest weight, since all packages are the same cost.

If any meal I’ve mentioned especially appeals to you, let me know and I will post the recipe!

What is your favourite money saving tip for buying meat?

Veggie burgers, revisited

One of the posts I continue to get comments and questions about is my veggie burger recipe (Lentil Walnut Burgers). Several of the commenters have noticed that their veggie burgers are too crumbly and dry, and are falling apart. I’ve supplied a few suggestions, but decided to try these again to see if they worked well for me again or if I would have the same problem.

I made them tonight, following the recipe almost exactly. The only change I made was to modify the ratio of mushrooms and walnuts. I added 1.5 cups of diced mushrooms and 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts. I also used frozen pretzel bread crumbs instead of regular bread crumbs (leftover from the great pretzel fiasco of ’09.)

My burgers turned out great! No crumbling whatsoever! My patty stayed completely in tact. It was moist but dry enough on the outside that it didn’t fall apart.

If your burgers are too dry, I suggest the following:

- Make sure your lentils are really well cooked. Cook them longer than the recommended 15 minutes if necessary and only use 2 cups of water for the 1 cup of lentils. When done, they should be sticky and almost have a paste-like consistency.  Some readers have wondered if there is too much water from the lentils, but there really shouldn’t be much water in the pot when you’re done. .

- Ensure that your mushrooms and walnuts are chopped finely.  If you buy pre-chopped walnuts, make sure they are small and crumbly.

- When you cook the mushrooms, err on the side of them being over-cooked, making sure the liquid has evaporated. They’ll be moist but no liquid should be in the pan.

- Make sure all ingredients are well blended together and that you have massaged each portion into a nicely formed, firm patty.

- If you don’t have a barbeque (like myself) then just fry them on a pan over medium heat with a bit of olive oil.

- Only flip your burgers once. If you want to check on them to make sure they’re not burning, do so very carefully as so not to break or crumble the patty. Carefully use your hands and a wooden spatula if you can.  If you let it get a good sear on each side, it will hold together better.

- Don’t squish the patty when you put it in the bun like you might do a burger. They are naturally soft and you don’t need to push it firmly into the bun.

It’s all in the toppings

If you find the burgers too dry, add lots of extra juicy toppings. On mine tonight I had sauteed mushrooms, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and a homemade sauce made of mayonnaise, hot mustard and chopped scallions.  Delicious.

I really enjoyed this meal tonight. My advice for those who found this recipe not to work is simply to try it again!  It’s worth it!

For convenience, here’s the recipe below. Check out my original post to see other details and comments. This recipe was adapted from the LCBO magazine. Enjoy!

Lentil Walnut Burgers

1 cup red lentils

2 cups water

1 tbsp olive oil

1 cup finely chopped onion

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp ground cumin (freshly ground is best)

1/2 tsp each s&p

3/4  cup finely chopped walnuts

1.5 cups finely chopped cremini mushrooms

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs

1 . In a small saucepan, bring lentils and water to boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer, cover and cook until all the water has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.

2. In a skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat; cook onion until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, cumin, s&p; cook 1 minute. Stir in walnuts and mushrooms; cook until mushrooms are completely tender and no liquid remains, about 5 minutes. Let cool slightly. Stir in cilantro, bread crumbs and lentils to combine. Form into patties.

3. Grill over medium heat on greased grill, turning once until crisp and golden on each side, about 12 minutes.

4. Serve on grilled whole grain buns with desired toppings.

Makes 4 large burgers (or 6 small ones).

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Pizza

This pizza is mouth-wateringly good! It is a must try. Unfortunately I have no pictures to share, as my only major light source in my condo died today, so there is not near enough light to take an adequate pictures of this scrumptious, crispy pizza. Take my word for it that it looks, smells, and tastes delicious.

To make this, you will need the ingredients for the dough (flour, salt, yeast, oil, water).  For the toppings, you will need one butternut squash, two onions, a little mozzarella or parmesan cheese, kosher salt, black pepper and olive oil.

