What's for dinner?

I like to think, that some day- in the distant future I will be a well followed blogger.  When I am- I will have a weekly colum titled "What's for dinner?"  where I will post the details of my favorite dinner of the week- here is a trial run of the new addition to my blog-

What's for dinner?....Sunshine Squash Soup

It has been a rainy past couple fall days here in the old CT- and I have honestly been lovin' it!  There is nothing better on a cold, soggy day then sitting down with a nice warm bowl of soup for dinner!

Monday- we had a lot of fun splashing in puddles!

Here is Z giving a tutorial in proper puddle jumping

And then the demo...

He gives it a try

Then, we had a rough night- Z booty woke up at 2:30 am with a nasty stomach bug- it was a very long morning, and although we indulged in delicious soup at dinner last night- poor ZZ was restricted to this...

For the soup, I used 2 sunshine squash I had in my fridge from recent trips to the farm

(poor quality pic but you get the idea)- you could substitue any winter squash variety

I washed them off, poked holes in them, and placed them in  a rectangular baking dish with about an inch of water in the bottom and roasted then for 1 hr 20 min at 375 degrees.

To make the soup I sauteed 1 large diced onion, 3 cloves of  garlic crushed, cumin, black pepper, ginger (I didn't have fresh but would recommend it if you do) in oil oil until the onions were translucent.

While that was cookin' I microwaved 4 cups of water with 2 of my favorite bullion cubes (I find it breaks up the bullion a bit- and it's cheaper than boxed stock)  I buy the Rapunzel brand vegan vegetable bullion cubes with sea salt from my local WF's. Then I dumped the broth in with the onions/spices.

Then I scraped out the inside of the squash and added it to the pot (after removing the seeds)

Then, using my handy immersion blender- combined all the squash into the broth (you could use a regular blender for this process too)

I was left with this pretty, yellow, smooth soup- a little too thin for my taste- so I let it simmer for about a hour and a half to thicken it up a bit

Then- I added the coconut milk- it added a richness, and a depth to the flavor of the soup.  It didn't make it super-coconutty-(D didn't even know and he is NOT a fan of the coconut)

I also added a little brown sugar, and a dash of cayenne just to give it some heat

Paired with some toasted, cheesy naan- it was a delicious meal!

Sunshine squash soup

2 roasted sunshine squash (peeled and seeded)

4 cups veggie broth

1 large onion

11/2 Tbsp. olive oil

3 cloves garlic

11/2 Tbsp. cumin

1 tsp. dry ginger

black pepper

1 can coconut milk

2 Tbsp.brown sugar

dash cayenne pepper