mmmm homemade soup!

I love a good homemade soup, so comforting. I have made some great soups and some not so great soups...although I have to say it is really really hard not to make at least a fairly good soup. 

The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler and the trees are getting thinner. Perfect time to get some soup simmering on the old stove! 

Butternut Squash it is! This is a recipe I have made a couple of times, it is super easy and a nice change from the chicken and hamburger soups I always make. Here is what I did.

Grab a container of homemade chicken stock from the freezer

Slice the squash in half length wise. 

 

Scoop out the guts, place face down on a pan and place in the oven. My oven was 350 with the convection fan on and I had it in there for about an hour.

 

While that is roasting, chop up an onion and some garlic, sautee in olive oil. 

Remove the squash from the oven and let cool. When it has reached room temperature (or if you are impatient like me use an oven mitt) scoop out the squash and place in blender.  

Add the chicken stock and onion to blender and puree. Pour the soup into your soup pot and simmer. Add water if needed. Also I alternate between curry and nutmeg. My husband likes neither - he likes it with just the garlic and onion.......so maybe if he is good, one day I will skip the nutmeg or curry.

 

animals

I grew up with a dog. Sandy. Man, she was a good dog. I loved her so much. I can remember when my dad and I went and got her. I wanted to name her Benji but my brother was learning about Dick and Jane and there was a dog named Sandy somewhere in there – so Sandy it was!  She shed like crazy, had the foulest breath you could imagine and she was the greatest little buddy a girl could ask for!  

 I couldn’t imagine my life without dogs!  I am not sure how people do it, but then again I don’t know how people have kids – to each his own I suppose! 

We are on three and four at the moment. They aren’t actually called three and four, although I could see a dog named seven somewhere in our future. No, that is just the order of their presence in our lives.  

Number one was ok…my husband was more attached to her than I was for sure – she was the girl in his life before me.  She was old, cranky and tired when I came into the picture and we said good bye to her within the first year of our relationship. Her name was Roxie. 

Number two went to the rainbow bridge this past November. Harley. Words cannot describe that dog. He was one of a kind.

This brings us to our current four leggers, Houston and Sammie. 

 

We have had Houston for five years or so and Sammie we just got in October. They are good dogs – most of the time. They make us laugh, they keep us busy and they love us.

 

Houston was a reservation dog when we rescued her; she didn’t like men and was pretty unsure of herself. We started out in a townhouse, moved into a cute little inner city house and then we settled for a year or two in the ‘burbs. The city didn’t really agree with her (or us) and when we moved out of town she was in heaven!  Running free…no fences….deer and elk to chase! She still isn’t crazy about men she doesn’t know but it is a good thing now that we live in the country! Strange men don’t stop by the house very often but during hunting season we get a few and when they do….they don’t get out of the car! Lol She is a great number three! 

Number four – Sammie! Sammie is the first dog we have gotten that isn’t in the typical breed that we go for - Rottweilers or a mixture including Rottweiler is what we have always had. Not Sammie! He is Irish Wolfhound, German Wire haired Pointer mixed with who know what else!  He is also a rescue and although we don’t have much history he is a happy, playful boy who hasn’t shown any quirks from his past life. We have been having lots of fun getting to know him. We enrolled him in an obedience class and I have to say…..he was a total rock star! Other than being skunked nine times this year;  he has been a great number four!

cabbage rolls

Food, homemade wine, love and lots of laughter.

These are the key elements of every family gathering I can recall.  Always so much food! Too much food if you ask me, but that never stops any of us from over eating!  We all have our favourites. Mine was never cabbage rolls…..but I think that is because I never actually tried one until I was in my late twenties. 

Why on earth did I wait so long?   

They are glorious! 

I made a batch for the first time awhile ago, they are incredibly easy and they turned out great! I will be making these again!

As far as cooking times - you know your oven, use your judgement. I think I did an hour, covered at around 350. I also made extra to freeze so putting in a batch frozen you'd be a good hour and a half at400 and I would uncover mine for the last half.  

Same with amounts....use your judgment - I like to cook a whole lot of something and then freeze it so most of my recipes are triple or quadruple the amount a normal batch would require.

I like to be creative with recipes so I change them up all the time, and make do with what is in my pantry. Here is a light overview of what I did.

Ingredients:

Tomato sauce – I used earthpure organic tomato sauce

Ground pork - I used lean free range ground pork from Spragg’s Meat Shop

Head of cabbage

White or yellow onion

Fresh dill

Bacon

Rice  - I cooked mine but you can also put uncooked rice in which will then expand and keep your cabbage rolls nice and tight.

Get the rice going, I like basmati but minute rice would be fine too.

While the rice is cooking, boil the cabbage and separate the leaves. I am not really sure if there is a certain technique but I just threw the whole head into my huge soup pot and boiled and peeled and boiled and peeled.

 

While that is going on fry the pork with onion, dill and bacon until cooked, add the tomato sauce and mix.  Add the rice to the mixture.

Once everything is cooked and the cabbage has cooled enough to handle without burning yourself, spoon the mixture onto the cabbage leaves and roll!  

Put rolls into a 9x13, lay a few strips of bacon on top and pour some tomato sauce over and bake. If you are making extra to freeze, I would just lay the bacon on top and leave the tomato sauce until you were half way through re-heating them in the oven.