Melinda Bossenmeyer: Plagiarist?
Here's a fun evening task: read this post of mine from July 5, 2007, and then read this one "posted by Melinda Bossenmeyer, Ed.D." on July 9, 2007 at Peaceful Playgrounds, Inc.'s "recess blog".

Anything look familiar? If not, I'll point it out for you: Dr. Bossenmeyer's post of July 9 is copied nearly word-for-word from my July 5th post. There have been a number of small changes made throughout the post, but not nearly enough for Dr. Bossenmeyer to call the post her own. Take, for instance, the introduction. Here's mine:

One of the exercise mantras commonly floated about is that adults should get 30 minutes of moderate activity exercise at least five days a week. While this is a good goal, the majority of Americans don't get this amount of exercise¹. And, for a lot of beginning exercisers, exercising for 30 minutes a day probably seems like a huge commitment, if not an insurmountable challenge.

My SO and I have long viewed exercise in the "some is better than none" category, and thus try to do even little amounts whenever we can (e.g., walking to the store instead of driving, always taking the stairs at work, doing our own gardening). A recent paper (Church et al., 2007) has shown, via a randomized, controlled trial, that even small amounts of exercise are better than no exercise at all (at least for the subset of people they tested).

And here's the one posted by Dr. Bossenmeyer:

Most all research indicates that adults should get 30 minutes of moderate activity exercise at least five days a week. While this is a research based recommendation, studies indicate that the majority of Americans don't get this amount of exercise¹.

A recent paper (Church et al., 2007) has shown, via a randomized, controlled trial, that even small amounts of exercise are better than no exercise at all (at least for the subset of people they tested which were post menopausal women).

And some of the post was simply copied verbatim. Once again, here's my post:

Church et al. divided overweight, post-menopausal women into four groups:

• Control: Did no exercise a week (other than normal walking)
  
• 4kcal/kg: Exercised about 70 minutes a week
  
• 8kcal/kg: Exercised about 135 minutes a week
• 12 kcal/kg: Exercised about 190 minutes a week

Participants were randomly assigned to a condition, and all exercise was performed in a lab². The participants exercised at their given level for six months, at which point physiological data were compared to data taken at the start of the study.

Fitness improvement correlated linearly with the amount of exercise:

And here's Dr. Bossenmeyer's text:

Church et al. divided overweight, post-menopausal women into four groups:

• Control: Did no exercise a week (other than normal walking)
  
• 4kcal/kg: Exercised about 70 minutes a week
  
• 8kcal/kg: Exercised about 135 minutes a week
• 12 kcal/kg: Exercised about 190 minutes a week

Participants were randomly assigned to a condition, and all exercise was performed in a lab². The participants exercised at their given level for six months, at which point physiological data were compared to data taken at the start of the study.

Fitness improvement correlated linearly with the amount of exercise:

She even included the three footnotes verbatim, the last of which includes links back to my exercise-tracking blog (and which makes no sense in the context of her blog):

In fact, it was the realization that our fitness was slowly declining (and would continue declining until we would no longer be able to walk when we were 70) that finally motivated my SO and me to start regularly exercising (and tracking our exercise goals and progress here) a few years ago.

There are no links back to my blog (other than the accidental ones to my exercise blog in the footnote), no acknowledgments that I wrote the original post, and she's even added her own copyright notice ("Copyright 2008 Peaceful Playgrounds, Inc." is in the footer of the page). I've never had any communication with Dr. Bossenmeyer that I know of, and certainly never authorized the use of my work on her blog.

I would expect more of a person who's "spent 27 years as an educator and is the author of six published books on playgrounds and numerous articles on recess, playgrounds and play."

[Many thanks to monado, whose recent comment on this post led to me finding this plagiarism. And, just in case something should happen to Dr. Bossenmeyer's "original" post, here are some screenshots of it: 1, 2, 3, 4]

Labels: plagiarism

- posted by Radagast @ 7:52 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
A most useless doctor visit
For the past few years I've noticed that my wrists have been getting sore after extended periods of computer use. Knowing what this could mean, I attempted to cut down my computer use, and started using programs that encouraged me to take regular breaks¹. The soreness became more frequent and came on with shorter periods of use (which is, I might point out, one of many reasons why my posting frequency has dropped precipitously), and then recently I started noticing tingling in my fingers and my mouse hand feeling itchy. So, I decided that enough was enough: it was time to head to the doctor.

