Strange Secret Ingredients
Have you ever had a recipe turn out completely different from what you had expected?
I found a recipe for a squash soup that showed promise; sauté an onion in oil and butter, add chopped butternut squash, vegetable broth, cayenne pepper and thyme; bring to a boil, then simmer 20 minutes. With me so far? Next you purée the mixture along with... Neufchatel.
"Hm," I thought, intrigued. "Neufchatel, eh? That could add a pleasant and creamy richness to a squash soup. I'll give it a whirl!" ...and so I did.
Everything seemed great up until the adding of the Neufchatel. My first sign of trouble was the odd, almost artificial color the soup became. The soup also thickened significantly, though I had been expecting that, at least.
I nervously served the bowls to my family and waited for their assessment. Mr. Lemon looked bewildered. "It tastes like turkey gravy," he said. I tried the soup myself. Turkey gravy? I wouldn't say so, exactly, though the soup did have a gravy-like weight on the tongue. The soup was rich, certainly; but the Neufchatel had completely obliterated everything I love about a squash soup. The delicate sweetness was gone, the subtle nutty flavor vanished. I'm not sure the soup was really bad so much as it tasted like nothing I had ever eaten before in my life, and most certainly not like I'd been expecting. My palate had been betrayed!
Well, you live and you learn, right?
On the other hand, I also made a really fabulous whole wheat bread. I followed the recipe pretty closely, substituting half the honey with molasses, and using the "Rapid Bake" cycle on my bread machine. This bread is absolutely amazing. Moist, flavorful, dense without being heavy. I am already looking forward to having more of this bread with jam for breakfast in the morning.
UPDATE: Er, oh, yeah, I used butter in the bread and not shortening, too. Sorry. Still the yum, though!
This is too weird. I made the same bread recipe last week in my bread machine. I used honey, but oil instead of shortening. I baked it on the whole wheat cycle. It came out great! Mine was the height of a regular loaf of bread...how high was yours on the rapid bake cycle? If I can get the same results in an hour or hour and a half instead of over 3 hours I'll save the time.
Posted by rhiamom | March 7, 2005 07:19 AM