Fall Butternut Squash Soup

A pretty simple soup, for a simple fall evening.  Combine equal parts (about 3/4 cup each) of chopped onions, carrots, and celery in a pot with some butter, garlic, and olive oil.  Saute until things start to smell good, and add 3 cups of chopped butternut squash (skin and seeds removed) and mix well.  After the squash has sufficiently moistened, add about 2 cups of chicken or vegetable broth (we used some leftover turkey carcass broth) and cook for 15 minutes, until everything is soft.

Remove from the heat, and blend the soup in blender in batches, until everything is creamy.  Return to the pot, reheat, and season with salt and pepper as needed, and maybe some fresh sage.  Garnish with the last of the nasturtium blossoms.

Quick Garden Sausage Medley

Olive Oil
2 Italian Sausages
Garlic, smashed and finely chopped
1/2 Onion, julienned
1 Yellow Sweet Pepper, julienned
Can o’ Tomatoes, diced ideally
1 cube chicken bullion, crushed
2 smallish zucchinis
4 T Pesto
Fennel Seed
S&P
Red Pepper flakes

Pasta of your choice, cooking simultaneously

Cook the Italian sausages using the method of your choice, as long as you choice is pan frying with a little olive oil. Remove, and keep warm. In the same skillet, sauté several cloves of garlic and the onion. Add the sweet pepper and cook until slightly soft over medium high heat. Stir in a can of tomatoes and the chicken bullion. When well mixed add the zucchini and pesto, and season with fennel seed to make everything more sausage-y, salt and pepper to make it taste like food, and red pepper flakes for a kick. Serve over pasta – we used homemade spinach linguini, dried from a separate pasta-making excursion. The spinach and zucchini were from the garden, the sweet pepper from Costco. . Let’s hear it for Costco produce. Three weeks in the fridge and not a single blemish. How do you like them [overpackaged and unorganic] apples?