Curry Squash Soup

I'm terrible at getting bowls of soup to look good in pictures. It just doesn't happen for me. So just the drawing today, but trust me, this soup is good! I make this soup at random in the sense that I just make it, I don't really take the time to measure out stuff, so the measurements are by what I think they are as opposed to really measuring it out. I love this soup for fall when squash is out at the markets. I only just realised that I've never blogged this recipe before. It is one of my staples. This time I made it, I used a buttercup squash (which is in season right now) - I've also used butternut with this recipe.

1 tbsp butter or margarine
1 onion, diced
1 tbsp ginger, finely chopped
1 tbsp or so curry powder (you can use less depending on your curry preference)
1 squash cut into chunks - (about 6 cups?)
4 cups chicken stock (enough to cover squash)
1 tsp or so chicken bouillon a dash of salt

Over med-low heat, melt the butter in a soup pot. Add the ginger and onion and saute until they are softened. Add the curry powder in. Add in the squash and the chicken stock. Make sure there is enough liquid to cover the squash. Raise the heat up to med-high to boiling. Lower heat again to simmer to allow the squash to cook and soften. Use an immersion blender to puree everything together. Taste and add bouillon and salt for flavor. Mix in. This makes a lot of soup. It's good to freeze to save for future meals or in individual packets for lunches.

BBQ Corn

Foodie admission of the week. When I see people shucking their corn into the bins at the grocery store, it takes all that I have in me not to shout at them, "Stop! What are you doing? Don't you know the best way to cook corn requires the husks to still be on?!!". So far I've been restrained. This past grocery trip my 4 year old son was not as restrained. We bumped into an acquaintance who was shucking her corn as we were just bagging our unshucked to go. My 4 year old asked her, "Why are you doing that? We cook ours with the green stuff on." She looked at me in question for confirmation which led to the explanation of BBQ-ing corn. For some reason I just assumed that everyone knows about this, so I never blogged about it. But apparently everyone does not know about this, so here is the brief as I can be explanation. Put your BBQ heat to med-low. Put the corn (still in the husks) onto the grill. BBQ for 10-15 minutes, turning every so often. The greens will get dark brown and blackened. Then shuck it. You can stop there and eat, or, you can put the shucked, cooked corn back on the BBQ for a little browning of the corn. Both are delicious. Like really fantastically delicious. As in since we discovered this we have never boiled our corn on the cob again, ever! Enjoy.

Cake Balls

These big lumps are not balls of play-do. These are for lack of a better term 'Cake Ball". Kind of like Cake Pops without the lollipop stick. I made them for my son's class at the end of the school year for his birthday. (You can tell, I'm way behind at blog posting recipes over here!). The long and the short of it is that this is what I did with a bunch of frozen leftover cake (cast offs from birthday cake molding) and leftover fondant from my other son's Mickey Mouse Cake, also frozen. The kids enjoyed them and I would make them again. Very sweet and very good! This recipe is really random in not having measured ingredients, here's my best guess. 1 cake or the equivalent in leftover cake (I used about 4 cups of cake?) 1 block of cream cheese (250ml or 1 cup) - softened 1 tbsp milk marshmallow fondant (recipe here) Tear the cake into pieces and place into a large bowl. Mix with the softened cream cheese and milk. You can use your hands to really squish and blend everything in. Take bits of the cake mixture and roll into balls. Place onto a baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and place into a freezer overnight. The next day, roll out the fondant. Cut into strips, larger than the width of your cake balls. Place cake ball on the the end of a strip and roll up to cover with the fondant. Use your fingers to make edges meet and smooth out the surface. Keep cold until ready to serve.