Lent-friendly recipes: Butternut squash and apple soup and whole wheat bread

Editor’s note: Every week during Lent, Jersey Catholic will feature a recipe perfect for Meatless Fridays submitted by Archdiocesan staff. This week’s recipe is submitted by Jennifer Behnke, Associate Director of Evangelization.

Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons good olive oil

4 cups chopped yellow onions (3 large)

1/2 tablespoon garam masala curry powder

5 pounds butternut squash (2 large)

1 1/2 pounds sweet apples, such as McIntosh (4 apples)

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 cups water

2 cups good apple cider (Prefer unpasteurized from Pochuck Farms in Vernon, NJ)

Instructions:

Warm the butter, olive oil, onions, and curry powder in a large stockpot uncovered over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until the onions are tender. Stir occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pot.

Peel the squash, cut in half, and remove the seeds. Cut the squash into chunks. Peel, quarter, and core the apples. Cut into chunks.

Add the squash, apples, salt, pepper, and 2 cups of water to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook over low heat for 30 to 40 minutes, until the squash and apples are very soft. Process the soup through a food mill fitted with a large blade, or puree it coarsely in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

Pour the soup back into the pot. Add the apple cider or juice and enough water to make the soup the consistency you like; it should be slightly sweet and quite thick.

4 ingredient whole wheat bread in dutch oven

Ingredients

·4 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons salt

1-1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast (1 package)

·1-2 cups room temperature water

Instructions

·In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and yeast.

Pour in the room temperature water (starting with just 1 cup if using some white flour) and stir until a uniform dough comes together. You may need to use your hands. Form the dough into a rough ball and place it in the bottom of the same bowl you made the dough in. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter for 2-18 hours. (The longer the better)

A little bit before you are ready to bake the dough, preheat your oven to 475°F and place a dutch oven inside the oven to preheat as well. Once the oven has preheated and the dutch oven is hot, carefully remove the pot from the oven and take the lid off.

Using floured hands, remove the risen dough from the bowl and form it back into a rough ball. Place it on some parchment paper and drop it into your hot dutch oven. Cover the dutch oven with the lid and place it into the oven.

Bake the bread for 30 minutes with the lid on. Then remove the lid and allow the bread to bake another 15 minutes or until golden and crusty on the outside.

Remove the pot from the oven and carefully remove the bread from the dutch oven. Place it on a wire rack to cool.

·Slice and enjoy!