Good Monday morning to you all. What I have for you today is a way to turn a batch of roasted vegetables into either a salad, hash or soup. If you would like to make all three, you’ll need to make a triple batch of the roasted sweet potato and butternut squash recipe. If you want to just give one of the dishes a try, make a single batch. And, of course, the roasted veggies are delish all on their own.

A beautiful box of McClendon’s Select produce that I bought at the Scottsdale Farmer’s Market a week ago was the inspiration for all of these recipes. McClendon’s Select is offering an “order ahead – drive-thru contact-free pick up” service at the market each Saturday in Scottsdale during this time of quarantine. Click HERE for more information on that.

If you hang in there and get to the final recipe here, you’ll get to my confession. Hey, something to look forward to!

Roasted Sweet Potatoes & Butternut Squash

• 3 cups peeled, seeded, and diced butternut squash (about 1 medium squash)
• 3 cups peeled and diced sweet potatoes (about 1 large potato)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Trader Joe’s Everything But the Elote Seasoning Blend
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil, and set aside.

Put the butternut squash and sweet potatoes in a large bowl. Toss with olive oil and the TJ’s seasoning blend and generously season with salt and pepper.

Spread the vegetables in one layer on the prepared baking sheet. Roast in preheated oven for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, toss and roast for an additional 15 minutes.

Use for either the Hash, Soup, or Salad recipes below. One batch is enough for any ONE of the recipes. If you want to make all three, you’ll need to make a triple batch of the roasted vegetables.

Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster has nothing on my dad. The older he gets – the more cookies he wants. To me, it is out of control. I don’t endorse this at all. My sister, Sloane, does not have an issue with it and that is where the problem begins for me. My niece, Raina, is an amazing baker. Although she loves to bake, she doesn’t necessarily want to eat all she makes. That is where my dad comes in, he happily devours all her creations, especially the cookies. He fully supports her baking hobby, supplying her with butter, sugar, flour and the like to her heart’s content. Or so he claims, I know that it is actually to his heart’s content. In turn, Sloane brings Raina’s creations to Dad on a regular basis. Plus my kids give him a cookie subscription every Christmas, so he receives more cookies in the mail every other month.

Even during this current crisis of sheltering in place, my dad NEEDS his cookies. He’d run out of Raina’s cookies (because he goes through them like the general public seems to be going through toilet paper and bottled water) and he doesn’t have an order coming this month in the mail. You think the global pandemic is a crisis? No, this is the true crisis! He didn’t hesitate to ask me to run to the store to get him cookies! What? Really? Talk about an addiction. Putting your daughter’s health at risk so that you can munch away.

No, I didn’t do as he requested, instead I rummaged through my pantry, found a can of pumpkin puree and baked him up a batch of pumpkin-oatmeal cookies, even though I do not at all enjoy baking. When I delivered the cookies, along with other food I’d made for him, he informed me that he was allergic to oatmeal. Why have I never known this? I suppose because I don’t like cooked oatmeal, so the subject hadn’t come up before. He said he breaks out in hives if he has “too much” oatmeal, but that the amount in each cookie “should be okay”. Yup, he is such a cookie monster that he is willing to break out in hives to have his beloved cookies.

I’m sorry, I don’t have many photos of the process since, quite honestly, I was irritated while I was making these and hadn’t planned on blogging the recipe. It didn’t cross my mind until I had everything in the mixer. But I’m sure you’ve made cookies before, so a bunch of photos isn’t really necessary.

Which is somewhat of a surprise since I don’t care for carrots. You may wonder if that is the case, why did I choose to make carrot soup? I made the soup because I needed to use up the vegetables I had on hand that I planned on making Crudites Harmony Boards with. Multi-colored carrots are a big part of those boards. Since Harmony Boards is closed during this crisis, veggies are turning into soups instead. You may use all orange carrots for your soup, I used yellow, orange, and white for mine. What made this soup so wonderful for me was the addition of tomatoes. I LOVE tomatoes! Plus, roasting vegetables always makes them better.

