The Fast and the Furious

I was a little ambitious when it came to cooking today. Ambitious then lazy. I have been wanting to try my hand at homemade butternut squash soup. I bought some cut up squash a couple of days ago with that "buy-me-now-before-I-go-bad-and-save-$2-and-risk-ecoli-poisoning" sticker on it for a little incentive. I started the process around lunch which was probably about 2 1/2 hours before the squash started growing limbs. After a delay of game (I realized I did not have enough chicken broth so made a mad dash to Trader Joe's where I ran in to get chicken broth and came out with two double bagged bags of yummies and drinkies because if you go to Trader Joe's you HAVE to buy wine. Seriously, it is a law) I finally cooked up the soup and ended up puree-ing the very soul out of my blender. Well, not so much the soul as the "coupling." I finished it off with a food processor and it turned out not disgusting. I would not go so far as to say "really good" but "passable" would be a good description. I think I mucked up the squash somehow so I am going to try again. So here's that recipe from foodnetwork.com which I cannot seem to copy and paste and do not feel like retyping at this point so I will link it:

http://http//www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/butternut-squash-soup-recipe/index.html

Then I decided that I cannot possibly decorate the tree without homemade cookies and eggnog. So I ended up making four tons of Drop Sugar Cookies. I love sugar cookies but hate, hate, hate, hate, hate rolling out dough so this recipe seemed like something I should try. Sadly I do not have a link so I will power forward and share:

Drop Sugar Cookies

6 cups all purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 1/4 cups butter softened (4 1/2 sticks)

3 cups of sugar

3 eggs

9 tablespoons of milk

6 tablespoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In medium/large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt until blended.


2. In large bowl with mixer at medium-low speed, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs, milk and vanilla; beat until well blended. Reduce speed to low; beat in flour mixture just until blended.


3. Drop by rounded measuring tablespoons (I used a regular spoon) 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.


4. Bake until edges are browned, about 13 minutes. Transfer to wire cooling rack to cool completely.

I ended up freezing most of them but may need to borrow my neighbor's freezer if I need some ice. It made a lot of cookies. A lot. You can also add other stuff to the dough like chopped nuts, mini chocolate chips, or lemon zest/peel/juice. I would post a picture but they are asthetically boring to the eye even though they are yummy.

Soup's done. Cookies are done and now people have the nerve to ask me what is for dinner! Soup and cookies, that's what! Nah, the boy will not eat soup and as relaxed as I have been about his eating lately, I cannot justify cookies for dinner for a toddler. Not on a Friday.

While I was at Trader Joe's they were sampling this:

With this:

So that and a salad made up the very late dinner. Pretty good and you should totally check it out! That is if you have a Trader Joe's near you. And you are not a vegetarian.