Directions:

To make the crust, follow the instructions for the best ever pizza dough recipe at “A Peek Inside the Fishbowl.” This thin crust recipe is better than any of the others I’ve recommended before. I love a super thin, crunchy crust, so if you feel the same, you will have to try this recipe.  The key, I think, is not to add any sugar.  If you do add sugar, you will end up with a very different product.

For the toppings:

Roast a butternut squash, whole, on a baking tray at about 350 degrees. Use a fork to prick the skin to let steam escape. Keep it in the oven for at least 45 minutes, and turn it just once.  When you think it’s done, the skin should be blistering a bit, and you should be able to stick a fork into the squash easily.

In the meantime, caramelize your onions in a sauce pan with olive oil and a sprinkling of kosher salt. It will take at least 30 minutes, perhaps longer, at a very low heat to get the onions just right.

Remove from oven, slice once down the middle, and scoop out the seeds/stringy part.  Peel it using a kitchen peeler (if it’s done, the skin should be soft enough that you can almost peel it off with your fingers.)  Cut into very thin slices so you end up with half-moon shapes.

When your pizza crust is ready, dress with extra-virgin olive oil.  You could also try a garlic puree.  I found the simple olive oil to be very nice.

Lay a single layer of the squash slices on the pizza and then add the caramelized onions.  Sprinkle a generous pinch of kosher salt and black pepper, and top with a little shredded cheese. I used mozzarella but I think parmesan would be lovely also.  But whatever you use, don’t overdo it.  Let the taste of the squash and onions shine through. A light layer is perfect.

Bake for 12 minutes at 450, and then broil for another 2.  I also added 2 extra minutes of cooking time off the sheet pan, directly on the rack, in order to let the bottom of the crust crisp up. So tasty!

Summer vegetable soup

So, the weather lately has been hot, hot, hot and at times like these, you definitely don’t feel like eating hot soup. Nevertheless, a flavourful summer vegetable soup is a satisfying meal on an evening when it’s raining or when it’s just a little cooler.  A soup like this is easy to make in advance, and keep in the fridge or freezer for a rainy evening.

My soup, pictured above, is one of the tastiest vegetable soups I’ve ever made, and I credit a delicious homemade vegetable broth and plenty of fresh, summer vegetables.  The vegetables are all Ontario produce (except for the celery). They include fresh cremini mushrooms, zucchini, onion, peas, carrots, potatoes, celery, fresh herbs from my patio garden (sage and parsley) and garlic.  The broth was made from vegetable scraps, such as the leaves from the celery bunch, carrot tops and carrot peelings, pea pods and various herbs.  The broth was a dark green colour and at first I was worried it would be too strong, but it wasn’t; it was perfect.  Combined with a can of whole tomatoes (I crush the tomatoes using just my hands) this broth was delicious.  You could easily add some parmesan to the top, but I didn’t think the soup needed it; it was good just on its own.

What kind of summer soups do you enjoy?

From fast food to fresh food: livening up the palate with summer herbs

Prior to, during and after my move, I resorted to eating out at fast food restaurants… a lot.  So you can bet that I am well and truly stoked to finally have my kitchen in order, because I am more than ready to start eating fresh and healthy food again.  Last weekend I christened my kitchen by whipping up a few items where my little patio herb garden could play a starring role.

Exhibit A: Chickpea salad, with feta cheese, yellow peppers, cucumber, thinly sliced zucchini, green onions, peas, and an assortment of herbs (basil, mint, chives and parsley). Every one of these veggies was grown locally. Grated garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper make the dressing.

Exhibit B: Orzo and vegetable salad with homemade pesto, celery, carrots, cucumber and peas.

I love the orzo in this salad!  All vegetables in the salad are local, including the basil and spinach that were used in the pesto, except for the celery.  This was delicious with peas, carrots, cucumbers and celery, but I would add some tomatoes and onions next time.

If you’re wondering about the pesto, it was incredibly easy to make.  I used Martha Stewart’s recipe but I didn’t want to strip my basil plant naked, so I used about half basil and half spinach and it still worked out well; I found that it had a strong nutty flavour, however, and would increase the basil and scale back a bit on the pine nuts next time.