The nurse who first saw me had carpal tunnel syndrome herself, and she shared her experiences. Unfortunately, they boiled down to “don't do what I did - I had to have surgery, and still can't use my left hand all that well.” Practical advice on how not to do what she did was rather lacking from her monologue.

So, in came the doctor. He did the usual asking what was wrong, and after my explanation he said, “Well, you've got carpal tunnel syndrome.” He made the diagnosis without ever touching me, or without asking any clarifying questions. Given that after reading online I'd found that there are a few possible conditions that have similar symptoms, I was surprised that he didn't. He then proceeded to explain what causes carpal tunnel syndrome (pressure on a specific nerve; it's always interesting to listen to how doctors dumb down explanations) and that if it got bad enough I might have to have surgery.

Did he bother to say what I needed to do to avoid said surgery? No.

He then asked me whether I used a computer at work, and after I replied with a yes (and that I had a suboptimal work arrangement), he said that that was almost certainly the cause.

Did he bother to ask me if I did other activities (like, say, playing the guitar, or blogging) that might be related? No.

He did, however, go on to talk about how employers are very worried about carpal tunnel syndrome due to the fact that it's the #1 worker's comp injury, and that I should talk to my HR department about getting something ergonomic for my setup (his primary suggestion was, I kid you not, “a gel wrist-pad”). Did he give me any real suggestions on what to do to make my workspace (at home or work) more ergonomic? No. Did he bother talking about any of the range of possible treatments, and discuss with me which would be most appropriate? Other than suggesting that I take off my watch and get a gel wrist-pad, no.

He did ask if my hands tingled when I woke up (which is a symptom of sleeping with bent wrists, an indication that wrist braces may help if worn while sleeping), but then quickly went back to talking about worker's comp.

After a nearly useless conversation, he briskly asked me if I had any other questions, and then shooed me out the door. I learned more in a half hour of web-browsing the night before the appointment than I learned from him, and I'm now left to search the web for more information.

¹ Initially I used Ubuntu's built-in typing break program (found in the “Keyboard” menu, at least for Ubuntu 7.04). While this was an excellent start, it was suboptimal (it didn't have an option for micro-breaks, and it would lock the keyboard without much warning, which was frustrating if I was in the middle of a sentence). I also tried a Google Desktop add-in, but that was even less useful (as it just brought up a popup window, which was easy to ignore if I was busy). Most recently I've started using Workrave, a free Linux and Windows program that appears to be excellent: it has both micro- and macro-breaks, gives plenty of warning when breaks are about to appear (I can finish my sentences now!), and is very customizable.

Labels: medical, personal

- posted by Radagast @ 10:40 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
Buying a classical guitar
Last year I started playing the guitar, and since I thought I'd prefer playing rock music, I bought a steel-string acoustic to learn on. While I've loved playing the guitar, I've realized that I prefer playing classical music.

Classical guitar music is typically played on guitars specially built for the purpose. Classical guitars have smaller bodies than steel-string acoustic (and steel-string electric) guitars; they have shorter¹ and wider² necks; and they use nylon strings instead of steel strings (see Wikipedia for a description of guitar construction). The changes in the neck make fingering somewhat easier (the strings are farther apart, meaning that while the fingers must stretch farther, it's less likely that a finger will accidentally hit multiple strings), and the nylon strings change both the sound (it's mellower) and the pain coefficient (the strings are much easier to hold down without causing pain)³.

So, buying a classical guitar has been on my to-do list since last summer. Regular readers may recall my joyful experience buying my first guitar online. To summarize, I ended up having to return two different guitars, and even the guitar I eventually kept had been slightly damaged. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and it drove home the point that online music stores don't seem to quality-check their merchandise before selling it (or, at least, the two stores I purchased from didn't). Additionally, finding comparable sound samples of guitars online is nearly impossible, making comparison shopping difficult. Given that when I started shopping I was considering spending at least $500 on a classical guitar, I didn't want to take the risk of buying it online.

Shopping advice I found for buying a classical guitar can be summed up as: "Check the guitar for mechanical flaws (buzzing strings, odd noises when playing, cracks, etc.), play a few guitars, and then buy whichever guitar sounds the best to you." Oh, and "bring an experienced player with you if you're a novice." Unfortunately, I didn't have any experienced players who were willing to go shopping with me, and the advice to "buy whichever guitar sounds best" meant very little to me at first, as I had no clue what to listen for. So, that advice wasn't terribly helpful.

