Thai Chicken(/Veggie) Balls & Roasted and Curried Butternut Squash Soup

As planned, we made Thai Chicken Balls and Roasted and Curried Butternut Squash Soup this past week. Scaled to 12 and 16 servings, respectively, we had zero left-over chicken balls, and about two extra bowls of soup, even though I think only ~10 people ended up making it. (So, my first piece of advice for these recipes is: aim high.) The soup was a big hit, and the chicken balls were okay, but nothing spectacular.

Preparation

For the Thai Chicken balls, I cherry-picked advice from a few of the comments on AllRecipes, and used Panko breadcrumbs (Axelina said they had them at Rainbow Foods), slightly reduced the amount of cilantro used, got the Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce from Trader Joe’s (thanks, Leigh), and baked them at 400° F for almost 35 minutes (though, had two trays in at once–one tray using vegetarian burger crumbles, and the rest with chicken). I meant to add crushed red pepper to the mix, but forgot until it was too late. It’s also really beneficial to have extra sauce for dipping/etc (we used more of the TJ sweet chili dipping sauce and Axelina whipped up a sauce from peanut butter, soy sauce, and probably something else). They weren’t bad by any means, but they weren’t especially impressive. I wouldn’t bother making them again.

For the soup, we used a mix of the original preparation directions and advice from the top comment by Amanda L (I am a chef in a Manhattan Resturant […]) and one or two others. Namely, we added ginger root to the collection of vegetables we roasted, substituted coconut milk for yogurt or heavy cream, and added more of pretty much all seasonings (especially curry, cumin, salt, black pepper). It’s not at all a spicy dish, but just has a very rich, warm flavor. I overheard multiple positive comments about the soup, and very much enjoyed it myself; I would definitely make this again.

Thanks, everyone, for all the help, and extra thanks to a few people that stepped in at the last minute to cover ingredients for group members who were unable to attend!

Pictures!