Happy New YEAR!!!!
I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL 2009
I know I'm looking forward to forgetting about 2008 and moving forward!

This past Christmas I made a soup for my in-laws. They have become.. vegetarians.. or should I say they are trying to change the way they eat. I wanted to make them something that they could eat and NOT worry about eating. I cruised on-line and found a FABULOUS soup!!

My intent is to always try and photograph what I cook and share it here.. but I NEVER remember to do it... but the night before Christmas.. I remembered.. so I'm going to share some pics with you.. it's NOT step by step.. well.. cause I did FORGET to take some pictures in between... so I will share what I have...

Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Soup with Caramelized Vidalia Onions from THIS site.

1 lg. butternut squash (about 3 lbs.)
1 head of garlic
2 lg. vidalia onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp. olive oil
3 C. of vegetable broth
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dry, rubbed sage
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
salt, to taste

Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Cut butternut squash in half. Remove stringy insides and seeds. Discard.

3. Place squash halves in a roasting pan, skin-side-down. Roast 20 minutes.

4. With a sharp knife, cut off the top of the head of garlic, leaving cloves barely exposed. Drizzle with olive oil and place garlic in pan with squash.

5. Roast squash and garlic together about 20 minutes more, until squash is very tender.

6. While squash is cooking, caramelize onions. Combine onions and 1-2 tbsp. olive oil in a hot skillet.

7. Sprinkle with sage, salt, and pepper. Saute until brown and caramelized, stirring occasionally.

8. Remove squash and garlic from the oven and allow to cool about 15 minutes before handling. Scrape out squash flesh and squeeze out garlic cloves.

9. Bring vegetable broth to a simmer in a large pot. Add squash, garlic, and 3/4 of the caramelized onions.

10. Simmer 5 minutes, then blend with an immersion blender. (Alternately, you can blend squash, onions, and garlic together with a food processor before adding to vegetable broth.)

11. Add basil and more salt and pepper to taste.

12. Simmer 15-20 minutes. Top each bowl with remaining caramelised onions.

In the recipe it calls for you to bake the squash for about 40 minutes.. I'll be honest.. it took me a little over an hour to get it soft... and I still felt it could have been cooked awhile longer... But this is the squash and the garlic cooked together... I had all I could do not to take a bite of this!!

In the mean time I had to caramelize my onions... so I took some butter and a chunk of brown sugar and melted it together... ( great measurements there.. huh?)

then added my onions and cooked them on medium until they turned a nice golden brown...

I could eat these alone with a spoon and be in heaven!!!

The final result... mmmmmmm it was nice and thick and WARM.. I served it up with my Sunflower seed bread! I have to say it really ended up being a hit!

This is what I'm reading now... I've had this book for about 2 or 3 years ..I bought it and at first didn't seem interested in it.. so back on my shelf it went... Now I'm REALLY enjoying it!! and actually can't wait to read the others that go along with it!!