squash soup

Nate, being a bachelor for the weekend, invited me over to hang out with him and Milford the pup yesterday afternoon, eventually joined by Chris and Andrew and little Josh and Odile. We wandered around Morningside Park, bought delicious honeycrisp apples at the green market on 110th street, then wandered around Central Park, chasing tennis balls and making the acquaintance of overly randy bulldogs and enormous great danes until the cold chased us inside. We couldn't quite decide on what to have for dinner, so Andrew made a yummy black bean & tomato & couscous thing, Chris provided some jerk chicken from around the corner, Nate contributed beer and the last of the New Zealand wines from our trip last summer (a truly delicious pinot noir from the Cabbage Tree Vineyard in the Martinborough region of the north island), and turned a couple of squashes that had been sitting around for awhile into a pretty good soup.

2 golden nugget squashes
1 acorn squash
head of garlic
vegetable broth
black pepper
cayenne pepper
curry powder
brown sugar
molasses

Cut the squashes in half and scoop out the innards. Place 'em cut side down on a roasting tray with some water and roast 'em in the oven at 350 degrees until they're really soft, about an hour or so. Also peel all the garlic and add the cloves to the roasting pan a little after the sqash, since the garlic doesn't have to roast as long. When the squash and garlic are nice and soft, take 'em out of the oven and let 'em cool a bit. Scoop out the squash flesh into a pot, smash up the garlic cloves and add that, along with all the other ingredients, obviously to taste. I added an extra boullion cube, and lots of pepper and brown sugar and curry. Also, my trusty stick blender was at home, so I didn't bother blending this soup at all, just mashed it up with a wooden spoon. It was delicious, and I'm eating the leftovers as I type this.