The Butternut Squash Soup Recipe You Should Make Now!

Butternut squash is so beautiful. Butternut squash is so tasty. Butternut squash is so versatile. 

Roasted. Sautéed. Soups. And in every other way you can imagine. 

I started growing butternut squash in my garden about three or four years ago. Maybe five. Why did I wait so long? What was I thinking?

One of the go-to recipes for my family all winter long is courtesy of the legendary Emeril Lagasse and the Food Network.

It's the Smoked Sausage, Butternut Squash and Wild Rice Soup recipe that's an absolute knockout. It is absolutely amazing when I make it with my butternut squash from my garden. 

The kids love it, too! I mean, how can you go wrong with sausage and wild rice and butternut squash from your garden?

I live in Virginia. Home of shirt-soaking hot and humid summers. Think sweat and mildew and disease in plants. 

This past summer I tried these amazing seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. They are South Anna Butternut Squash plants that are Downy Mildew resistant. They did fabulous and were still growing right up to the first hard frost that just happened overnight!

Find the seeds here!

And find the soup recipe here!

Finally, enjoy!

The foodie truth, or why winter and Pinterest go together

A power chowder: Just add bacon

I have come to the conclusion that winter can be useful. I'm not a great fan of winter by any stretch of the imagination. If I were to rate the four seasons from favorite to permanently exile it to Siberia, it would go like this:
1) Summer
2) Fall (Truly, Virginia falls are absolutely splendid and a very, very close second to summer in my book. It's almost a photo finish. The only real issue I have with fall in Virginia is that every day you are that much closer to winter.)
3) Spring
97) Winter

So you can see that winter isn't exactly my favorite. I hate being cold and winter here just off Chesapeake Bay -- where the air is so thick with humidity on some days that you can actually catch it, put it in a Ziploc bag and watch it turn to water -- is a bone-chilling cold. It's a damp, miserable affair in which there are days where if I spend too much time outside I just can't get warm for the rest of the day.

One of the few redeeming qualities of a Tidewater Virginia winter is Pinterest. Seriously. I'm on Pinterest and I get the occasional Pin on my board or whatever you call it that just doesn't seem right to me.

For example, from actual things on my board I saw this morning it might go something like: "Top 10 Tips to Reduce Swelling During Pregnancy" (I don't even know where to begin with that. What sort of Pinterest algorithm came to the conclusion that I might be having problems with swelling when I'm pregnant? I've never, ever had swelling during pregnancy!) or "Amazing 2 Ingredient Makeup Remover -- You'll never go back to expensive department store versions again!" (I'm going to nip this in the bud right now before you draw conclusions about the things popping up on my Pinterest board: When it comes to makeup, I'm okay with using expensive department store versions of makeup remover because I believe that's something you definitely don't want to mess around with.)

What I find Pinterest useful for, when I don't need pregnancy or makeup tips, is finding recipes. Yeah Pinterest has lots of other cool features, like DIY stuff, parenting stuff (The one that cracks me up lately is all these Pins about "How I Survived Going From 2 Kids to 3" and "How to Decide If You Can Handle Going From Two Kids to 3" ... so naturally I'm thinking of writing a useful blog and throwing it up on Pinterest with the title, "How to Decide If You Can Handle Going From 13 Kids to 14" ... I bet it will get a ton of Pins.) and links to somewhat interesting and useful blogs.

But far and away the #1 Pinterest feature in my book is recipes. Especially on bone-chilling frigid winter days where the only redeeming quality of it is that it's a great excuse to make soup. I think that is the one thing I am thankful for when it comes to winter: It's the season of soup-making.

Recently I came across this soup recipe on Pinterest that I tried and let me just say -- and it's not bragging if it's true -- that the day I made it is the day I made the best soup in Gloucester County. I also want to say that Claire helped me out ... well technically she did all the heavy soup-making lifting and I was more like the sous chef to her head chef. Claire can flat-out cook. She's a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen. So the other day for this soup, I did the chopping and dicing and prep work and Claire expertly assembled, added, poured, stirred and lovingly coaxed greatness out of that pot.

The soup is called "Smokey ham, potato and corn chowder" and it was a huge hit in the Sabo house. I mean, it's got bacon, ham, cream cheese, potatoes ... there's a lot of things going right just in that grouping. So go ahead, hop on Pinterest and weed through the pregnancy, makeup and parenting pins and find it. You won't be disappointed.

The BEST Seafood Chowder Is My Christmas Present To You

We have a favorite Sabo family Christmas tradition that dates back to when the number of our kids was in the single digits, which is approximately the 2002 or 2003 time frame. It's soup. But not just any soup. This is a seafood chowder that the family looks forward to waaaaaayyyyy more than opening Christmas presents. Sort of. Maybe. Ish? Okay, so my seafood chowder takes a close second to the whole opening Christmas presents thing. But don't let that dissuade you from breaking out the heavy-bottomed stock pot and giving this seafood chowder a whirl in your kitchen. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

I found this recipe in The Oregonian and it's called "Portland Seafood Chowder." It makes 10 cups, which means I automatically double it. Or so. And I've modified it by adding more seafood to the point that basically if it swims, or crawls, or scampers, or filters in saltwater, it goes in this chowder. As a disclaimer, due to the nature of the ingredients it's an expensive soup to make. Which is why we only make it once a year. Which is also why I'm seriously considering launching separate Kickstarter and Gofundme campaigns to support our seafood chowder habit so that we can enjoy it more than once a year.

