I Love my Dutch Oven

DH got me a beautiful red 3-qt Lodge Logic dutch oven for Valentine's Day. It goes from stovetop to oven (NOT THE MICROWAVE) perfectly happily. It is the greatest way to cook a plump local chicken. Here goes:

Oven Casserole Chicken
3-4 lb fryer or roaster chicken, preferably organic and free-range
salt and pepper to taste (1/2 to 1 tsp salt)
2 tbs olive oil or butter for browning
1 small onion, peeled and cut

Rub chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil or butter on medium on stovetop. Put the chicken in breast-side down and brown for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, turn chicken over in pan. Sprinkle onion around chicken. Put lid on pan and put into oven at 300 degrees. After 30 minutes, reduce heat to 275 degrees, and bake another 1 1/2 hours.

If you don't have a casserole or dutch oven that will go from burner to oven, brown the chicken in a skillet, then put in a oven-safe casserole dish with a tight-fitting lid, and proceed to bake it the same way.

Oven Chicken Repeat
Save all the bones from above, including the carcass and any pan juices that are left. Put it all in your dutch oven or casserole. Bring to boil about 1.5 to 2 quarts of water, pour over bones, and add another 1 tsp or so of salt. Clap the lid back on, put casserole back in oven at 300 degrees, and bake for 2 hours. You will get a wonderful flavorful broth (if you started with a good quality chicken). Remove bones, pick off any promising little bits of meat, and strain the broth.

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Next, what to do with the broth? If you still have a butternut squash on hand, try this soup.

Passato di Zucca
Cut in half one 2-lb butternut squash. You can save the seeds and roast them. Turn squash cut-side down on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. For the seeds, put in a pie pan with a little olive oil and salt and also roast them at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. These two can go alongside the dutch oven full of chicken bones and broth, conveniently.

In a 2-quart pan, melt 2 tbs butter and saute 1 largish onion chopped until soft. Scoop the cooked squash out of the shell and add. Now add 3 cups of your dandy chicken broth and cook about 5 minutes. Let cool a bit, turn into a blender and puree. Return to pan, check for salt, add a dash of nutmeg and pepper, and add more chicken broth if it is too thick. Garnish with sour cream or yogurt if desired.

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A bowl of the above soup was part of my lunch today.

My winter squash has kept beautifully this year. It was a long fall, and the squash got well matured out in the field before harvest. I keep them in a coolish room out of the sun, maybe in the 50s most winter days. I recently cooked my last pumpkin of the season (made pumpkin pudding--yum!). This soup took my last butternut squash. I have a couple of acorn squash left. Usually pumpkins aren't very happy after the first of the year.