Fall Closing Ceremony: Butternut Squash Soup

Last night we finished Christmas shopping, and I immediately felt the need to celebrate by welcoming in the holiday season. We stopped at Superstore at 9:30 last night and picked up some Christmas ice cream to celebrate our success. Today I debated putting up my decor, but didn't want to rush into it. Instead, I decided to finish fall with a celebration of its own. I spent the afternoon making my last batch of butternut squash soup (I've made 4 batches this fall!) and enjoying the fall feeling before making the switch.

My mom taught me this butternut squash soup recipe earlier this fall when we had a meal prep day together, and I've been making it every couple of weeks since. I have some in my freezer still, but had a butternut squash in the fridge so decided to add even more to the freezer. 

To make this Butternut Squash Soup, you'll need the following:

Equipment

Large Pot or Dutch Oven

Immersion Blender (or another blender will do)

Knife for Chopping

Vegetable Peeler

Cutting Board

Ingredients

1 x Butternut Squash

3 x Large Carrots

1 x Head of Celery

Chicken Stock

Lemon Pepper

Thyme (fresh lemon thyme if you have!)

Olive Oil (or other oil you desire)

Steps

1. Peel & Chop Carrots

I had extra carrots in my fridge and they've been there a while so I put extra carrots in this batch just to use them up - I'm not a soup expert by any means but in my experience it's not a science and you can put in whatever you like. 

2. Chop Head of Celery

I use the whole head, but again, it's not a science and if you want to eat some ants on a log while cooking and are therefore missing a few stalks, that is totally ok. 

3. Optional: Chop 1 Onion

I hate onions and like the taste fine without so you won't see an onion in my soup, but my mom does add one to hers. My mom told me that every soup she makes starts with onion, celery, & carrots - the flavour maker. 

4. Optional: A friend commented on my instastories that she adds an apple to her butternut squash soup! How delicious! Since I was just sharing my original recipe to the blog I kept it the way that I knew tasted great, but next time I will try this!

4. Saute carrots & Celery with Olive Oil

 If you had onions you would just do this until they are translucent. I just cook them a little bit while I'm chopping the rest of the ingredients and don't worry too much about the time.

5. Season

I season my soup with Thyme & Lemon Pepper to taste. I have a Lemon Pepper grinder so I didn't measure, but did a number of grinds, and then tasted it after blending and added more as needed. 

6. Peel, Chop, & Add Butternut Squash

Peel your squash with your vegetable peeler. It has a tough skin, definitely not as easy as a carrot - I'd compare it to peeling a sweet potato. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Chop and add to pot with other vegetables. 

7. Add Chicken Stock

Pour chicken stock into pot enough to cover the vegetables. I did mine with water, covering the ingredients, and then added a heaping spoonful of Better than Boullion. 

8. Allow to Cook

Turn down the heat, put on the lid, and allow to soften. Last time I let it go about an hour and then it was plenty soft. This time I set a timer for 30 mins so that I could have a better idea of how long things took to let you know. After 30 mins everything was plenty soft, so I went ahead to the next step. 

9. Blend

An immersion blender is an awesome tool if you make soup regularly. Just place it in the pot, press the button, and watch the soup blend before your eyes. 

10. Eat, or Allow to Cool & Freeze

I love having this soup in my freezer. I pour it into medium ziploc bags and it is enough for Philip & I for dinner, or he can grab a bag to take for his lunch if we don't have other leftovers ready to go. I'm allowing mine to cool a little bit and then I will pour into bags and freeze. 

What are your favourite fall recipes? In addition to this soup, I'd probably say Pumpkin Muffins! 

P.S. If you watched me cook this soup in Instastories, I also mentioned listening to "I am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai. Such a good book so far! I'm halfway through and am so glad I decided to listen to such an important story. It's important to ensure you're paying attention to voices that have different life experiences than you, and this is a great listen for any North American who is trying to understand the perspectives of others. I'm using the Libby app which allows you to borrow audiobooks from your local library, give it a try! (this isn't sponsored, I just love books)

Welcome Fall 2016

I can't believe it's September! I don't know if I'm weird, but I'm a little excited. September brings with it for me the same fresh start as January. I'm a huge list maker and I have found that the start of Fall has really been a motivating push to keep going with projects, do things I'm excited about, and start Christmas shopping!

I think this drive came out of both September starting, and we're almost done the Whole 30 Challenge which I have always found "good habits beget good habits" a true statement. Also the word beget should be used more frequently. Since we're making good food habits, it makes me want to make other good routine decisions.

The first week of September I made a list of 24 things I wanted to do in September. It was on the 7th so it equalled to one thing per day for the month of September. Some of the tasks are more ambitious than others, it includes things like bake a loaf of bread (planning to do that this weekend since we're done Whole 30 on Monday and can enjoy fresh bread), purchase 3 Christmas gifts (done!), and finish painting interior doors. I started off so strong, did 4 things in the first 2 days...and now I haven't accomplished much in a few days but today I hope to get back on track!

A few things that I'm excited for this Fall:

- Being back to blogging! It's so good to have something outside of work that gives a creative outlet, fulfillment, etc. Also we did so many home renovations since the blog break - so we can all look forward to seeing the transformation to our bathroom, kitchen, and basically the whole main floor. We're about to start our basement as well so that will be exciting!

