Christmas Butterbean Cookies

Tom again, feeling surprisingly prolific today,

...and CHRISTMASSY. Yes I know it's november. I don't know what is happening to me. I am normally a massive scrooge. Help?

Anyway, in the spirit of my want to bake and christmas spirit (and because I can use my parents' fancy food processor!), here is a recipe for christmas flavoured cookies (the smell when they bake is glorious, it's filling my kitchen as I write this). This is entirely stolen from Happy Herbivore (http://happyherbivore.com/recipe/butter-bean-cookies/), and I adapted it with christmas flavours to suit my mood.

But now, to address the elephant in the room, yes, I said butterbean. Before you run screaming and denounce me as a witch or burn me for worshiping the devil...62 calories per cookie. And 0.7g fat. That's all. Because you're using the protein from blended butterbeans (which lets face it, have no flavour) to bind these cookies together, you don't need to add any fat to it, animal or otherwise. To be fair, this recipe isn't exceptionally sweet, but that can be altered easily enough if you'd like too. Yes it sounds weird, yes it looks like babysick when blended, but hey, it's worth a try right?

Ingredients:

1 cup Rolled Oats
1 cup Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Cloves
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
3 tsp Ginger (or about an inch of grated fresh ginger)
1/2 tsp grated Nutmeg
1/2 can of Butterbeans
1/4 cup of Apple sauce (or stewed apples)
1/2 cup of Sugar
Pinch of salt
Handful of Almonds

These cookies are kind of like macaroons in texture. On a side note DO NOT COOK THESE ON BAKING PAPER. They stick. And do not peal. At all. However, despite the occasional piece of baking paper still stuck on they were still tasty (my mum would NOT leave them alone). Also this recipe needs a food processor, you can probably do it with a spoon and a hand blender but it will take a lot of elbow grease.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350F, 175C or Gas Mark 4.
Pour 3/4 cup of oats into the food processor and pulse until they are lightly ground but not a powder.
Add the oats and all of the rest of the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl.
Put the butterbeans, apple sauce, vanilla and sugar in the food processor with a tbsp of water and blend until smooth.
Add the oats and stir until mixed.
Toast the almods briefly and break them up in a pestle and mortar (or with a rolling pin).
Combine the wet and dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and 1/3 of a cup of water and mix roughly (it should still be pretty lumpy, it works better that way).
Put tablespoon blobs on a greased baking tray.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden around the edges and on the bottom and solid in the centre.
Enjoy with a coffee! (I just did)

Dry ingredients

First butterbeans...

Now babysick. Also known as the wet ingredients.

Combine the two.

Add a few almonds.

Before

And after baking. With a nice bit of icing sugar, everything looks christmassy with icing sugar.

As always, make any changes you come feel - I'm thinking walnuts and coffee? - and let us know what you come up with at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Tom again tonight,

Making soups out of squashes (and pumpkins!) is an absolute favourite of mine. When roasted the flesh almost melts down to give a really smooth and almost creamy flavour. I have…not to say perfected, but tried and tested two recipes for roasted butternut squash soup, and to be honest, I can’t decide which is better. So I’m going to list both here and you can decide which you prefer!

Simple Hearty Butternut Squash Soup

This soup is a really good warming winter lunch when going outside is just too cold to be worth it. For those who eat cheese, this soup is amazing with chunks of gruyere dropped in to melt, or for that matter any cheese (cheddar melts gloriously). Once made the soup will freeze well and keep for…well I’ve never kept it long enough to find out. However, once you defrost it fully give it a stir before you heat it up again as it will separate (and look pretty disgusting I should warn you) but once it starts to bubble it should go back to looking more like soup.

Ingredients:

1 large Butternut Squash

2 large Onions

3 large cloves of Garlic

2 tbsp Oil (or butter)

1 tsp Nutmeg

Pinch of Cloves (optional)

1 litre of Vegetable Stock

Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat oven to 200°C

Split the butternut squash in half

Scoop out the seeds using a spoon and discard

Place on a baking tray (flesh down) and bake for 25-30 minutes (or until flesh is soft throughout). Once it’s fully roasted, leave it on a side to cool, then carry on with the recipe (You can also stop at this point and freeze the butternut squash for a later date, the flesh is soft enough to scoop off the skin and can but put in a tub easily).

Chop the onion roughly and add the oil or butter (whether vegan or dairy). Butter gives richness and some colour to the onions but also adds fat so it’s your call.

Now put the lid on and leave it. Totally. You can stir it occasionally but that’s it. Leave it for about 20 minutes. The onions will really brown and caramelise which gives the soup a rich flavour with really goes with the roasted butternut squash.

Once the 20 minutes are up add the garlic and few for another couple of minutes, then scoop out the flesh of the butternut squash and add it to the pan.

Fry the flesh for just a couple of minutes while you season the soup with nutmeg and salt and pepper, and cloves if you want (just a really little bit).

Next add enough of the stock to cover the squash and bring the whole lot to the boil

Simmer for just a couple of minutes, then if it’s the right consistency, take it off the heat and blend.

Serve with bread and enjoy!

Nutritional Information (is made into 5 portions)

                         Calories      Carbs      Fat      Protein       Sodium        Sugar
          Total:         669           108        30           9              481             24
Per Serving:          134            22          6            2               96               5

Spicy Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

This recipe has a lot more flavours added. Also the combination of garlic, squash and chili gives off a really enticing smell. (This one has photos!) If you’re not such a fan of chili I would recommend the simple version of this roasted butternut squash soup. I like using both fresh and cooked chilli as they have quite different flavours and also different levels of heat so this recipe fries 2/3 of a chilli in with the soup and then adds the final third just before blending. I like to add butterbeans to this to vary the texture slightly, but if you don’t like them, don’t add them!

1 large Butternut Squash

2 large Onions

3 large cloves of Garlic

1 Red Chili

2 tbsp Oil (or butter)

1 tsp Cumin

1 tsp Corriander

1 tsp Paprika

1 litre of Vegetable Stock

1/2 can Butterbeans (optional)

Dash of Soy Sauce

Salt and Pepper to taste

This recipe starts off the same as the previous – halve the squash and roast it as above (200°C for 25-30 minutes), then leave too cool before removing the skin.

Then roughly chop the two onions and add to a large pan, caramelise with a lid on for a good 20 minutes.

Once the onions have browned nicely, chop up the garlic and the chili. Add all of the garlic and 2/3 of the chili.

Fry for a further two minutes, and then add the butternut squash flesh. Heat through and then add the spices, and fry briefly.

Next pour in all the stock until it covers the ingredients. Don’t add it all if you don’t need too, it will be too runny.

Ignore the butterbeans, I added them by accident then had to fish them out again one by one. Here's an artist's impression of what that might have looked like.

Wait a minute...what did you use as bait for butterbeans?

Sorry, got a bit sidetracked there. Really trying hard not to get any work done tonight. Now bring the soup to the boil, and simmer to the correct thickness (as you like!).

Add the final 1/3 of the chilli, and blend until smooth.

Now you can add the butterbeans (if you are).

Finally serve in a bowl with a nice piece of crusty bread.

Add a dash of soy sauce to the soup to give it a nice depth of flavour.

Hope you enjoy these recipes, and as ever let us know any suggestions or improvements you made at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com. Feel free to create your own variation from the basic recipe!