Soup

[ksmith]

I had been planning to make Ina Garten's Roasted Butternut Squash Soup today, but it was after 5 by the time I got into the kitchen and I didn't feel like dealing with roasting veggies along with cutting and cooking them in a pot. So I poked around, and settled on plain old Butternut Squash and Apple Soup. I didn't have apple juice or cider, but I did have some chicken stock that I needed to use up, so I decided to use that instead.

My food processor is a small 4-cup model, and I wasn't looking forward to slopping soup in and out of that small bowl. So when the apples and squash were soft enough, I smooshed them with a potato masher. After several minutes, a few smallish chunks of apple remained. I was pretty hungry by that point, so I said hell with it and called it rustic. Tasted the soup, and confessed to disappointment. It seemed sweet, and not much else. I had added only half the salt that the recipe called for since the chicken stock contained salt as well, but even after I added it, the soup still lacked. I added an additional teaspoon of salt, then followed with a couple tablespoons of Penzey's Bonnes Herbes blend. Finally, I added a couple of tablespoons of cognac because I thought it would work in something containing apples. You wouldn't think you could taste a couple tablespoons of something dispersed in several quarts of soup, but I could just detect it and it definitely helped. Overall, the soup was not sweet even though it hinted at sweetness. The curry gave it a little bite. Not too bad for a first attempt at squash soup. Half a dozen meals for the freezer.



I stored it in glass containers because curry stains like whoa. Had some for supper with a turkey sandwich. Was good.

In other news, I harvested a bunch of basil and made another batch of pesto. I had pretty much given up on the basil since the hot weather beat the hell out of it, but the plants in the raised bed made a nice comeback. Maybe the cool weather affected them, because they didn't have that deep, musty sweet basil aroma. Instead, the leaves smelled like cinnamon. I know there is 'cinnamon basil', but this was sweet basil with a lighter scent. I got it all over my hands as I worked with it, and it was really pleasant.

Overall, it was a decent gardening year. I screwed up the tomatoes by putting too many plants too close together, but I wound up with about a gallon of puree, a gallon and a half of crushed tomatoes, and a couple of quarts of marinara in the freezer and greenies ripening in bags, so it wasn't a total wash. I was really happy with how the basil and spring greens turned out, and I will even manage a few bell peppers by the end of the warm spell. Next year, I will cut back on the number of tomato plants and look for blight-resistant varieties. Lots of lettuces and basil.



I'm beat. I still need to do dishes. Hawks just won, 4-3 over the Sabres. Dr Who's on in an hour.

I need another day in my weekends.