This is a fantastic way to use up basil.  The pesto can be used on traditional foods like pasta and pizza, of course, but I really enjoyed it in the salad above, and I also used it as a flavourful sandwich spread.

Exhibit C: Cucumber and mint dip

Similar to, but not technically tzatziki, I made this dip with cucumber, mint, sour cream and yogurt (not bothering to strain it) and grated garlic. Tasty with pita, in pita sandwiches or served with kebabs.

Exhibit D: (Not shown) Mint iced tea

I took the leaves off several branches of my mint plant, crowded the leaves into tea balls and steeped them in hot water in my tea pot.  Made two pots of this hot mint tea and then emptied the contents into a large jug.  Added some honey, let it cool, and refrigerated until cold.  Very refreshing and delicious – and healthful!

Bright, beautiful, flavourful! It feels so good to start cooking again, using local produce and herbs!

Great summer pizza ideas

When I wrote my post, “On the Bruce,” what I didn’t say is that when I came home from my second Bruce trail trek, I came home famished, and was able to satisfy a great craving for pizza in less than 15 minutes. I’ve written before about how to make pizza in batches and freeze it (I actually wrote about batch cooking in general, but it generated a lengthy discussion in the comments section on pizza, specifically.) Pizza is not hard to make, but there are lots of tips to make it even easier. In addition to cooking in batches and freezing the pizzas, you can also save time by prepping the ingredients at once. If you have a busy week coming up, prep a bunch of veggies and cheese in advance, and then assemble when you’re ready to eat. If you make spaghetti sauce, preserve some for your pizza – or make a roasted garlic puree. ( I’ve mentioned before that I love roasted garlic puree as an alternative to pizza sauce.) It will last in the fridge for days.  You can also make up a full pizza, cover, and refrigerate for a day or so.  The pizza doesn’t need to be baked immediately. This can be a handy trick, especially if you’re cooking for company or planning ahead for days when you have almost no time to cook. The day I wrote, “On the Bruce,” I came home to do just that – bake a pizza that I had sitting in the fridge.  It turned out to be one of my finest creations yet:

Portabello mushrooms, zucchini, rosemary, roasted garlic puree, and a blend of real parmesan and mozzarella (heavy on the parm).  Gorgerous.

Simple pizzas can taste really good, too. I recently made a pizza with my own spaghetti sauce, mozerella and lots of fresh basil.  Perfect opportunity to use the basil from my herb garden.

I noticed that my sister recently tweeted about some pizza toppings she likes, and thought I’d share them with you too, because they sound damn good:

1. Carmelized Vidalia onions, heirloom tomatoes, artisan proscuitto, fresh mozzarella, baby arugula, fresh basil & homemade sauce
2. Sauteed green garlic, wild mushrooms & sausage w fresh mozzarella and homemade tomato sauce.
3. Benedictine blue cheese, carmelized Vidalia onions, proscuitto & homemade fig jam.

Sounds great! What I love about pizzas is that you can be totally creative, often using what is sitting around in your fridge and pantry.  I love that a delicious pizza can be made out of very little, and that cheap ingredients – herbs, onions, garlic – can go so far in adding amazing flavour.

What is your favourite homemade pizza idea?

Making crackers, eating through the freezer, and generally being odd

So I’ve been challenging myself to eat through my pantry and freezer.  I’m waiting to go shopping until my next garden fresh box arrives at the community centre.  My best money-saving and waste-reducing shopping strategy is to wait until my garden fresh box arrives, and then plan my meals and pick out my items at the grocery store based on what food is in the box.  I’ve also been wanting to eat through the freezer/pantry because I don’t want any food to get feezer-burnt or stale, and as a single person who buys and cooks in bulk, it’s easy to let food go to waste if you don’t consistently eat up what you’ve got.

I’ve lost count of how long it’s been since I last went grocery shopping and I can’t believe how many meal ideas I’ve been able to come up with, solely focusing on what I have.  I’ve had lots of tasty, nutritious soups, lasagna, and cabbage rolls (all made from scratch by yours truly) and I ate up some meat and vegetables that I had preserved from January’s fresh box.

