All in soup and Internet cooking

On Saturday I halved an acorn squash that I had picked up in my better-get-all-the-shopping-in trip to Meijers before the snow hit, roasted it in the oven with cardamom and garam masala and then set aside the other half for making soup. I finally got around to doing that tonight, and I think this was the single most important activity to pulling myself out of an otherwise dreary evening. Also, someone at the office decided to bring in an assortment of baking soda cookies, today. They were ghastly. I suppose my fellow co-workers who had sampled the baked goods had better manners than to leave some sort of warning label on the festive tins. "Caution: contents are not as tasty as they appear!" But who is served by such silence? Not the poor cook who isn't going to receive any peer review, and most importantly, it didn't not help me out at all. Yech. Serves me right for grazing in the afternoon.

Anyhow, I figured it would be a fine thing to take the time out and make something good for myself. None of the recipes I lazily looked through online looked appealing as they had apple in them so I took a road trip in my kitchen. It felt like I was taking a Sunday drive through soup. I read how to actually make the hard cubes of squash soupy and this was invaluable. Boil half an acorn squash with chicken stock, then let it simmer all said a total of twenty minutes. Throw that in the blender. I imagine that boiling up the squash with water would be just fine for the vegetarians. Might even work better to keep the savory flavors at bay. Since I only had half a squash I added a can of garbanzo beans after considering their mega nutritious properties. This had the effect of cooking myself in a corner. The lovely flavor of the squash was totally overpowered by the earthy chick peas. However, it did open up some doors. This is the rest of it:

1 shallot chopped coarsely
1 clove of garlic copped coarsely
1 1" piece of ginger chopped coarsely (I don't like to take the time to mince)
2 sticks of cinnamon broken up coarsely
1 teaspoon ground fennel
2 teaspoons corriander
13 dried dates

Simmer until the dates get tender and plump up a bit. Garnish with red chili flakes to taste and a dollop of sour cream.

The end result was tasty, and I'm glad I gave it a spin, but ultimately I created a chick pea soup recipe. I think the next go around I'll have more onion, and enough squash to fore go the chickpeas entirely. But if I don't put in chickpeas then I'll probably change the spices around a bit probably go nuts with lemon grass and cardamom. I suspect this garbanzo version would be delightful with chives or leeks or more onion. I'm excited to see how the leftovers turn out. I think soup tastes better on day two. Tell me what you do with it if you tinker with this recipe.

I had a blast cooking as I went. I've been looking online quite a bit as a source for recipes and when I do I've been following all the dosages for every ingredient, and this has served me well. I've even watched YouTube how-to videos setting up my computer in the kitchen for little reminders of how to handle little nuances. I've only encountered one dud recipe, and I'm willing to chalk that up to my inexperience. The instructions are all well and good, but I enjoyed just making it up as I went. Well, it also meant that I could just throw in whatever ingredients I had handy. I was about to add in tofu, but I thought - nah - that's just too much.