Spiced sweet potato soup

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There's nothing like soup for using up leftovers. In fact, now that I think about it, I made this soup entirely out of Thanksgiving leftovers. Hooray for frugality.

(Don't worry, you don't need to cook Thanksgiving dinner just to make this soup. There's another way.)

I don't like my sweet potatoes sweet, so I roast them with garlic, chili powder and lime (here's the recipe). You can just add those flavors to your soup if you don't want to take the trouble to roast the sweet potatoes first. Also note that there's no peeling involved. Sweet potato skins are tasty and healthy - lots of fiber! And once you blend up the soup, you won't even notice them.

Spiced sweet potato soup - leftovers method

• Leftover roasted spiced sweet potatoes
• Chicken or turkey stock, enough to cover the potatoes

Bring sweet potatoes and stock to a boil in a pot. Turn down the heat and simmer about 10 minutes (remember, the sweet potatoes are already cooked). Puree in the pot with an immersion blender, or in a countertop blender in batches. Taste and add salt if necessary. Serve hot.

Spiced sweet potato soup - from scratch method

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3-4 sweet potatoes, unpeeled, cut into chunks
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 6 cups chicken stock
• juice of 2 limes
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and saute about 6 minutes, until the onion is starting to brown and caramelize in spots. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Now add the sweet potatoes and chili powder and continue to saute about 5 minutes. Turn up the heat a little if you need to - you want the sweet potatoes to start to caramelize around the edges to simulate that roasted flavor you get from a hot oven.

Add the chicken stock and lime juice and bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer about 30 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are very soft. Puree until smooth in the pot with an immersion blender, or puree in batches in a countertop blender. Taste and correct the seasonings with salt and pepper (if your chili powder or stock is salty, you may not need much). Serve hot.

Funny Christmas cookies: Wordless Wednesday

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These showed up on a plate on the desk of my colleague Christine:

Darth Vader

Fried egg and bacon

Kim Kardashian - from behind

Homemade applesauce recipe

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I never think about making homemade applesauce until Hanukkah rolls around. And then, once I do make it, I wonder why I don't do it more often. It's so delicious, and so easy, and so healthy, and did I mention delicious?

I'm giving you an applesauce recipe, but note that I'm not a fussy applesauce maker. I don't measure, and I use whichever apples I can find at a good price. I also love mixing apples and pears, as I did in the batch pictured here. Bartlett pears go down in price when they turn from green to yellow, and that's when they're really ripe and sweet - perfect for cooking down. I don't even add sugar.

What to do with applesauce? Eat it with a spoon from a bowl, that's my number one choice. You can also serve it with potato pancakes (latkes), plop it on top of ice cream, or use it instead of jam in a peanut butter sandwich.

Homemade applesauce (or apple-pear sauce)

• 10-12 apples, peeled and cut into chunks (or 6 apples and 6 pears)
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• a splash of water, just to get things started

Put all ingredients into a large pot. Cover the pot and cook over low heat about 45 minutes, checking now and again to make sure nothing is burning and the pot has a little liquid at the bottom. When the fruit is soft (time will vary depending on the variety you use), use a potato masher to break it up. Simmer uncovered for a few minutes if the sauce seems too watery.

Chicken stew with lemon, olives and figs (slow cooker or stovetop)

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I have learned several things in the nearly two years I've been blogging about food:

1. I make a lot of stew.
2. It is very, very hard to take a good picture of stew.
3. I am terrible at remembering to hold back ingredients or undercook dishes in order to make a better photograph.
4. Garnish? What garnish?

This lemon chicken recipe is a case in point. I make it often because it's easy, delicious, and well loved in my family. I've wanted to write about it for a year but haven't because I've been unable to get a good shot. That ends today. I must share the lemon chicken recipe with you. You must have the recipe. Today.

I use boneless, skinless chicken thighs because they get ultra-tender and fall apart with long, slow cooking. The base of the stew is extremely simple: onions, garlic, lemon, a few herbs. I add some olives and a squeeze of honey. And this time I also put in dried figs, since I'm still working my way through the 16-pound bags of figs graciously given to me by the California Fig Advisory Board. The figs work perfectly with the Mediterranean flavors in this recipe; if you like a little sweet in your savory, do add the figs.

