SMALL PLANET GARDENS

Broccoli seedlings in the sunny south window!  Spring is on the way…

After a hearty diet of chocolate, bacon, and micro brews, it’s time to get real again.  Lots of warming soups and roasted vegetables around here, and I welcome the switch.  It’s so nice to eat whole foods again, like this broccoli pesto and bean soup.

I’ve been so busy eating the hubbard squash soup that I forgot to post a picture!  I filled my largest stock pot with soup and still had overflow into another pot.  I still have 5 more gigantic squash, too!  They all came from one 79 cent plant.

Here’s the recipe:

1. Bake enormous squash at 350 until it oozes.  Cut into pieces if it is too big for your oven.  Make sure to put the squash on a pan and/or line your oven with foil.  These guys are messy.

2. Toast some curry and cumin in a stock pot.

3. Add garlic and onion with a little salt and some oil.

4. Add squash and stock of choice.

5. Simmer.

6. Blend and add bay leaf.

7. Simmer.

8. Serve!  I added a bit of sour cream and some chives…

Hubbard squash is sweet and a little starchy.  That’s why I used the aromatic spices rather than butter and herbs.  A little spice or a dash of balsamic to serve would also cut through the starchiness well. 

Check out this hubbard squash we grew!  For a few cents, we made delicious organic soup for all our friends.  Recipe and photos coming soon…

I guess you might call me a control freak in the kitchen; I know what I want to eat and exactly how I want it prepared.  As a result, I sometimes forget that my wife is a great cook.  She has this uncanny ability to prepare exactly what I want on those nights when I’m a little indecisive.  Like this rustic roasted pasta sauce…It was so good it was gone before I had a chance to snap a picture of the finished product!

When I asked her to share her recipe, she shrugged:

“All I did was toss some of that leftover rosemary roast and sweet potatoes with some coursely chopped garden tomatoes, onion, garlic, beef broth, a splash of olive oil, and some herbs from the garden.  Then I roasted it at 400 until you said, ‘mmmmmm…..what smells so good?’”

Ahhh, my wife.  The only thing that would have made that dinner better would be if I had some leftovers for lunch now.

We’ve been experimenting with new pumpkin and squash recipes around here lately…lots of Indian and Asian inspired dishes, like this healthy pumpkin curry.  What are your favorite pumpkin recipes?