anyway...
fall is definitely here. the leaves are turning color, there's a slight chill in the air, it's starting to get dark early, and i can't seem to get away from the pumpkins! =)
lo and i headed out to the patch the other day to pick out some pumpkins for carving...
the patch was filled with families and kids trying to find that 'perfect' pumpkin. we noticed that some of the grownups were walking around with whole heads of lettuce in their hands and we were wondering where they came from. apparently a lot of the adults had decided to raid the adjacent farm field! can't take those grownups anywhere...
at the end of the day we each had our own freshly carved pumpkin. i decided to forgo the traditional jack o' lantern look and went for a patterned motif instead. it ended up looking ok in the light but by candlelight the design wasn't too visible.
since we ended up with two pumpkins worth of seeds we thought it might be fun to do a little roasting. lo's pumpkin was a bit unusal and had green seeds rather than the traditional white! but they all turned out quite tasty after some toasting. we did one sweet and one spicy batch.
my most recent cooking experiment is courtesy of cooking light. butternut squash is one of my favorite fall time veggies and so i decided to try out a soup recipe. the tureen housing the newfound recipe is courtesy of corndog and rootbeer. =)
Spicy West Indian Pumpkin Soup
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 cups chopped peeled calabaza or butternut squash (about 1 pound)
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons minced seeded Scotch bonnet or habanero pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 (15.75-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add squash, onion, celery, pepper, and garlic; sauté for 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 25 minutes or until tender. Discard bay leaf.
Place half of the squash mixture in a blender, and process until smooth. Pour pureed mixture into a bowl; repeat procedure with remaining squash mixture. Return pureed mixture to pan; cook over medium heat 3 minutes or until heated.
*note*
since i don't care for celery i omitted it from the recipe. it didn't feel like it was missing anything so if i make it again i'll probably leave out the celery again. what am i going to do with a whole stalk of leftover celery anyways?
two small chilis i had in the pantry were subsitituted in for the Scotch bonnet/habanero peppers. i have no idea what kind of peppers it was that i used (maybe ancho?) but it gave the soup a nice kick without being too spicy. i also had some homemade chicken broth kicking around in the freezer so i used that rather than the canned stuff. i really don't know if there is a taste difference there. there probably wasn't since my homemade chicken broth never has any salt in it!
the last adaptation that i used is that i used a hand blender rather than sloshing all of those hot ingredients into a blender (which i actually don't own *gasp*) or the food processor. i've recently been introduced to the wonders of the hand blender and i can't stop using the darned thing!
so... happy (belated?) halloween
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