I also had plenty of baking supplies.  Why go out to the store to buy crackers, bread, and pizza dough when I had all the ingredients to make these items?  I made them all myself – delicious bread, outstanding pizzas, and Alton Brown’s seedy crisps.  These crackers are super easy to make.  I made a couple of mistakes – I used hard whole wheat flour, added a touch too much salt (I think Alton’s recipe is a tad too salty) and would probably increase the amount of sesame seeds and make extra sure to roll the crackers as thin as possible.  That being said, the crackers had potential, and were fun to make, so I will try making them again.  With some blue cheese and honey, they were still salvageable.

There is so much joy in using up what you have.  It really pushes you to try new things.  Another tasty gem was my homemade pizza, topped with roasted garlic and olive oil (my go-to substitute for pizza sauce when my pantry is devoid of tomato paste), with sweet corn, green beans, tuna and sundried tomatoes. Drool-worthy.

I also made up a couple of soups.  I discovered a container of frozen black beans in the freezer (I like to soak an entire bag of beans and freeze what I don’t immediately need for easy use – it’s much more convenient than doing it batch-by-batch) and turned it into black bean soup, a la Martha Stewart (omitting the garlic-pepper sauce for garlic, onions, and spices such as cumin, coriander, pepper and cayenne) and I made my favourite carrot ginger soup, using up January’s supply of carrots.

I’m probably an odd person.  Most people seem to crave convenience and choice.  Entire companies and industries are devoted to maximizing convenience and choice for consumers. For some reason, I seem to thrive by limiting both convenience and choice when it comes to cooking.  I guess I like the challenge.  I like being pushed into DIY, where I get to try something new, learn new skills, and use my creativity to come up with a meal seemingly out of nowhere.  Maybe that makes me a little strange, but it also means that I get to enjoy freshly-baked pizzas with roasted garlic, and “seedy crisps” with honey.

Humble ingredients make a delicious, nutritious, cheap and eco-friendly breakfast

I just love finding new DIY tricks to circumvent the need to buy overly processed, overly packaged foods, and this homemade granola is a perfect example.  Although I’ve rolled my eyes a few times at Amy Dacyczyn’s “recipes” I love her homemade granola.  As always, there are many different variations to making granola – see, for example, Chatelaine or Martha Stewart or Alton Brown. My conclusion from looking at all these recipes, as well as Dacyzyn’s own, is that any granola recipe includes three steps:

1. Combine dry ingredients – rolled oats, a little salt, some cinnamon and nutmeg if you like, as well as your nuts and seeds.  I added ground flax seed, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and a walnut pieces.

2. Gently melt your liquids and sugars. For my recipe, it included 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of honey, and 1/4 cup of canola oil, but there are many other variations that omit the oil and include maple syrup, so check out the recipes posted above.

3. Bake in an oven (again, temperatures and times seem to vary a little, but just make sure your oats get toasted evenly until they are slightly crunchy.  I baked mine at 350 for about 15-20 minutes, stirring often.

4. Add your raisins or other fruits.  I had some cranberries in the freezer, so I used the residual oven heat to bake them.  The cranberries made an amazing contribution to the granola.

The great thing about the homemade granola is that it tastes delicious, and it’s also extremely healthy.  When combined with milk, you’re getting calcium, protein, and fibre as well as other benefits depending on what kind of fruit you add (and the variations are really endless.)  After eating a bowl of store-bought cereal I am usually hungry within an hour, at best.  After eating a bowl of this granola, I can actually get through until lunch time without needing a snack. It’s great!

But the benefits don’t stop there – this cereal is very eco-friendly.  You eliminate the waste that comes with buying boxed cereal, and if you buy your nuts, fruits and oats in bulk (and why wouldn’t you) and use re-usable bags at the bulk food store, then the cereal becomes even more environmentally friendly.

I store my granola (and other items, as you can see) in glass mason jars.  I realized a while ago that I was crazy for buying tupperware, which is expensive and wears out overtime, when I could buy glass mason jars, which will last forever, at the thrift store for 29¢ a piece.  Use a funnel, and glass jars are just as easy to use as tupperware.