To make a long story short, my SO and I made about a dozen trips to different guitar stores over the past six months, and at each store I played as many classical guitars as I could (often about 5-10 different models at each store, until I started narrowing the field). Playing (and more importantly, listening to) all of these different guitars was excellent experience: by the end of the six months my SO and I had both developed better ears, and we felt confident distinguishing different guitars in my price range.

Over this time we figured out a few things that might help someone else shopping for a new guitar:

1. If you're not great at tuning by ear, bring an electronic tuner and use it to tune every guitar you play. Even at specialty stores, we found that most of the guitars were out of tune⁴, and even the best guitars sounded awful out of tune. I felt a bit embarrassed about bringing a tuner at first, but it was well worth it.
2. If possible, find specialty guitar stores in your area. We went to one of the chain retailers, and were disappointed by the quality of their classical guitars (the guitars tended to be horribly out of tune, some had very old/damaged strings on them, and a surprisingly high fraction had mechanical problems, something we didn't find nearly as often at specialty stores). The specialty stores also tended to have a better ambiance (they were quieter and calmer, which is important when the entire point of the excursion is to listen to the guitar you're playing).
   
3. Play as wide a range of guitars as you can. Even though I knew I couldn't afford the $4,000 guitars, I still played them, and it was by comparing the sound of $4,000 guitars to $200 guitars that my SO and I started learning what to listen for.
4. Bring someone with you who can listen to the guitars as you play, even if that person isn't an experienced guitar player. Even though both my SO and I were novice listeners (and my SO doesn't play the guitar), we found it educational to be able to discuss the sound of the guitars (as together we heard more than either one of us individually).
   

While the shopping was a slow and often frustrating process (models that were in stock one visit were often out of stock the next visit, and the different stores all stocked different models, making comparing our favorites difficult), it was fun to play so many guitars, and this past week I finally settled on one. At the start of the process I'd hoped to spend around $500 for a new guitar, but I ended up spending nearly three times that, as I realized that guitars in that price range just sounded better to me. It's the most expensive chunk of wood I've ever bought, but I love it.

¹ The neck of my new classical guitar is 32.5cm long (from the nut to the joint with the body), while my steel-string's neck is 35.5cm long. On a classical guitar the neck joins the body at the twelfth fret, while on my steel-string acoustic the neck joins the body at the fourteenth fret.
² The width of the neck at the first fret on my new classical guitar is 53mm, while my steel-string acoustic is 44mm wide at the same point.
³ Acoustic steel strings are like little razor blades: they require a lot of force to push down at the frets, and they're so thin that they jab into your fingertips as you do that. When I first started playing on my steel-string acoustic, I couldn't play for more than 15 minutes a day before my fingers started killing me; after a few weeks I built up calluses, but even so it's still mildly painful to play for more than a few hours a day. Nylon strings make fretting much easier - they're thicker and they're plastic, so they don't cut into the fingers nearly as much.
⁴ While many guitars were just awfully out of tune (and even a simple relative-tuning check would discover the problem), some guitars were relatively in tune (i.e. the strings were in tune relative to each other) but were way off from standard tuning (e.g., the B string was actually playing B-flat). Thus, just checking the guitar by ear to determine if it's relatively in tune wouldn't be sufficient to compare all the guitars on an even footing.

Labels: guitar

- posted by Radagast @ 1:20 AM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
Gai Tom Ka (Thai coconut and galangal soup)
Both my SO and I have gotten great New Year's presents: little viral bundles of joy. We don't know who gave them to us, but they've certainly been having great fun in our respiratory systems.

So, we've been in the mood for soups, and today my SO cooked up our favorite Thai soup. If you've eaten at Thai restaurants, you'll likely recognize this soup (or something similar). This soup is loaded with strong flavors (galangal, lemongrass, chili peppers, and the traditional Thai fish sauce), and thus should always be served with copious quantities of plain rice (we mix the rice right into the soup as we eat). This soup is the perfect dish for a cold winter day, and since it made for a delicious sick-day breakfast¹, it's this week's end-of-the-week recipe blogging post.

