Zucchini, Yellow Squash and Spinach Soup

In a continuation of the “look in the fridge and figure out what to do with bits and pieces because I don’t want to go out on this rainy, blustery day” series, I find myself making soup. Again. Actually, I quite like soup, which I guess is a damn good thing, considering it looks like soup is shaping up to be a dietary staple…

At any rate, a good bowl of soup paired with a few slices of good bread (oh Essential Baking Company, I wish you could just come deliver Parisian loafs to my door three times a day), a decent glass of pinot grigio, and a few friends (who don’t mind eating whist sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor because I still don’t have any chairs) pretty much makes for the perfect night. Phew! Check out that run on sentence!

This soup is thick and creamy and bright fucking green! Like, Kermit the frog green. Which makes it really fun to eat. I also thought I’d share a nifty trick this recipe utilizes: to make a “creamy” soup without the cream, just add a potato or two. When you blend the soup, the starch will thicken it, giving it that thick creamy consistency.

Zucchini and Spinach Soup

Butternut Squash Ravioli to Tempt the Palate

Our first thanksgiving on the easy coast consisted of my wife and me, a few good friends from long ago that had found themselves on the east coast, and a few new friends we had made in the area. We sat around our little apartment in Old Town, Portsmouth, VA, and ate Mama Gleaton's Tofu Turkey with Dressing (which, by the way, is still one of my favorite recipes), a store bought tofurky, salad, and maybe pudding… honestly, I don’t really remember but outside of the tofu turkey bake, it really wasn’t that impressive, but it did mark our first annual east coast thanksgiving. Five years later and there was no tofurky or pudding to be found, but there was awesome ravioli, that, after a debate over boiling or baking, was plated and eaten before I ever made it to the table. 

Course Two: Butternut Squash, Sage, and "Goat Cheeze" Ravioli with Toasted Hazelnut Sauce

Hudson’s Humble (Apple) Pie

Autumn in Washington State mean apples, and lots of ‘em. So, when we moved back a few weeks ago, one of the first things I purchased was an apple corer/ slicer/ peeler in hopes it would help me take advantage of the bounty of apples grown in my home state. This weekend we headed over to one of the apple farms and picked up some cherry apple cider and apples of the Jonagold and Granny Smith variety for pie making and I finally had a chance to use my new doodad. I discovered it now takes approximately a minute and a half to prep an apple to go into an apple pie. Plus, it’s really fun to use, in a nerdy homesteading kind of way.

However, none of this would have even happened if it weren’t for Hudson. See, my friend Vanessa, who has been the cutest preggers lady for the last nine months, finally graced us all with her son Hudson’s presence. And he is a cutie. Normally newborns have that “I’m an alien prune and I look like I need these wrinkles ironed out of me” look about them, but not Hudson. So on our way back from the apple farm, my wife and I got to go take a peek at the cutest six hour old I’ve ever seen, and I knew right then who I would be making a pie for. Before I laid the top crust on the pie and popped it in the oven, I pulled out my trusty cooking stamping set (that my awesome friend Ruth in Germany sent me) and stamped “Hudson’s Humble Pie” and “Apple of Our Eye” into the crust as a sentimental bitch slap to Martha Stewart. Boo-yah!

Hudson’s Humble (Apple) Pie Recipe