- Pumpkin Spice Lattes - even though it's cliche. So delish. Even more than that, Salted Caramel Mocha Frappuccino...

- Scarves. I basically always have a scarf on. I have an obsession. I try to follow a one item in one item out rule where if I get a new scarf I get rid of one I don't wear as frequently...but I do cheat on that rule occasionally. I got a new scarf my mom got me in Munich and it is my new favourite accessory for sure.

- Christmas Shopping. I know this is weirdly early! However, our list of people we buy gifts for is more than 20 and it gets insane and expensive. I have trouble thinking about more than one gift at a time when I'm at the store so if we start early we get a few done, spread out the costs a bit, and don't feel rushed. Every year I aim to be done by end of November and every year I fail - but I'm  hoping this year I'll do it. I've already bought gifts for 6 little kiddos that we have the privilege of hanging out with frequently, and have started some of the fall birthday's that are quickly approaching. We've also been working on a gift for Philip's dad that we started in March...still not done. He will be happy at Christmas to get his Birthday/Father's Day/Christmas gift all in one hopefully.

A few things I'm not excited about:

- Leaves falling on my lawn and in my eavestroughs #adulting. Although I am excited for my garden to be covered in the white stuff we all hate so that I don't have to be embarrassed about the lack of gardening I did this year.

- Wearing a jacket - one Winter as a teenager I didn't wear a coat for the whole year just to be stubborn. Dumb jackets covering my cute scarves.

- No Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor in Paradise until 2017...So excited about Nick as the new Bachelor. I crushed Philip in our competition this past season and look forward to doing much of the same next year.

Are you loving or dreading Fall?

Fall Update

For those of you following along on our updated to-do list, Fall is officially over tomorrow! With Philip doing his usual Friday post (one suggested title for these days is Filip Phriday - I'm a fan) I thought I'd write this post one day early, Fall Completion Eve. 

Let's take a closer look at the original list for Fall:

Fall 2012 (September-November)

Boiler

Get HVAC inspected for the winter

Look into having boiler system and air conditioning system replaced with furnace and central air

Cut Insurance Rates

Silicone exterior cracks

Repair front steps

Have electrician address electrical issues

Correct other inspection issues

Present evidence of repairs

Bedrooms/Living Room

Remove old trim/baseboards

Convert outlets to properly-grounded three-prong

Paint

Replace windows

Install new trim/baseboards

Move out of basement

Fall Clean Up

Remove vines and trees from right side bushes

Remove circular flowerbed and seed

Empty rain barrels and store, redirect eaves troughs

Till the vegetable garden to prepare for sod

Seed open spaces

Turn off water to outdoor hose

Bleed radiators and reserve tank

Some of the things on this list have changed, but we actually did pretty well. 

Looking back, at the beginning of September when our Fall list commenced, we were living in our finished basement with our spidery friends, with plans to finish a bedroom and move upstairs. That changed to gutting the basement, replacing the HVAC system, and moving into the unfinished guest room upstairs in the interim. We had a pretty small list, but it became pretty big. 

We have a couple of last minute things to complete over the weekend (we actually did change the outlets and plugs already in the bedrooms a while back but haven't written about it yet and need to take pictures so maybe we'll change a plug in the living room just to provide a better step-by-step). You'll also notice on the more up to date to-do list that we didn't repair the front steps yet, it was shuffled down to a later date as Winter is here in full swing and it just isn't ideal for right now. 

Soon we'll finally be done enough things to invite a solid group of people over, already found the invitation.

Our blog was started on October 29, 2012 and so far we have published 27 posts (including this one). Here are some of the things we've covered:

• New to the whole having a yard thing, there were a couple of posts about learning to cope with yard work - including this post and this post. I also apparently had a few things to learn about the indoors.
• I got crafty as a domesticated house wife, learning to do things like use craft paint here and here. I also found inspiration through the ancient ways of library browsing. 
• Carpet and walls were taken down for good in the basement to make room for our new HVAC system - Philip shared that with you here and here. 
• Beginning our master bedroom and office renovations, we've shared our progress in this post, this post, this post, and this post. 
• Our house was beautified with brand new clear windows.
• Inglis Liberator Plus retired from our home to be replaced by my beautiful new LG high efficiency washer and dryer (in love). 
• We learned about blogging, including adding a new page, and messing up big time *cough* Philip *cough*. You also learned about my inability to use a measuring tape, ruler, or any other measuring utensil.
• While you learned more about us, we've started learning more about you through polls like this and this.
• We tackled one of the worst projects ever of patching the ceiling, and the walls too. Keeping that trend going, Home Depot delivered the excruciating experience of purchasing closet shelving. Just to keep sane during all of that, we took a trip to Ikea a couple of days before the grand opening. 

I tried to link to every post here, hopefully I didn't miss any - but if I did feel free to use the archive tool on the side and start reading from the beginning! I'll review our upcoming Winter to-do list on Monday and hopefully it isn't too overwhelming. 

On a side note, we're going to extend the poll until Tuesday in order to start a new polling tradition which we're quite fond of so tomorrow there will just be the one post from Philip - with two to look forward to next Tuesday, Dec 4. 

Thanks again for reading! We've really enjoyed blogging so far, and can't wait to see some of the stories we'll be able to share as our house really begins to take shape.