I have two new reasons you should own an immersion blender, and both are delicious.

As I often mention, Mike and I live in an average sized apartment with (what feels like) an incredibly small kitchen. We do not have a lot of space for appliances, so the ones we do have must do double or triple duty. Except for the tea machine, that is. We’re even contemplating getting rid of the toaster and microwave to get a toaster-oven.

While I long for a KitchenAid stand mixer (I use my mom and dad’s instead), standalone food processor and blender, I often just use the immersion blender in the place of all three of these. Shockingly, you can do a lot with this single, slim tool and its various attachments.

I got mine for about $80 at Costco a few years ago. It’s the Cuisinart Smart Stick and it came with a few attachments. It only has one speed, so it’s not as awesome as it could be, but it is used to make everything from hummus and baba ganoush to whipped cream and mayonnaise.

As the weather turns cooler, I often find the blender very useful for making soups, especially these two:

Raw Tomato “Soup” with shaved fennel and jalapeno

Good tomatoes obviously make the difference here. I was skeptical about this recipe as it sounded overly snooty (it is a Charlie Trotter recipe, afterall) and cold soups are obviously more of a summer deal, but this was incredibly smooth, rich and flavourful with a bit of crunch from the fennel. The immersion blender and a sieve played a role.

Soup

• 2 large, red heirloom tomatoes, peeled and seeded
• 1/2 jalapeño chile, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped, peeled, seeded cucumber
• 2 teaspoons sherry wine vinegar
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Garnish

• fennel, thinly shaved
• 1/4 cup peeled, seeded, and diced red tomato
• 2 teaspoons brine from olives
• 2 teaspoons sherry wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 12 micro fennel sprouts or fennel fronds

Using the immersion blender, I combined the tomatoes, chile, cucumber, and sherry. This purée is pushed through a fine-mesh sieve and seasoned. The real magic is in the garnish: spoon the soup into bowls. Top with shaved fennel, fronds, tomato and jalapeno. Drizzle olive brine, vinegar and olive oil on top.

Raw tomato soup with poached eggs over mushrooms two ways and toast points. This sounds like a complex meal, but it took less than 30 minutes to make.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

This has to be my single favourite recipe this month. What do you need? A bag of precut squash from Costco, four cups of stock, an onion and spices. Plus the immersion stick!

• 2 lbs of diced squash of your liking. I buy the precut bags because I am very poor at cutting squash down and getting the maximum flesh out.
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 4 cups of stock, vegetable or chicken
• If you like, you can add carrots, celery or apple
• Spices to your liking: I use garam masala (1 tsp), cayenne pepper (1/4 tsp), cinnamon (1/2 tsp) and nutmeg (1/4 tsp).

I roast the squash in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 450 degree Fahrenheit until it begins to brown. This step is completely optional; I just prefer the way it adds depth and flavour to the soup.

In a pot, I heat up some olive oil and sautee and brown the onion. When soft and caramel colour, I toss in garlic and any additional add ins, like carrot or apple. (If you skipped the roasting step, add the squash now, and sautee a bit longer, until the squash is soft.) In goes the roasted squash, with a liberal dusting of spices. I’ve included measurements, but I never use them. It’s my failure as a cook.

Sautee a few more minutes, add the stock and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer for atleast five minutes, but for as long as 20. Immerse blender, blend until smooth. Finish with a splash of cream, croutons or a grilled cheese sandwich.

Curried butternut squash soup with grilled cheese. This soup can take as little as 15 minutes to make, but the version I prefer runs about 25 minutes. It depends on your taste buds and patience/hunger level.

I should note much of the pottery in these photos was made by Mike, including the bowls and a vase.

A garden fresh dinner last night turned out to be a team effort.

Beets, raspberry vinaigrette, pecan and goat cheese salad. As a co-main dish, (pre-made) garlic mushroom ravioli in a brown butter sauce with sage, chanterelle & brown mushrooms, and a sprinkling of pine nuts for crunch. My boyfriend roasted the beets and made the dressing as well as sauteed the mushrooms. I boiled the ravioli and made the brown butter sage sauce.

Voila!

By the way, the Pasta Time frozen ravioli from the Italian Center was shockingly good. Tender, flavourful and easy to prepare. I normally shy away from frozen foods, but this is an exception. The filling was creamy, and not dried out or freezer burnt.

Brown Butter Sage sauce

• 5 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons coarsely chopped sage leaves (fresh)

Melt the butter at medium heat until the milk fats separate and float on the top, about five minutes. Add the sage leaves until they just being to crisp, then remove. The butter should be darkening. When it is a darker brown, remove from heat immediately.

Great on pasta, mushrooms, chicken.

For dessert, I used some bits of chocolate from left over bars and melted it in a double boiler with butter and cream. Drizzled (more like clumped) it over vanilla ice cream and sprinkled super ripe raspberries on top. I lack the words to even describe to you how insanely simple and delicious this was.

ham + cheese baguette

It’s no secret that I enjoy the bread Cobs makes. For a chain, they make damned fine bread products. Their pane di casa italian rolls are crispy, light and airy with a hint of chew, and I’m a fan of the new Turkish rolls, with the same consistency of the pane di casa, but a generous smothering of olive oil and seasonings on top.

When I visited the other morning, one of the bakers came barreling out of the back. “Behind!” he shouted to the front clerk, before loading a wire rack laden with French baguettes into the display. He then rang a cowbell hanging above, and yelled “FRENCH BAGGGGUUUETTES!” while the other bakers cheered in the back. Turns out the French baguette is a brand new item at Cobs. It was amazing and it immediately brought me back to the first time my Mom brought my brother and I to continental Europe in the early 1990s.

We were living in England at the time, and caught the ferry over to Bruges, in Belgium for a day trip. The food had a huge influence on me, and I still remember every meal we ate that day. There was a serving of spaghetti bolognese that could have sunk a ship (and indeed sunk me, I was ill after overeating it) and the crispiest most delicious pizza ever eaten at an outdoor cafe on the main square of the town. But the best was a last minute picnic of fresh baguettes and some cheese and meats we found at a small market. God, was it ever delicious.

After I finished day dreaming, I naturally had to get a baguette and desired to fill it with ham and cheese. I swung by the Italian Center and loaded up on meats and cheeses. I wasn’t home two minutes when I was tearing into the meats, cutting cheddar and assembling a delicious rosemary ham and cheese baguette. So simple, so delicious.

I have always found it a challenge to cook using what is hanging around the house already. Odds and ends that never seem to go together, things you’re not sure are still good. It’s so much easier to just start new.

However, I have decided it is an important skill to start using up leftovers and have made a concerted effort to cook with them. I made a simple dinner of a BLT salad and grilled cheese last night.

The meal used up many things: some salad greens, half a container of grape tomatoes, a loaf of bread and some bacon. Why do they make the packs so big?! I often  have to wrap up some pieces and preserve them cryogenically in the freezer.

The secret to having a great grilled cheese versus a good grilled cheese? Grated cheese. It’s an extra step, but it makes all the difference. Here, I use the six-year-old Balderson from Costco. My mom says it’s not a grilled cheese unless the cheese is orange, but I beg to differ.

I crumbled the bacon and threw in these great little grape tomatoes. I actually bought them because I was swayed by the packaging. They came in this little UFO container, and the tomatoes were extra crisp and delicious. I’m unsure if the container played a part, but I did notice the shape helped keep the tomatoes from weighing on each other.

And the end product. A perfect melty and crispy grilled cheese (with bacon thrown in) and a BLT salad with a balsamic dressing and sprinkle of cheese. And, most importantly, several ingredients now freed of their impending refrigerator doom.