Soup Season

I'm back! And I think I have a really legitimate reason for not writing for over a month and a half-- first, I went on vacation to Nova Scotia. Then, I spent 3 weeks moving, and 2 weeks after that setting up house. We are finally settled into our big new country home... and we have an acceptable internet connection. So I have commenced creative cooking (and writing) once more. 


With the food co-op I've been a part of this summer, I've really been enjoying the challenge of using all of the interesting vegetables I receive each week. This time of year the vegetables that are being harvested lend themselves to delicious fall soups. So, I've been testing out some recipes. Last week we had a delicious squash and pumpkin soup, and this week I tried out a potato kale soup recipe from my Simply in Season cookbook which I am a really big fan of. I had never tried kale before I joined the co-op, but now I'm hooked on this extremely nutritious vegetable.


Now, I wasn't in blog mode when I was cooking, and my internet is pretty slow, so the pictures are few and not actually of the soup-- just pictures of some vegetables that I took 5 minutes ago. Hope that's good enough for you!

Squash and Pumpkin Soup (with apples!)


I love this soup because it combines some of the best fruits of the harvest. 


Ingredients: 


1 butternut squash
the guts of one pumpkin, scraped, seeds removed
2 tbsp of cooking oil
2 apples, cored and sliced
2 cloves of garlic
1 medium onion
cumin, coriander, cardamom, nutmeg and cloves
1 stick of cinnamon
1 vegetable oxo cube
water


Rather than baking the squash and pumpkin as most recipes require, I chose to peel the squash and cut it into chunks, and scrape the insides out of the pumpkin as much as possible without sacrificing the shell, which we want to keep for jack o' lantern purposes. Then, I threw the pumpkin, squash and apples into a pot with a little water and 1 tbsp of oil and cooked the crap out of it for a while.


In the mean time, I sauteed the onions and garlic in the remaining oil until soft, adding the spices and frying for a few more minutes. I added the onion mixture to the pot with the cinnamon stick and let it simmer until everything was very soft, about 30 more minutes. At this point, having a hand blender came in really handy-- it's one kitchen tools I very much enjoy having (thanks Rhonda). It takes a lot of the work and danger [of getting burnt] out of soup making.  I took out the cinnamon stick and blended the soup until smooth, but if you want you can leave a few chunks of squash in there for texture. Once it was blended, I added the oxo cube and as much water as I felt it needed, until it was of a soup-like consistency. 


And voila! A souper dinner is served (you didn't think I was going to be able to resist that one, did you?)


Next week: 2 great ways to cook my new favourite vegetable. Kale!