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7Gen Blog

07
Dec 2011

Recipes We Love: Peanut and Squash Soup

Author: greenwrite
4 comments
 
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My family has a tradition of celebrating dishes from many cultures. This mildly spicy-sweet soup hails from Senegal and is a delicious way to honor Kwanzaa, a festival that celebrates African-American heritage and features dishes native to Africa.

Ingredients
1 ½ teaspoons peanut oil
4 cups (1/2-inch) cubed, peeled butternut squash
1 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic (about 6 cloves)
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon coriander
4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken OR vegetable broth
¾ cup creamy all-natural peanut butter
2 tablespoons tomato paste
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

  1. Heat peanut oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
  2. Add squash and next 5 ingredients (through coriander) to pan
  3. Sauté 5 minutes or until tender
  4. Add broth, peanut butter, tomato paste, and crushed red pepper, stirring well to combine
  5. Bring to a boil
  6. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or until the squash is tender
  7. Sprinkle with cilantro

Makes 6, 1-cup servings

photo: missmeng

 

4
Comments

Comments (4)

chrisxpinko
Sun, Jan. 29, 2012

Just ignore arroyowash

This commenter shows up to trash on well-intentioned recipes as though the authors recommend Big Macs and Reese's Pieces as ingredients. All the time. Instead of dealing with real problems, like the standard American diet, this person finds it easier to nitpick and attack those who advocate natural whole foods and are kind enough to share their recipes with us. Arroyowash is an intensely negative presence who offers nothing constructive and distorts the properties of ingredients to the extent that one would think the commenter is writing about eating sheetrock.

CateB
Thu, Jan. 12, 2012

A rebuttal to the previous comment

Regarding the comment by arroyowash... this is just one recipe, it doesn't mean that the author of the recipe is promoting a fat free diet. She has taken a traditional recipe from an African culture that she uses and lovingly shared it with us. No where in this recipe are there "Trans fats and vegetable oils". Not ever item one consumes should have animal fat. I am not anti-animal fat, but you must acknowledge that there are many cultures that don't eat animal products in the quantities that Americans do and they are all quite healthy eating their traditional diet.

If you choose to use "Maranatha", that is your choice. I am sure if this recipe called for additional animal products they would have been included. Also, it is quite easy to make an extremely low-fat chicken broth. Not everyone's dietary requirements are the same, as you have stated with your comment about moms with autistic kids, which I am one, and as such I do not feel my child dairy products. There are many other ways get peanut butter without "mold" other than just the Maranatha brand. Also, if someone doesn't have a gallbladder, fat in their diet is a really bad idea. And no, eating fat doesn't make one fat, but neither does eating a heavily plant based diet which this recipe leans toward. If you are eating a diet that is 50% fat no matter what type of fat, you are going to be in a world of problems later unless of course you are native Inuit.

This is a sound recipe that is well combined to be easily digestible. I for one think this is a fantastic recipe that brings a little of another culture to our tables.

Melstang
Thu, Jan. 12, 2012

Sounds Great !!!!!!

Can't wait to try it!!! Yum! Sounds very tasty! The fat free broth is a great idea for people that have a difficult time processing fats & oils. Good idea, since the peanut butter already has fat in it. I am glad you shared a recipie that your family loves. Sounds like a tried and true one. The cumin coriander, & cilantro go really well together.

arroyowash
Thu, Jan. 12, 2012

Fat-free broth?

Ah, I see you are a fat-is-bad kind of gal. Please reconsider. This goes back to Ansel Keyes' flawed paper in the 1950s which gave rise to the erroneous hypothesis that saturated fat was causing heart disease. Lots of people, like the American Heart Association, jumped on the bandwagon and now they can’t get off.

Eating fat does not make one fat. But just as you have to distinguish between healthful carbs - veggies - and unhealthful carbs - breads, pastas, chips - one has to know which camp one's fat comes from. Saturated fats are healthful and are found in animal fat (meat, milk, eggs, butter and cheese) and tropical oils (coconut and palm oil). They are good for the body in so many ways - here is just one: Medium-chain saturated fats in butter and coconut oil, 12-carbon lauric acid and 14-carbon myristic acid, strengthen the immune system; they stabilize proteins that enable white blood cells to more effectively recognize and destroy invading viruses, bacteria, and fungi, and also fight tumors.

Trans fats and vegetable oils are unhealthy fats.

Evidence is growing that our diet should be at least 50 percent healthy fat. Our ancestors ate lots of saturated fats. They died mostly of infections and accidents; we die mostly of chronic diseases born of diet and lifestyle. A healthy diet is one of food the way Nature makes it, not the way man can process, modify, and mutilate it.

A fat-free broth is a mutilated food.

And most peanut butters have mold by the way; the moms of autistic kids can tell you the only brand that is okay is Maranatha.