Soup Therapy

So after a dud blizzard that produced more snow after it was declared officially over and gave us a snow day for hubby mid-week and a lot of cold whiteness, I wanted something comforting and colourful for this weekend.  The only condition is that it must be made from what I already have on hand.

Scanning my fridge, I see beets and butternut squash.  Hmm, seems to me I've seen those ingredients used together recently, and not in some strange salad with Thai chili paste.  Where was that recipe?  Oh yes!  Over at Dinner With Julie!  Recently she posted a recipe for a Roasted Beet and Butternut Squash Soup that sounds like it will fit the bill nicely.

Oh, it calls for orange juice.  Hmmm, I have none.  But I have blood oranges.  Those should work nicely.  It also calls for chicken or veg stock.  I have beef broth.  Not going to work.  So I'm currently roasting the beets and squash while simmering some veggies for stock.  I may even toast the squash seeds later for a nice snack.

After a week of all of us being sick to some degree (the kids bearing the brunt of it) and wonky eating habits all around, it's nice to be planning a meal.  I can tell you, there has been a lot of "breakfast for supper" happening around here.  And by that, I mean cut up fruit and bowls of dry cereal.  I'm a firm believer in the ability of the body to let us know what it needs or can handle while sick, and the kids have largely only wanted these very simple things.  Finally the other night they ate some veg chili.  Tonight we'll have pork chops.  We're on the mend.

And it feels good to be cooking again.  To smell stock simmering, to be mindlessly peeling and dicing vegetables, to be roasting squash and beets.  There is something therapeutic in cooking.  Even more in going beyond just preparing food to creating nourishment for loved ones.  Last night I'll admit it, I heated up chicken nuggets and french fries (never claimed to be perfect LOL).  Technically I guess I cooked them.  Kind of.  But making this soup is truly doing me some good.  I'm making something that's filling the house with a lovely, comforting, homey smell.  Something that will fill our fridge with a few meals.  Something that will fill our bodies with all manner of wonderfully healthy things to nourish us.  Sometimes I wonder if there's almost as much healing in the preparation of some meals as in the eating of them.

Of radishes and unpopular salad

The weather here this year has been pretty unreal. The past two summers have been cool and wet. Last year we had the furnace on until mid June. This year we turned the AC on in May. It's been crazy.

That heat, along with the adequate rainfall, has produced abundance. Some of it quite early. It's not July yet and the cherries are ready. Strawberries abounded weeks before strawberry festivals took place. Our peas are finished in the garden already. And just this morning I harvested the best radishes I've ever grown. They are called Cherrybelle and they are round and red and crisp. My 2 year old loves them. Hubby is the other one in the house who eats them (yes, as proud as I am of having grown them, I will only eat them diced into macaroni or potato salad). I am well pleased.

Speaking of salads, my gourmet group met again last night. Portuguese was the theme (our hostess having just returned from there). But as often happens with internet recipes, I fear that something was lost in interpretation with the recipe I was given. Perhaps there is a recipe for a Portuguese salad of winter squash and beets with a thick sweet dressing. I don't know. But my recipe had me roasting butternut squash (could not find pumpkin) and opting to roast some beets rather than opening a tin of them. I also roasted the chopped onion rather than sauteing it separately. It was all seasoned with salt, pepper and an undisclosed amount of Thai sweet chili sauce. I used 1/3 of a cup for about 3lbs of veggies (uncooked weight). Just enough to bring it all together, but not swamp it.

It looked pretty. Like a fruit salad, actually. I wanted to like it. I mean, squash, beets, onion, sweet heat... Alas it was not to be. Of the 9 of us, 3 were honest and said that we just did not like it. The rest claimed that it was good, but I don't imagine any of them will be adding it to their salad repertoire. LOL