I served this lemon chicken with potato latkes for our Hanukkah dinner. I got up early, got the stew into the slow cooker, and left it to cook all day on low while I was at work. When I got home I discovered that someone had turned off the slow cooker. Uh-oh. Fortunately, two hours on the stovetop in a cast iron pot did the trick. It's always good to have a backup plan.

Chicken stew with lemon, olives and figs

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 large onions, diced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 10-12 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• zest and juice of 4 medium lemons
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 branches each fresh thyme and rosemary
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 2/3 cup pitted Kalamata olives
• 1/2 cup dried figs, chopped (optional)

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Saute the onions until translucent, about 4 minutes; add the garlic and saute another 1 minute (do not let the garlic burn). Add the chicken, lemon zest and juice, salt and pepper, herbs, honey, olives and figs. Bring the pot to a boil, turn down the heat, cover the pot, and cook over very low heat. Check the pot after 30 minutes; the chicken should release enough liquid to keep everything moist, but if it looks dry, add a little water or chicken stock.

Cook about two hours, or until the chicken is tender and falling apart, and the rest of the stew is soft and bubbling gently. Serve over rice. The lemon chicken stew will be even better on the second day, as most stews are.

Slow cooker method: Put all ingredients in the slow cooker in this order: onions, garlic, herbs, chicken, lemon zest, lemon juice, honey, olives, figs, salt and pepper. Cook on low 8-10 hours.

How to roast a turkey, the easy way

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I am a Thanksgiving renegade. Oh, in most ways I'm quite conventional: I make stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, even pumpkin desserts. But there's one key way in which my Thanksgiving kitchen is pure rebellion.

I refuse to roast a whole turkey.

It takes too long. It takes up too much space in the oven. The breast is dried out by the time the legs are done. It takes up too much space in the refrigerator the night before. Et cetera.

Many years ago my friend Kasey shared with me her secret for hassle-free turkey: She asks the butcher to cut it into parts, like a chicken. That way you can roast it flat. You can store it overnight in a plastic bag. You can roast the white and dark meat separately, so you can pull them at different times. And it cooks in half the time of a whole bird.

I've been doing turkey this way ever since. I go one step further and have my butcher bone the breast halves, which makes carving a snap. I also order an extra breast to be sure we have enough leftovers.

You have to be willing to give up on the big reveal of the burnished bird. I'm fine with that; everyone's too busy to notice anyway. You also need a friendly butcher, like the guys at my beloved Bob's Market in Santa Monica, which shouldn't be a problem unless you're buying a frozen supermarket turkey. (If you are, you'll have to learn to take it apart yourself. Think "big chicken.") It's worth finding a butcher, because the absolute best thing about this method is that it gives you plenty of time to concentrate on the sides - aren't they the stars of the show, anyway?

Roast turkey, in pieces

• 1 turkey, any size, cut into eighths; breasts boned, skin left on
• olive oil
• garlic salt
• paprika
• any other spices or herbs you like

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Put the breast halves skin-side up in one roasting pan. In another, put the legs, thighs, and wings. Rub everything with a little olive oil and sprinkle it liberally with the garlic salt, paprika, and/or whatever spices you prefer. I keep it really simple, but it's up to you.

Put the turkey in the oven. You want to roast it to an internal temperature of about 165 degrees, because once you take it out, it will rise to the desired 170 while it's resting. For a 15-pound turkey, I start basting after an hour and checking the temperature after 90 minutes. If yours is smaller, start everything sooner. There's nothing worse than overcooked turkey.

When the turkey parts reach 165, take them out of the oven, cover them with foil, and let them rest at least 20 minutes before carving. Note that you do not have to pull the dark and light meat at the same time - that's the beauty of this method. Take each pan out when it's ready. Carve, which should be extremely quick and easy. If, after carving, you need to rewarm the meat, pour some of the pan juices over the carved meat, cover the dish with foil, and put the whole platter in the oven for a few minutes.