it’s truly fall now: dian and i had a squash soup-off over the weekend.

i made veganomicon’s squash & pear soup, with amendments of course:

slice an onion and a red pepper, saute in vegetable oil until softened.
add 2 teaspoons of grated ginger and 3 cloves of minced garlic, saute a little more.
add a few pinches of salt, a pinch of chinese five spice powder, a peeled and cubed squash (i used buttercup) and 2 peeled and sliced pears (i used bosc), stir for a few minutes, then add 4 cups of vege stock.
bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour, until the squash is falling apart. mush up with a potato masher and serve.
super simple, but so so tasty.

then dian made her not-beef bone squash soup (aka the vege version of her mum’s recipe):

cut up an onion, start cooking it in some vegetable oil.
on the side, peel and cut up 1 large squash, or a medley of squashes (should be about 4 or 5 cups of squash).
then, put chop up any veges you want – dian did red peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, potato, carrots, garlic (any soupworthy veges that you like, that aren’t too strong in flavour).
once the onions are browned, dump in all the veges (including squash), and add a tablespoon of home dried thyme, paprika, salt and pepper. add about a cup of water, turn it to medium, put the lid on and let everything steam till soft (this makes it much faster).
once everything’s cooked, add more water to bring it to soup consistency. add yellow yam and green (cooking) banana now (chopped up). the green banana is top and tailed and then scored along the side (it gets cooked in its skin). the yellow yam is peeled and chopped super quickly – otherwise it goes black and gets slimey.
make dumplings from flour, water and salt – mix to a firm dough. take of small chunks and roll between your hands and drop them in the soup.
cook until the dumpling, banana and yam are cooked (about half an hour). peel the bananas and put them back, and then add a tablespoon of chunky peanut butter.
serve with chopped coriander to garnish.