soup recipe

Leo used to love butternut squash when he was eating mush, but then he discovered bread and other good things and never went back.  unfortunately I had a leftover squash that never got used.  I'm not sure how long I had it for, but it's been quite a while!  it never showed signed of going bad so I never threw it out... but I think it'd possibly been a year.  the skin was still firm and it didn't smell, so I cut it open to see how scary it was inside.  it was fine!  it was a crummy squash to start with because it had so many seeds in it :(  but it smelled good so I baked it up and made soup.

I found some tasty sounding recipes online and just sorta mixed and matched with what I had in the pantry.

I used:

• 1 medium/smallish butternut squash - pre-baked
• 3 cups chicken broth (made from chicken bullion)
• 1 cup water
• water from a can of peas
• one apple, peeled and cubed
• 2 small potatoes, peeled and sliced thin
• 1 tsp of nutmeg
• fresh ground pepper to taste
• dash of Gourmet Burger seasoning (I use this in practically everything!)
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• peas

I boiled the water and threw in the bullion cubes, cut up the potatoes and apple and boiled them in the broth and added the spices.  once the apples and potatoes were soft enough to mash I added the pre-baked butternut squash, cream, and the water from the can of peas and let that all simmer covered for a while. when it was time to eat I tossed the peas in to warm them up and served it with potato bread.

it was so good!  the day ending up being warm, but we were all a little under the weather/worn out so it really hit the spot.

squashed

I will be posting more crafts I've done these past few weeks later on, but they're all Mother's Day gifts so I can't put them up yet! so I'll try to catch up with some other stuff to make up for it.

today during nap time I didn't get to make anything fun, but I did make something. baby food. I was buying jarred food for .46 for 4oz. I never thought to make it myself because I figured there was too much involved, but basically ya just mash it up any way ya can so they can eat it. someone told me they were saving quite a bit making their own so I thought I'd give it a go.
I started with carrots and sweet potatoes. boiled the carrots and baked the sweet potatoes, then after they were cooked just threw them into the blender and stuck them in my collection of baby food jars and put them in the freezer. carrots came out to .19 for 4oz - was happy about that :) sweet potatoes were .25 - little less enthusiastic about that since I had to spend so much time and electricity making them.

anyway, today I tackled squash.

the instructions for baking the butternut squash were right on the label, so I did what it said (minus the brown sugar and cinnamon at the end) and pre-heated my oven to 400°F.
I lined a pan with foil so I didn't have to wash it later O:) and I wasn't sure how much of a mess it'd make in the pan sticky-wise.

cut the squash in half.

scooped out the seeds.

laid them cut side down on the pan and baked for 30-45 minutes.
(mine could have gone another 15 minutes or so.)

the dark spots on the outside were where the hollow spots were - thought that was interesting.

scraped the flesh with a fork.

scooped out and put in the blender.

blended until it was as smooth as I wanted.

I filled jars cause that's what I had (I boiled them before I re-used them) and left a little room in the top for expansion in the freezer.

made (6) 4oz jars.
I was hoping for more since I paid $3 for the squash and that's about what I would have paid for 6 jars from the store.... but oh well.