Without further ado, we give you the "Portland Seafood Chowder" recipe in all its gastronomical glory. Go forth and be a Pacific Northwest foodie aficionado.

12 oz. diced raw bacon
1 1/3 C finely diced onion
1 1/3 C finely diced carrot
1 1/3 C finely diced celery
1/2 C diced roasted red bell peppers
1 1/2 t dried dill weed
1 1/2 t dried basil
1 1/2 t dried marjoram
1 1/2 t cajun spice mix
3 T all-purpose flour
1/2 C lightly hopped ale
1 10-oz. can baby clams
2 8-oz. bottles clam juice
4 C diced raw potatoes
6 to 8 fresh mussels, scrubbed & debearded
1/4 lb. cubed firm white fish such as snapper or cod
1/4 lb. smoked salmon, flaked
1 C whipping cream
salt & pepper to taste

* Among the seafoody items I add with liberality (one of the few times in my life I'm a liberal):
crab meat
oysters
baby shrimp

In a heavy-bottomed stock pot, cook the bacon over medium-low until it is brown. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook over medium-low heat until the carrots are almost tender. Add red peppers.

Stir in the dill weed, basil, marjoram and cajun spice mix. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes. Add the ale, the juice from the clams (reserve the drained clams for later), and the bottled clam juice. Stir until smooth and then add the potatoes. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Add the mussels, white fish, smoked salmon, reserved clams and any other additional seafood, cover and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes or until the mussels are opened and the white fish is done. Discard any mussels that do not open. Stir in the whipping cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

Merry Christmas!

Life Is A Bowl Of Soup. With Sausage.

Getting prepped for soupalicious.

It's hard to explain my love affair with soup. I just really like making soup. Perhaps it's the very nature of a good soup; taking disparate ingredients and blending them together into something beautifully tasty. Which sounds sort of like our family. We have some legit kooks (a butternut squash or wild rice), some very sensible and level-headed family members (that would be corn), some who would be described as "normal" (a good chicken broth) and then there's one who's fairly whacked (that would be me, the onion).

A key ingredient for some of my favorite soups is sausage. A good smoked sausage, like your kielbasa, is an absolute delight in a soup. Why am I drawn to sausage? Maybe it's because I can relate. Making sausage isn't real pretty, I understand. Family life isn't real pretty sometimes either. But you throw sausage in the fire -- or at least a frying pan -- and oh, what a delight. Life for a big family can feel like sausage making and then you get thrown into the fire. The end result through all that trauma and fire is quite delectable. If you're eating sausage that is. For a family, at least our family, if you can survive all that squeezing and grinding and refining fire, then it's a beautiful picture of how all these different parts can work together and come out good. Or something like that.

The real back story to this blog post is I'm trying to wax poetic about making soup so I can post a blog post. (Did I just use the word "post" three times in a sentence? I need an editor.) So I'm going all symbolic with soup and sausage and family life ... let me know if it isn't working. Before you make any more fun of me, I'll just quit and offer up the recipe for Emeril Lagasse's smoked sausage, butternut squash and wild rice soup. It appears that Mr. Lagasse is pretty handy in a kitchen. (Editor's note: Matthew! Saying Emeril Lagasse is "pretty handy" in a kitchen is like saying Monet was "pretty handy" with a paintbrush. Author's reply: Oh. Well, then I'll say that Mr. Lagasse can cook good.) 

Here's the recipe, courtesy of the Food Network. Enjoy: Le soup extraordinaire

The Catharsis Of Cooking: Dad In The Kitchen

I'm not sure when I got my start in the kitchen. I have memories of living in Prineville, Ore., in our little 860-square-foot house with only a couple of boys underfoot and making chocolate chip cookies. I have fond memories of canning peaches in that little house in the early- to mid-90s. A proper, tree-ripened peach, I do believe, is the perfect fruit. My time in the kitchen expanded over the years to the point that I prepare probably half of our dinners. That makes me a line cook? A buffet chef? A foodie? Or whatever you would call someone who prepares dinner for an intimate crowd of 13 or more, depending on how many Sabo kids are present and accounted for at the time.

Cooking for me is a multitude of things. It can be an act of service, a way for me to help out in the family and give Julie a break. It's an outlet for creativity, taking these raw ingredients and assembling something tasty. It's a passion, something I truly enjoy. I enjoy tweaking recipes and have my own versions of chimichangas, chili, soups and other dishes that I've conjured up over the years.

On Saturday night I made this soup for the first time that was wonderful. Madeline called it "amazing." I agree. I found the recipe on Pinterest. Yes, I'm on Pinterest (hey, don't judge). It's a tortellini and kielbasa soup that I came across after craving a sausage dish. I'm not sure how to explain it, but sometimes I just crave sausage. I like fixing soups because you can easily double recipes to accommodate large volumes of tummies and soup rarely, if ever, loses its tastiness as leftovers.

I highly recommend this soup. You will not be disappointed. Here's a link to the recipe I found on Pinterest: Killer soup