8 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup fish sauce
4-inch piece fresh galangal (or ginger), roughly chopped (unpeeled)
2 4-inch pieces of lemongrass stalk, washed and chopped into 1/4-1/2-inch long pieces
10 kaffir lime leaves, torn into several pieces (optional)
4 red jalapeños or other chili peppers, seeded, deveined, and cut into strips
2/3 cup lime juice (or lemon juice)
1 can (~13.5 fl. oz.) coconut milk
1/2 - 1 pound chicken (sliced into ~1/4-inch-thick slices) and/or tofu (cut into 1/4 - 1/2-inch cubes)
chopped cilantro (optional; as a garnish)
cooked white or brown rice (we'd suggest cooking about 2/3 - 1 cup of dry white or brown rice per large bowlful of soup)

0. Prepare plain white or brown rice to serve with the soup. We cook up about 2 cups dry white rice for the two of us when we make this soup for a full meal, and have relatively little rice left over but have about half the soup left over.
1. Add the chicken stock and fish sauce to a pot and bring to a simmer.
2. If you have cheesecloth available, wrap the galangal (or ginger), lemongrass, and lime leaves in a large piece of it and tie into a bundle (to make removing them from the broth easier).
3. Add the galangal (or ginger), lemongrass, and lime leaves to the simmering stock, and cook for 10 minutes.
4. If you haven't wrapped the galangal (or ginger), lemongrass, and lime leaves in cheesecloth, strain them out of the broth now.
5. Add the lime (or lemon) juice and jalapeños, and continue simmering for another 10 minutes.
6. If you used cheesecloth (in step 2), remove the cheesecloth bundle now. Add the coconut milk and chicken and/or tofu, and simmer until the chicken is cooked and/or the tofu is heated through (~3 minutes).
7. Serve along with plain white or brown steamed rice, garnished with chopped cilantro (if desired).

Notes:

Obtaining the ingredients for this dish requires finding a market that stocks Asian ingredients. In our area, fish sauce and coconut milk can be found in the Asian section of most supermarkets, but items like fresh lemongrass, galangal, and lime leaves are found only in specialty Asian markets that stock Thai ingredients (look in the produce section).

Don't despair if you can't find fresh galangal or lime leaves; we've made the soup many times using just fresh ginger in place of the galangal and omitting the lime leaves, and it's been fine. While galangal and ginger don't taste identical, they're fairly similar. Galangal, ginger, and lime leaves store fine for months in the freezer (ginger and galangal don't even have to be wrapped to freeze). However, we would advise against using dried ginger or galangal, as the drying process dramatically changes their flavors. We don't know how using dried lemongrass would affect the soup, as we always use fresh (see below). We've never served the soup with the cilantro garnish, but it is traditional.

If you live in the Southern California area and know that you like Thai food, you might consider growing your own lemongrass, as it does well here. We planted a tiny plant a few years ago, and besides rare waterings it's just about taken care of itself (while growing into a nice-smelling, rather attractive 5-foot wide plant). Note that lemongrass leaves are very sharp along the edges, so wear gloves while harvesting.

We based this recipe on one in Bhumichitr (1988).

Bhumichitr, Vatcharin, 1988. The Taste of Thailand. MacMillan, NY.

¹ And, since the soup was so strongly flavored, we could actually taste it with our cold-impaired senses!

Labels: cooking, recipe, soup, thai

- posted by Radagast @ 9:56 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
A nearly vegetarian Christmas dinner

Follow the link to see a labeled version of this image.
My SO and I regularly cook big holiday meals. As is traditional, these have typically featured a central meat course surrounded by a number of vegetable-based sides. Upon pondering what we wanted to cook for this year's Christmas dinner we realized, however, that when it came right down to it the central meat course wasn't really all that central. So, this year my SO and I decided to try a Christmas dinner without the central meat course. Here was our menu:

• Cream of roasted cauliflower soup
• Butternut squash soup
• Cran-raspberry-pineapple gelatin conglomeration
• Creamy Brussels sprout gratin
• Buttermilk mashed potatoes
• Collard greens with bacon and onions
• Baked sweet potatoes with marshmallows and brown sugar

While the relatives we've described this to have been surprised by the lack of meat ("Not even a tofurkey?"), we hardly even noticed it. Our plates and bowls were full of diverse flavors and textures, and we were so stuffed by the time the sweet potatoes finally came out of the oven that neither of us even had any that night.

Labels: cooking, holiday

- posted by Radagast @ 11:11 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
Homemade grainy mustard
Every year my SO and I send out homemade holiday presents to our families. Our two most requested presents are our fruitcake and our mustard, and since we've made these recipes for nearly 10 years now, we figure it's time to share. I'll be posting the mustard today, followed followed by the fruitcake recipe in a few weeks (once we've had time to experiment some with the recipe).

