As many of you already know, our coffee shop has transformed into a full service cafe complete with many different food options. We specialize in bagel sandwiches and quesadillas but we have many tasty options. We have been working with the South Michigan Food Bank recently on a project that they have started. The food bank provides families in need with a food box with various items in them like eggs, veggies, fruits, and squash or potatoes.
The food bank approached us and asked if we could come up with a meal from each food box so they could show people that you could make some cool dishes with items in their box. The first month we we made some apple crisp waffles. We took apples, granola, and eggs from the provided box and used them to make the waffles and the apple crisp topping.
The most recent box we received had two acorn squashes in it and we had recently test cooked a chorizo tostada so we decided it would be fun to make up a soup recipe. We roasted the squash in the oven with a little bit of brown sugar. We then began to cook some chorizo in one pan while we pan fried up onions, peppers, celery, cauliflower, navy beans, and corn to unlock their flavors. Once the squash was done cooking we put it into a pot and emulsified it with some chicken stock and heavy whipping cream to make a creamy delicious soup base. We then combined the chorizo and veggies into the pot and let them cook together so the flavors could combine. 20 min later we had completed delicious hearty soup that anyone can make!
This project with the Food Bank has been fun and challenging and to has helped us broaden our culinary horizons because we don’t get to choose what is in these boxes. We love to cook so this has been right up our alley and we have had a lot of fun doing this!
Until next time