I love stir-fry. I love doing all the prep ahead, arranging everything right next to the stove and having it come together in a matter of a couple of minutes in a hot wok. Not that have to own a wok to make stir-fry, you can use a large frying pan, but woks are fun!

I had planned on sharing what has been happening with my dear friend, Kim and her family, but as I type this on Friday night, I came to the realization that I need the entire weekend to work on that so it will have to wait until next week.

What I really want to know today is, how are you all doing?

I have been limiting my exposure to the news but I watched the full NBC Nightly News broadcast just now and I am feeling more worried and anxious then I have since the virus hit our shores. The thing that really got to me was that there was not one other topic covered on the regular broadcast by Lester Holt other than the virus and its effect on our financial health, on our heroic healthcare workers, on the world. All the statistics and predictions just got to me like never before.

In the last three days, I’ve been relieving the stress and worry by getting out and walking more than I ever have before. The last time I felt this overwhelmed and stressed was when I was going through my divorce and living in a rental house with all of my belongings crammed around me. I felt like I was drowning. I couldn’t sleep properly due to the stress and one of my friends said that I should try getting one of those mattresses (to know more, click here) which makes you feel like you’re sleeping on the clouds. Walking each and every morning and each night is what got me through that difficult time, I’m counting on it to do its magic again.

Another way I reduce stress is to cook. As you know, soup is my favorite! I love making it and I love eating it even more. It is my numero uno comfort food! So here is another soup for you to try. You may use a regular russet potato in place of the sweet potato, it happens to be what I had available at the time

This simple soup doesn’t need an onion, a carrot, or even celery. Just a bunch of asparagus, a garlic clove, and a few fresh herbs. Honestly, you can forgo the sour cream and even the chicken broth, adding water instead. Of course, the sour cream and broth add richness and silkiness to the soup, but in a pinch, no dairy and plain tap water (or as Jacques Pépin always called it in cooking classes; eau de sink) are just fine. And if you don’t have the time to get or have access to fresh herbs, add 1 teaspoon of each in dried form at the same time you add the asparagus to the pot. See, basic and easy breezy.

Hello friends! It’s been a while. A long while! The last time I posted here was nearly 4 months ago. Harmony Boards has been such a wonderful ride this last 18 months but I do miss blogging, posting recipes and feeling connected to you all!

On March 14th, I posted this on my personal Facebook page:

“I’ve wondered what I would do if I was literally stuck in my home for 14 days…

*I would brainstorm new ideas for my business and refresh my websites. I’d actually have time to return to my blog, LesPetitesGourmettes.com, which I have neglected for months!

*I’d clean out closets, cabinets, files, drawers, the garage, the sheds–you name it! What an opportunity to start fresh and start dreaming again!

*I’d choose to see this extra time as a gift, the gift of slowing down and taking stock.

*I’d put on not one ounce of makeup and wear facemasks, and teeth whiteners and moisturizers all day! The next big run and hoarding at the stores are going to be these such items! Why not!?

Little did I know that that time would come as quickly as it has. I temporarily closed down Harmony Boards on March 17th and began actually cooking again the next day. (something I have not done much of for many months!) My son, Connor, came over and we made a variety of seven dishes for ourselves and to share with my (almost) 89-year-old dad and with my dear friend, Kim Howard, and her family. More on the Howard family and the events that have been unbelievably devastating to them in future posts.

It’s official – I can no longer say, “I’m back,” as a heading to a post. I’ve used that a few times after a planned extended break from blogging. I said, “I’m back!” as recently as last spring. I meant it at the time. I wholeheartedly planned on getting back to blogging on a regular basis, but then life, in the form of a new business, got in the way.

It’s been more than a month since my last post. As soon as summer remotely felt as if it was over, Harmony Boards took off like a speeding bullet and I’ve been non-stop, often working 12-hour days, ever since. I am not complaining! I love it, but it makes finding the time or wrapping my head around doing anything else, very difficult.

