A new favorite.

I love to cook but, since it's just me, I don't try new recipes from the thousands I have. This one was in a September Wednesday cooking supplement in the Daily Herald, the newspaper I probably should let go of but can't seem to go cold-turkey from.

I love fall, as we all know, and this time of year is when I get the urge the most to cook. The abundance of fall fruits and vegetables gets me revved up in the kitchen. Botanically speaking, a squash is a fruit, not a vegetable, for it is the fruit, with seeds, of a flower. We have classified it as a vegetable because it is not sweet and we generally associate sweetness with our fruits. Whether fruit or vegetable, butternut squash is good.

This soup is now my favorite butternut squash soup, bar none. I am not fond of onions so I left those out. I didn't have Granny Smith apples. I had some apples from visiting my mother. The aroma of cooking squash and then cooking squash and apples together was intoxicating. This is the smell of fall.

I thought I could get by with using a hand mixer to combine the ingredients but that didn't work. So, I had to get out my 30+ year old blender and puree the mixture. You need to puree it. Just trust me on this. It is so very smooth and it finishes the combination of flavors.

After I heat the soup, I drizzle the top with honey, about 1/2 teaspoon per bowl, and mix that in, not thoroughly, but just enough that it's mixed in. Some spoonfuls get the sweetness of honey, some do not and that juxtaposition of flavors is, for me, wonderful. This makes a huge amount. I have two pint containers in the freezer and a container in the fridge for this weekend, not to mention the three meals I got out of the soup before I froze it.

I'm considering making the recipe with different apples to see how the apple variety affects the taste. I didn't have ginger root so I used the powdered spice. I think I would like to increase that to see if I can bring out more of the ginger flavor. This recipe has so much potential.

I can see myself on a snowy December evening, curled up in the settee with a cat, a mug of tea, this soup and a hunk of bread. Now that's a meal.

Beverage: Scottish Blend tea

Deb