Letting Go

It's cold in Minnesota.  The last three weekends we've been out of town and I was missing Farmer's Market.  I was really worried that all I would see this weekend was squash but I got lucky.  In addition to a lot of squash, there were raspberries and our favorite corn folks were still there.  Eichten's will be coming until Halloween and then they are going to try an indoor market in Oakdale this winter.  Oh yeah!  I won't have to go all winter without their amazing cheese!

 

 

 And look at this cauliflower.  It looks like it has been spray painted purple! 

And of course Laurie from Golden Fig and the amazing Danny Klecko from St. Agnes Baking were there too.

Forty degrees.  That was the temperature Saturday morning.  It's early September it shouldn't be 40 degrees.  I'm not ready for fall.  I want more blueberries and corn on the cob.  I don't want to wear a hat and mittens when I go to Farmer's Market.  I'm not ready.

But then I see all the pumpkin posts on Pinterest.  I remember the yummy squash dishes and the comforting food of fall and winter and I decide I have to embrace fall.

My first fall dish this year was a new one.  The recipe is Pumpkin and Sage Soup.  I made it this past week, before I went to Farmer's Market and my grocery store didn't have pumpkins so I used butternut squash instead.

Here is a link to the recipe:
Pumpkin and Sage Soup

What drew me to this recipe was yes, the pumpkin, but also sage, I love sage and bacon!  Who doesn't like bacon?  And bacon and sage with squash in soup, well that sounded too good.

The soup starts off with sauteed onions.  There isn't much that smells better in the kitchen than onions cooking in butter.  To this the squash and some russet potatoes are added.  The recipe called for a pound of potatoes but one and one-quarter cups of squash.  Why weigh one and measure the other?  They are both in big chunks.  I sort of measured the chunks of squash but I weighed them too, I used about 10 ounces.  The veggies are cooked until tender in vegetable broth.

While the veggies are cooking you brown up the bacon.  I used Applegate smoked bacon.  I love this bacon and I thought a smoked bacon would be perfect in this soup.  Once the bacon is cooked and draining on paper towels you fry the sage in the bacon grease.

Yes, fry the sage in bacon grease.  The recipe called for 4 or 5 leaves.  I fried a few more that that.  I love fried sage!

When the veggies are cooked down you blend them up.  I don't own a blender but my handy, dandy stick blender worked just fine.   I added some cream and a little fresh grated nutmeg and voila, soup!  Both Dave and I loved it.  Even with the potatoes the squash flavor comes through.  We loved the smokiness and saltiness added by the bacon and then the sage.

I garnished with a fried sage leaf.  No, this isn't a pretty presentation bowl!  I made this one night after work and made dinner at the same time.  The soup went directly into a container to be taken to work the next day!