That changed with a comment I received from a loyal blog follower, former Les Gourmettes student, repeat blog contest winner, and friend, Shirley G.

Shirley { 10.20.19 at 8:33 AM }

Hey Linda,
I haven’t seen a blog post from you in a while…is everything alright? Did I accidentally remove myself from your list??? You know I am not the most tech-savvy person around…lol.
Thanks and I miss your posts!
xo,
Shirley

Thank you, Shirley, for the love, for missing me, and for giving me the wake-up call I needed! Here’s a recipe with a tablescape that I’ve been wanting to post. It is from a dinner party I co-hosted on Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day. My co-host, Angela, is 100% Italian. So this 100% Irish girl and Angela taught a lovely group of women to make Gnocchi and I made up a big pot of Cacio e Pepe Pasta (literally cheese and pepper) and an even bigger bowl of Panzanella Salad and of course, an antipasto Harmony Board. We sat outside and it was a glorious night celebrating Italian food and the end of a long hot summer.

In the early spring, I planted a bare-root persimmon tree. The persimmon tree is that stick with a tag on it in the photo above

I planted it because I love to use persimmons on my Harmony Boards in the fall.

The little tree set so many blossoms that I was pinching them off daily.

As the fruit set, I eventually put on netting to keep the birds away.

During one of the recent monsoon storms, part of the netting blew off and ended up high in my Joshua tree on the front side of the house.

I tried getting it off with the telescoping pole from my pool net, but it is not budging. I guess it’s there to stay.

Anyhow, the fruit I had left on the tree to ripen was weighing down the branches and putting undue stress on the tree, so I picked the majority of the fruit off last week. The persimmons were small, rock-hard, and not yet ripe, but I discovered that when I left them at room temperature for a few days, they began to ripen and soften.

The outside was still green but the inside flesh was vibrant orange and sweet. What to do with it all? Jam seemed like the best solution.

I did some research and learned that persimmons do not have a high enough pH value to be safe for water bath canning.

The same article suggested adding another fall fruit, such as pears, and plenty of lemon juice. Problem solved.

While I was in Canada with Kim last month, we talked about the dilemma of making jam and all the sugar that is needed. Kim did some research of her own and we learned about Pomona’s Universal Pectin. This brand requires far less sugar.

For instance, I found several pear jam recipes online that used about the same about of fruit as I used in this recipe, but used 4 cups of sugar versus the 1 ½ cups I was able to use because I used Pomona’s Univeral Pectin.

The Pomona’s box also comes with a little packet of calcium powder that you mix with water to activate the pectin. Here is more about the calcium from Pomona’s website:

“Pomona’s Pectin is activated by calcium, so calcium has to be present in the mixture either naturally or added by you. Since most people don’t know the calcium content of their fruit, we recommend a calcium water amount in every recipe to be sure there is calcium in the mixture. If your fruit has calcium in it naturally, you don’t need to add the calcium water.”

One mistake I made was that I didn’t cut the fruit small enough for my small jars. As you can see in the photo above, it wasn’t as much a jam as it was chunky fruit.

To fix that, I transferred the cooked jam to a food processor and used the pulse button to get it to the consistency I wanted. I rectified that in the recipe by calling for diced fruit instead of chopped. But if you want to do less initial chopping, you can use the food processor after the fact too.

It’s crazy how often you can post when you have content! Here is the third recipe from Labor Day 2019.

I would absolutely love to have a big shrimp boil one of these days. It’s such an iconic east coast summer meal.

But here in the desert, in the summer, even the thought of standing outside while shrimp boils and then standing over the steaming masses of food poured out in front of you sounds absolutely torturous and horrendous. Maybe in the fall!

Something like any one of these images is the dream. Have a bunch of friends over and just dump it all out for the taking on a long table covered in paper.

This Fall. For Sure!

In the meantime, I made this attempt at a touch of the “shrimp-boil” flavor for our Labor Day BBQ.