Squash that Soup!

Curry-Scented Butternut Squash Soup

1 butternut squash(2.5 lbs./6 c. cubed)                      
2 large, sweet apples such as Fuji or Honeycrisp           
2-3 medium onions                                                           
2 tbsp. butter                                                                  
1/4 c. packed dark brown sugar                                     
1-1/2 tbsp. curry powder
6 c. chicken broth OR vegetable stock
2 tsp. salt                 
1 container (8 oz.) mascarpone cheese *(I found this difficult to find,
so I substituted it for 1/2 c. ricotta and 1/2 c. whipping cream whisked together)
Sour cream and snipped fresh chives (optional)


1) Peel squash and apples, cut into 1" cubes and dice onions.
2) Melt butter in (8 qt) soup pot over med-low heat. Add onions; Cook 5-6 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally.  Add squash, apples, brown sugar, and curry powder.  Cook and stir 1 minute or until curry powder is fragrant.  Add stock and bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Simmer 24-26 minutes or until squash is very soft.  Remove from heat.
3) Carefully ladle about one-third of the squash mixture into blender container.  Cover and blend until smooth.  Pour blended soup into a big mixing bowl (6 qt). Repeat 2 times with remaining squash mixture.
4) Return soup to Stockpot and whisk in mascarpone (or ricotta/whipping cream substitute) and salt until it is completely incorporated.  Return to a simmer over medium heat and remove from heat.  Garnish each serving with sour cream and chives, if desired.

Yield: 8 servings (12 cups) 
Nutrients per serving (1.5 cups): Calories 310, Total Fat 16 g, Sat fat 9 g, Cholesterol 45 mg, Cars 39 g, Protein 8 g, Sodium 950 mg, Fiber 5 g

Sunny Flowers = One Happy Kid

 Although I am fascinated with all of the cake shows on TV (Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes, Ultimate Cake Off, Amazing Wedding Cakes, etc.), I never imagined more than just smudging frosting on any cakes myself.  I leave the decorative stuff to the experts!  Once again, the powers of cute-ness penetrated my being and overcame me, so I was clumsily forced to break out these things called decorating tips and learn how to use them with frosting bags.  I only had ziplocs so conveniently those worked (even though I probably had 9 of them explode on me). The middles of the flowers are Oreo cookies and have yellow frosting for the petals.  The ladybugs are M&Ms with chocolate frosting piped onto it.  If you look closely, those petals are not so pretty...rather, they are pretty wilted.  The good thing is that my daughter didn't even see the imperfections and was so happy with the end result.  For being 8, she said something pretty wise that day -- "Not everything has to be perfect, Mom."  Such good advice in our attempts at cooking and applicable in so many other things too!  I often look at my children and think: How can someone so small be so smart?

Are those apples? No, suprisingly they aren't! They are cupcakes made to look like apples.  It was my very first attempt at not taking the easy route like I usually had and buy them at the grocery store for my daughter's birthday.  One look at her and her pleading request to make them special made me bite the bullet and get my baking pans out and dig for that little bit of creativity I had buried for quite some time.  So with a little bit of thinking power and extra junk food around the house, you can create quite a fun little birthday dessert for a class of 22!  These are cupcakes with the tops cut off, placed with mini donuts on top to make the shape of the apples, iced with red frosting and sugar.  The stems are tootsie rolls that are placed so easily into the middle of that mini-donut, and the leaves are shaped from green sour apple tootsies.