Pre-Halloween with soup

I have been busy at work, the last week and a half, creating a Halloween costume for Little Bigfoot. She loves stretching my creative powers to the maximum every year and this year was no different. In the creation of her costume, I developed a new knitted hat pattern that I am working to finalize and write up for sale. I can't share her costume yet, but promise to post pictures and Halloween excitement next week.

Her school had a Bingo Night on Friday and costumes were encouraged, so I dug around the house to come up with something. In the past I haven't been one for dressing up, a lot of that has to do with the fact that I felt horrible in general and the extra effort of finding a costume and putting up with being uncomfortable in it all evening wasn't something I relished. However, over the last year, I've regained more of my health and have felt better than I've felt in 10 years, so I decided to give it a whirl on Friday and see what I could come up with. Many years ago, I created this hat for The Redneck, as he was fighting the great opossum battle at the time, between them and our garbage cans. We've had many a laugh about it over the years, so I decided to put it to good use this year. I found an old pair of holey jeans, a ratty t-shirt and flannel and wore The Redneck's winter boots. I think I made a passable female redneck for the evening. The suspenders were dyed strips of fabric that just worked to highlight the whole thing. Bingo Night was a success, we had a lot of fun and won some fun prizes as well. Little Bigfoot wasn't quite sure what to make of my costume, but decided it was alright to be seen with me and it was even better when she started winning some at bingo.

On another note, the garden harvest is coming to a close, and we have a lot of Delicata Squash to use up. Since most winter squash are okay for me to eat, I'm trying to think of different ways to eat it, so that I don't get overly tired of the same flavor all of the time. I decided to try to create a creamy soup that would be dairy-free and hearty. Here is what I ended up with:

Creamy Delicata Soup
[Printable Recipe]

2 medium Delicata Squash, cut in half, cleaned and roasted until tender
1 can (14 oz) Great Northern Beans, drained & rinsed
1 can (14 oz) black beans, drained & rinsed
1/2 lb chicken sausage
4 mini bell peppers (orange, yellow and/or red), rough chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
4 cups chicken broth or water

Scoop cooled squash out of the skins and process with the northern beans in food processor until smooth, adding chicken stock/water as needed to aid in achieving a smooth consistent puree. Continue in batches, until all of the squash and northern beans have been pureed.

In a medium saucepan or large deep skillet, cook the sausage and onion until done, add the peppers and saute for 5 minutes. Add the black beans and squash puree, adding more chicken broth/water until a thick soup consistency is achieved. Simmer on very low heat until soup is warmed through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.


Yield 4 medium servings or 2 large servings


Note: Squash can be cooked and stored in the fridge several days in advance, either in the skins, scooped out, or already pureed with the beans.