Butternut Squash Soup and Pomegranate Seeds

Well, we've got a bunch of pumpkins this year...several from our CSA, one from the pumpkin patch. Yesterday was the day of carving and roasting pumpkin seeds. And butternut squash seeds, because we had one of those too.

My good friends invited us over for dinner last night. I brought a salad with seeds.

No picture, sadly, but it had red leaf lettuce, lightly steamed green beans from our garden (there was only a handful), broccoli, and...pumpkin seeds and pomegranate seeds.


Pomegranates are a pain in the butt. But we got 6 from the farm (one more to go woo!) I put them in the salad. I had a stowaway spider who ended up in my water bath. He got sent down the drain.


Yesterday I roasted the squash itself and used it today to make my mother-in-law's famous Butternut Squash Soup. I used my fancy new Lodge Dutch Oven (La Creuset is not in the budget, and neither was a trip to Target). I've been slowly replacing some of my pots and pans. I bought a large nonstick set at Costco a few years ago. It's been great...but nonstick wears out eventually. And I cook a lot. So I've worn out almost all of of the pans (they aren't nonstick anymore). The large stockpot, the two large frying pans, and the griddle...gone. We've started using cast iron for our griddle (should last forever), and I've now made the switch to the Dutch Oven. I also saute in stainless steel now for everything except a few things that will stick like crazy (potatoes...) Interestingly, our stainless pots that my spouse got used when he headed off to college in the late 80's are still going strong.

The soup is for dinner tomorrow night and probably later in the week too. Some will find its way into the freezer I'm sure. I'd like to note that the soup itself is vegan this time. I sauteed the vegetables in canola oil. I used water and vegetable bouillon instead of chicken stock. (I don't have chicken stock.) I will probably make the ginger butter, but you could use vegan margarine instead.