I just made this recipe up as I went along, because I didn’t have all of the ingredients that I needed for any of the ones online/in my books. It turned out really yummy, so I’m sharing it with you. A Clever Girl Original:

Ingredients:
1 large butternut squash
1 small red onion chopped
1 garlic clove crushed
c. 3 cups of water/veg stock
c. 2 teaspoons dried thyme or to taste.
4-5 generous and heaping tablespoons of plain yoghurt
juice of half a lemon
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Method:
1) Cook the butternut squash in your pressure cooker following instructions for your pressure cooker. Note that I tend to spray my squash with veg/fruit spray before I do this, but I’m scared of pesticides and dirt.

2) In a soup pot, fry the onions and garlic in some olive oil until translucent. Add the butternut squash flesh, thyme and the water/stock. Cover and simmer for about 5-10 minutes (or when you get bored).

3)Remove from heat, open the pot, and use your hand blender to puree. Add the yoghurt, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Combine and taste.

Let me know what you think! I think it is soooooo yummy.

11 years ago or so, a friend had this soup at my house and fell in love with it. When I visited with her recently for the first time in 10 years, she asked for the recipe and wistfully said that she can’t believe she never got it from me. It is seriously *that* unforgettable! So here it is…

Carrot Soup

Ingredients:

2 T butter or margarine
5 1/2 cups grated carrots
2 1/4 cups water
2 1/4 cups orange juice
salt and pepper
2 T chopped fresh mint.

1) Melt the butter/marg in a large pan and saute the carrots until they begin to soften. Add the water, half cover, and simmer over low to medium heat for about 20 min, until the carrots are soft.

2) Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly. Place the carrots and cooking water in a food processor of blender, add the orange juice, and purée the mixture until smooth. Alternatively, press through a large strainer.

3) Return the soup to the pan, season to taste with salt and pepper, and reheat without boiling. The soup can also be served cold. Serve garnished with the chopped mint.

Variation: Omit the orange juice and double the quantity of water. Replace the chopped mint with a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg.

From: The Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers’ (1999) The Yoga Cookbook: Vegetarian Food for Body and Mind Simon & Schuster: New York, p. 35.

Clevergirl’s Notes:

* if you don’t have fresh mint, use dry (about 1 teaspoon) and put it right into the soup at the end while it is still hot. And as for the dry, feel free to use a bag of peppermint tea if you don’t have anything else. Just tear it open and sprinkle into the soup.

* The best type of orange juice to use is fresh, but if you don’t have that for some reason, then one of those 100% pasturized types will do. Don’t use anything else, because likely has added sugars that will make the soup too sweet.

So, I’ve been invited to a Canadian Thanksgiving Lunch today and asked to contribute a “family recipe”. OK, right? But I struggled with how to define a “family recipe”. My parents originate from countries which don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so any recipe from the Thanksgivings of my childhood really came from my mother’s cookbooks and sometimes our schools (like the cranberry relish recipe I got in grade 2). I could not make the relish since the only time of year one can get fresh cranberries here is, well, around American Thanksgiving, imported from the US and outrageously expensive. It’s a raw relish and IMHO much better than any cranberry jelly. Of course, the absence of anything remotely approaching a “family recipe” means that one is unencumbered and can experiment. So, my offering this Thanksgiving comes from my Muffin’s Galore cookbook and I think it will accompany nicely any Thanksgiving meal instead of a dinner roll. As there were no cans of plain pumpkin in the expensive grocery store this year, I made my own pumpkin puree using my pressure cooker and 2kgs of fresh pumpkin This means that there are 4 more cups of pumpkin puree now in my freezer. I think I’m hooked.

Pumpkin & Cheese Muffins:

Makes 12

2 Cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup firm goat cheese coarsely diced
4 tablespoons toasted pumpkin seeds
scant 1 cup pumpkin puree (fresh or canned)
3/4 cup plain yoghurt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Instructions:
1) Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line the cups with paper muffin cups.

2) Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in the goat cheese. coarsely chop 2 tablespoons of the pumpkin seeds and set aside the remainder. Stir the chopped pumpkin seeds into the flour mixture.

3) In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, yoghurt, eggs and vegetable oil. Add the wet ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients and mix briefly until just combined.

4) Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, dividing it evenly, then sprinkle the tops with the remaining pumpkin seeds. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until risen and golden. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Serve warm.

From: Atkinson, C. (2006, 2008) Muffins Galore. London: Octopus Publishing Group Ltd., pp 157.

Clevergirl’s Notes:
* I doubled the recipe nicely.

*be sure that your pumpkin puree, if fresh, is relatively dry.

* if using a convection oven, adjust the cooking times (but you know that)

*I stuck exactly to the recipe for once. It is yum enough as is.

*I’ve never had much success finding a firm goat cheese in Canada, but there is an absolutely divine one here. Not sure what I’ll use when I get home. There is a firm goat mozzarella and goat cheddar for sale on in the main supermarkets in Canada, so you might try that one if you can’t find a proper firm goat cheese in a specialty shop.