Our mustard is made from whole yellow and brown mustard seeds that have been only partially crushed, and thus you get treated to little bursts of mustard flavor as you eat. The flavor is different from store-bought mustards: our mustard is sharper than most, doesn't taste as much of vinegar or turmeric, and has a hint of onions thanks to shallots. We have reports from family members that even though they've tried, they can't find anything like this in stores. Since we just got finished making our annual batch of mustard a few days ago¹, it's this week's end-of-the-week recipe blogging post.

Note that this recipe requires a few days to soak the mustard seeds before making, and tastes best if left to mellow for a week or two before eating, so plan accordingly.

1/2 cup dry yellow mustard seeds
1/2 cup dry brown mustard seeds
1 cup rice vinegar
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 tablespoon kosher salt

1. Put the brown and yellow mustard seeds into separate containers and add approximately 3/8 cup (1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons) of rice vinegar to each container. Cover each container tightly and let sit at room temperature for at least 2 days, stirring occasionally. If the mustard seeds end up looking dry during the soaking period, add a bit more vinegar to moisten.
2. Grind each type of mustard seed until many of the seeds have broken open (the seeds should start clumping together, and you'll start to see little bits of seeds in addition to whole seeds). For an artisanal feel, you can do this by hand with a mortar and pestle; it's a lot of hard work, and is guaranteed to make your grinding arm sore. For the lazy cook's mustard, put the seeds into a food processor and process with long pulses. It's best to grind the two types of seeds separately, as the yellow and brown mustard seeds grind at different rates.
3. Mix the mustard seeds, salt, shallot, and remaining vinegar (~1/4 cup) in a bowl. Add extra vinegar to bring the mustard to a nice paste-like consistency (it may take an extra tablespoon or so).
4. Transfer to jars and store in the fridge.

Notes:

Don't use aluminum cookware with this recipe, as it may react with the vinegar.

There's no need to use exactly 1/2 cup of each type of mustard seed; as long as you have a total of one cup of seeds you should be fine. The yellow seeds are milder than the brown seeds, so variations in proportions will change the sharpness of the final product.

We store the mustard in sealed jars in the fridge, though it may not require refrigeration (and we regularly ship it cross country without issue). The mustard keeps for a long time; we've kept jars in the fridge for more than a year and it still tastes great.

The recipe above makes a bit less than 2 cups of finished mustard. We typically make at least five times that amount (2 1/2 cups of each type of seed, ~2 cups of vinegar to soak each type of seed initially, 5 tablespoons kosher salt, 5 shallots, and 1 to 1 1/2 cups vinegar for mixing at the end), and as long as you're using a food processor for grinding you won't go crazy. In the past we've always hand-ground small batches of mustard; we only recently started using a food processor due to making large batches, and thus we're not sure how well a food processor will work with a small batch of mustard.

This recipe is based on one in Walden (1995), a book which wins the Radagast and SO award for best food photography.

Reference:

Walden, H. 1995. Sensational Preserves: 250 recipes for jams, jellies, chutneys, and sauces. Reader's Digest, NY.

¹ And yes, this means that if you're a family member waiting for your holiday mustard shipment, your mustard is indeed in the mail.

Labels: cooking, ingredients, recipe

- posted by Radagast @ 2:45 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
It is done.
I'm pleased to report that the semester is finally over. I finished my grades last night, and this afternoon I finished off all the fiddly end-of-semester work that I'd been putting off. My e-mail has an away message, my voice mail won't be checked for weeks, and I have nothing I need to do for work until January. Ahhhhhh.

How did I celebrate? By coming home and taking a nap.

Labels: personal, teaching

- posted by Radagast @ 10:50 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
Stay on target ...
The end of the semester has proven to be insanely busy. Even though many instructors at my college have already turned in their grades, I still have dozens of papers to grade and haven't even given my last final exam yet. This is even though my SO has been querying me for my name when I arrive home, thanks to me working solid 10 or 12 hour days for at least the last two weeks (including weekends).

Making things even more "fun" is that I've had the "pleasure" of turning in more than a dozen different students for plagiarizing this semester, most of them in the past week and a half. I've even set a new personal record for the greatest fraction of plagiarizers in a course: 50% of the completing class.

More to come once grades are in.

