Improv recipe: Roasted Curried Sweet Vegetables

This is not the healthiest dish out there, but it sure is tasty. You could probably tone down the amount of oil used, and omit the butter entirely, if you are trying to be a bit healthy. You can, of course, make things less spicy if you don't do well with heat. Make sure to taste the mixture to see if it's to your liking before you slather it on your veggies.

One last note: Unless you are an expert with a knife, do not attempt this recipe without a sharp vegetable peeler. Acorn squash are kind of a pain to peel. You can substitute a small butternut squash, which is a little bit easier to peel.

Roasted curried sweet vegetables
Serves 4 as a side dish

2 sweet potatoes
1 medium acorn squash

¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup brown sugar
1 clove garlic, crushed
1-2 Tablespoons curry powder
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 cloves
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Peel vegetables, cut into 1 inch cubes. Combine the rest of the ingredients except for the butter. Taste mixture and adjust seasoning as necessary. Coat vegetables with mixture.

Put vegetables in large oven-safe dish or wide-lipped baking sheet. Dot with butter.

Cook for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, or until veggies are tender.

Whose recipe is it anyway: squash soup

Much like Whose Line is it Anyway is/was a show based on Improvisation, my "Whose recipe is it anyway" will be a repository of improvised recipes.

Yesterday, I made a very nice free-form squash soup for lunch. I used up a bunch of leftovers-- squash, roasted peppers, and a half a carton of heavy cream I had in the fridge.

Hardware
Small saucepan
stick blender or regular old blender

Software
1 roasted squash, cubed (this was something I picked up from the farmer's market. I can't tell you what variety it was)
2 roasted bell peppers, cut into strips
1-2 cups of chicken broth
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1-2 Tablespoons of curry powder (more or less to suit your tastes)
salt and pepper to taste.

Simmer squash, peppers, and chicken broth until heated through. Add heavy cream. Turn off heat, add curry powder, salt and pepper to taste.
Puree mixture in the blender, or use a stick blender. Puree less if you want it chunky, more if you want it smooth.

This was pretty tasty. I should have pureed it smoother, because the squash chunks were a tad stringy. The curry powder I used was very mild. Idea was based on something from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa show on Food Network. Adding the curry powder I got from a different squash soup recipe in a newsletter.