If you want to reduce your cost and save even more packaging, use homemade brown sugar.  I stopped buying packaged brown sugar, and I am loving the switch.  Just combine a little molasses (I use about 1/2tbsp, but you can increase this amount if you want it sweeter or darker) to one cup of sugar.  Molasses is very healthy – it’s a great source of calcium, for example, and you will find that your sugar actually tastes a lot better. It’s cheap and far better than buying those plastic bags of brown sugar in the grocery store.  Plus, it reduces waste because you just make it as you need it, so it won’t dry out.

On the left you’ll see powdered milk.  I’m experimenting here.  Not just because powdered milk is a lot cheaper than liquid, but because I’m always looking for ways to reduce my waste.  My building does not recycle waxy boxboard, so milk cartons go in the trash.  My alternative is to buy it in bags, which also end up in the trash.  The days of plastic milk jugs seem to be long gone.  Dacyzyn recommends mixing powdered milk with a regular milk so that you can adapt to the taste, so I might experiment with that.  I am not particularly fond of the taste and texture of powdered milk. (If anyone has a solution I’d love to hear it.)

Please share your favourite breakfast strategies and recipes for homemade granola or other cereals!

How a mystery delivery led to the best soup I’ve ever made!

A few weeks ago, I opened my door to find two cloth bags full of delicious vegetables – parsnips, carrots, rutabegas, ambercup squashes, beets, garlic, potatoes and onions.  There was also a newsletter from a local CSA (community supported agriculture) farm.  At first I thought perhaps the food was meant to be delivered to someone else in my building, but after calling the farm and checking on their website, I realized that they didn’t deliver.  Then I wondered if maybe someone was making a delivery to a neighbour and had gotten the apartment number wrong.  But with no method of contacting them, I didn’t know how to correct the mistake.  After 24 hours and no word, I thought that perhaps the vegetables were a random act of kindness.  Regardless, I decided at that point that the vegetables were mine to enjoy.  So thank you to my mystery vegetable delivery person!

I’ve made several delicious dishes with my mystery delivery, including two soups.  I first made a Carrot Parsnip Ginger soup, and I thought it was the best soup I’d ever made, until I made the Ambercup Squash soup, which trumped its deliciousness.  Both soups were absolutely spectacular, but the Ambercup Squash soup certainly triumphs over anything I’ve ever made before.  It was so good that I had three bowls in a row.  I’ve never eaten three bowls of soup at once before.

So here’s the recipe.  Unfortunately I didn’t track exactly how much spice I used, because when I cook, I just go by what feels right.  But I’ve tried to estimate.  Experiment and you’ll come to your own conclusions about what works.

image courtesy of www.beawkuchni.com

Amazing Ambercup Squash Soup

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1-2 large cloves garlic, minced

3 medium red potatoes, cubed

1 medium Ambercup Squash

splash of cream (optional)

4 cups homemade chicken stock

1 tbsp curry (or less for those who don’t want too much spice)

1-2 tbsp fresh ginger (minced)

1/2 tsp tumeric

1/4 tsp freshly grated whole nutmeg

1 cinnamon stick

salt & pepper to taste

Directions

Prick the skin of the squash with a fork and place, whole, on a sheet pan in the oven at 400 degrees for approximately 45 minutes. When done, skin will have begun to blister.  Remove squash from oven and slice in half.  Remove seeds with a spoon, preserving seeds if desired.  The squash should be soft enough that the flesh is easily removed and the skin peels off and flakes away.

In a large stock pot, heat olive oil over low heat; cook onion, stirring occasionally, adding a little sprinkling of salt, approximately 1/2 tsp.  Add ginger, garlic and spices and stir.  Add the chicken stock, potato and squash.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently, until the potato is cooked and flavours have blended together, about 1/2 hour.  Check seasoning, adding more salt or spices if desired.

Remove from heat,  let cool ever so slightly.  Remove cinnamon stick and blend in a blender in batches. Return to pot, warm and serve.  If desired, stir in a splash of cream (this is optional.)

***

This soup is incredibly nutritious and very, very cheap to make.  It’s an ideal healthy and affordable dish for fall & winter.