Butternut Squash Soup!

Now that the weather is changing and fall is finally setting in its time to transition to more soups and heart warming meals for the cold months ahead.

This past week there was a great sale on squash at my local store and of course being the squash lover I am I jumped right in and picked up some big squash to cook up.  I have never cooked a butternut squash so I had no idea where to start.  I found a soup recipe that finally caught my tastebuds so I thought I would give it a try.  As I looked over it and thought about my busy school week ahead I knew that there was not time or patience to cook and dirty up all the dishes I needed for that recipe.  In talking with my mom about it we devised a plan to cook it in a crock pot which made it much more simple!

I used the same ingredients so here is what you will need:

1.5 pound butternut squash

salt and pepper (add to taste)

4 large shallots peeled and diced

1/2 ginger root peeled and thinly sliced

2 tbs chives

2.5 cups of veggie broth

1tbs garlic minced

Lets cook:

poke squash all over with fork or knife to make holes in its skin

place on baking sheet

cook for 45min on 350 (make sure it can be easily pierced before you pull it out)

cut squash in half and let cool (if its still too hard to cut put it back in the over for a little longer)

once cool scoop out seeds and take off squash peel

dice the squash up and put into croc pot

add all over ingredients and cook on high for 6 hours

I loved the soup! It was light but filling at the same time.  I totally winged the croc pot part of the recipe.  It seemed to have worked out perfectly so if I go to cook this again I wouldn't change it.  I had trouble getting the squash to a good texture.  I tried to stir it and squish it up every time I went to the kitchen.  It worked but maybe I should have thrown it in the food processor for a little spin first. When I served it up I added just a little bit of sour cream and some crackers and it was perfect!

Hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!  Happy munching :)

Baked Spaghetti Squash

Hello food friends,
For some strange reason I have been dying to have spaghetti squash for months.  I finally decided to get a squash and look for a good recipe! I found a great post on another blog for a simple way to cook it!
Most sites said that you should cut the squash first and then cook it.  With as large and cumbersome as the squash it that seems like bad news to me.  I choose this recipe because you cooked it and then cut it.  It was so simple to cut after that.  Scooping out the seeds were hard though.  I was not sure where the seeds ended and the spaghetti ended.  I choose not to use "loads of butter" as it was called for because I wanted to keep the recipe vegan.  Overall it was pretty good.  I think I really built it up because I had been wanting it for so long so it was a little bit of a let down.  When I heated up the left overs for lunch the next day I added a little bit of butter and salt and that improved it.  Other recipes I found talk about adding peas with it or some other veggies.  In general I was really pleased with it!  It was a good switch up from some of the usual veggies I normally eat.

Have a good weekend fellow foodies! Happy munching!