Labels: personal, teaching

- posted by Radagast @ 10:23 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
Happy Thanksgiving!
Yes, I am indeed still alive. My prior post on the topic of why I haven't been posting still applies: my new online course is keeping me insanely busy, and whatever spare time I have is being spent either sleeping, playing the guitar, or shopping for a new classical guitar. The only change I'd make to my prior post is to eliminate the "not stressed" part: I've fallen weeks behind on grading large assignments, and have barely been getting my online course's units created on time.

The online course is still going well; I'm learning a lot, and I think the students are learning at least a little something. Right now my completion rate looks like it's going to be around 2/3 of the initially enrolled students, which I consider to be pretty good for my first try (we've reportedly had online courses with completion rates of <25% at my campus). I'm already looking forward to teaching the course again in the spring. I'm also looking forward to winter break, when I'll have time to start writing more here.

I hope you have a relaxing, food-filled Thanksgiving!

Labels: music, personal, teaching

- posted by Radagast @ 1:31 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post

 
Butternut squash soup
A few months ago my SO and I bought some butternut squash soup at Trader Joe's. We were impressed by the soup's smoothness and squashy flavor, and thus decided to try making a squash soup on our own. We just did that today, and the results were fantastic: the soup was thick and smooth, and filled with the flavors of sweet squash, spicy ginger, and savory onions. We roasted the squash's seeds along with the squash itself, and they made a great topping for the soup (they added concentrated bits of roasty flavor). This soup also has the benefit of being insanely healthy. Since we enjoyed this so much, it's this week's end-of-the-week recipe blogging post.

3 to 3 1/2 lb. butternut squash, whole
Enough vegetable oil to lightly coat the squash seeds and a roasting pan
3 tablespoons butter, unsalted
1 medium onion, chopped
2 scallions, chopped
4 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (plus extra for salting the squash seeds, if desired)

To make this recipe you need to first roast the squash, and then let it cool before making the soup.

Roasting the squash:
0. Preheat your oven to 400F.
1. Wash the squash and cut it in half lengthwise. Be careful while doing this, as winter squash skin can be extremely tough.
2. Using a spoon, scoop out the squash seeds (and the tissue holding them into the squash) and put them into a bowl.
3. Coat a baking pan with a thin layer of vegetable oil, place the squash cut-side down on this pan, and then bake at 400F until the squash is done (one hour or so; the skin should be browned and the flesh should be soft and easily pierced).

Roasting the squash seeds (optional):
1. Separate the squash seeds from the squash flesh; this is probably most easily done with your hands. After you've separated the seeds, put them into a bowl or strainer and wash until most of the squash goo is gone.
2. Mix the squash seeds with enough vegetable oil to coat, and put into a pan that's large enough to hold the seeds in a single layer.
3. Bake in a preheated 400F oven until lightly browned, approximately 5-10 minutes. We baked these along with the squash, though if your oven is too small for that, it would be fine to roast them after the squash is roasted.
4. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with salt, and stir.

Making the soup:
1. Once the squash has cooled, scoop the flesh of the squash out of the skin; set the flesh aside until needed.
2. Heat the butter in a large non-stick pot over medium-high heat.
3. Once the butter has melted, add the onions, scallions, and ginger, and cook until the onions are softened and just starting to brown (about 5-10 minutes).
4. Add the roasted squash flesh and four cups of the chicken stock. Bring to a boil and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.
5. Add the salt and the remaining two cups of chicken stock and puree the soup until smooth. We did this using an immersion blender, but a standard blender should work fine. If your blender is volume limited, you might want to blend the soup before adding the final two cups of chicken stock.
6. Serve the soup (heating it on the stove if necessary to bring it to your preferred temperature). Garnish with the roasted squash seeds, if desired.

Notes:

Radagast's SO enjoyed the soup with a sploosh of cream stirred into a bowlful, but Radagast preferred the soup without the cream. The cream made the soup creamier (who'd have guessed?), and seemed to mellow the flavor some.

The squash seeds make a tasty snack all on their own, so even if you don't think you'll like them in the soup, you may want to try roasting them anyway.

This recipe is modified from one Joy of Cooking (Rombauer et al. 1997). The original recipe used two leeks instead of the onions and scallions; we didn't have leeks on hand.

Rombauer, I. S., M. R. Becker, and E. Becker. 1997. Joy of Cooking. Scribner, NY.

Labels: cooking, recipe, soup

- posted by Radagast @ 7:44 PM | Permalink | | | Links to this post