I Love This Recipe So Much I'm Putting It In My Book

In It App-ened One Night, Susan makes a butternut squash soup for her mom. It's a soup I love to make in the fall and winter because the veggies are in season and usually on sale and it is vegan as made so a good choice for any diet. You can of course add cheese or a protein to the finished soup.

I'm putting the recipe in the back of my book, this isn't traditionally done in romance books. Those of you who read cozy mysteries know many of the books include recipes.

I think I'd like to include a recipe in the back of each of my romances going forward. It adds to my desire to embrace coziness as my author brand. Is there anything better than enjoying a cozy day? 

And now on to the recipe:

Butternut-Leek Soup

Ingredients:

Peel and dice one butternut squash - Or use a package of precut squash

Slice two leeks, just the white and a little of the light green portion.

Peel and dice one potato or sweet potato 

Peel and slice one parsnip. (optional this is my secret ingredient)

4-5 cups of vegetable or chicken (if you don't need it to be vegetarian) broth 

a tbsp of dried poultry seasoning or thyme

or 1-2 tbsps fresh rosemary and thyme

Salt and pepper to taste.

Put it all in a slow cooker on low and cook for 6-8 hours or until the vegetables are soft. Then use an immersion blender to puree the soup. 

Serve with gruyere or Swiss cheese grated on top or add a couple of tbsps of diced ham or crumbled bacon. 

This soup pairs very well with a nice crusty bread. I would pair it with a Reisling if I was having a glass of wine.

The leftovers taste great and this soup freezes well. 

If you try it let me know! 

 

What to do with the ham bone? #leftovers

 I don't like split pea soup. The hubs likes it--a lot. So because I am a nice person, I tried to find a recipe that didn't involve having to soak peas overnight and was also a recipe I would be willing to try.  After some searching, I stumbled across this recipe and decided it was the one! 

Changes that I made: I added two extra cloves of garlic. I added some Mrs. Dash seasoning. I didn't add bay leaf and parsley. I added thyme. I used about 6 cups of water and 2 cups of vegetable broth.  The ham hock was a ham bone from a spiral sliced ham.

The hubs liked it and even I liked it! This is a hearty recipe with good flavor especially lovely to have as a meal on a cold winter afternoon. 

I think what I don't like about split pea soup is if the pea soup is mush.  If you like mush soup, then I would recommend cooking it for about 20 minutes past the recipe time. Turns out The Hubs really likes mush soup. So he is enjoying the leftovers today. Where do you stand on split pea soup? Mush or nah? 

While I was cooking I had This Christmas on in the background (it's streaming free on Hulu).  The movie has an excellent soundtrack which lends itself to being on while cooking or wrapping presents, etc. 

Next blog post I'll be sharing a recipe I found to use pie crust I had in the fridge and my review of the book Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings