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Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome. Recipes are enjoyed, but you can just take a picture of your hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate at last week’s football game. That’ll do just fine.In other words, the Food on Fridays parameters are not at all narrow. I think of it as a virtual pitch-in where everyone brings something to share; even if the content of one item is unrelated to the rest, we sample it all anyway and have a great time.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or the new smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post and join us through Mr. Linky.Here’s a Mr. Linky tutorial:

Write up a post, publish, then return here and click on Mr. Linky below. A screen will pop up where you can type in your blog name and paste in the url to your own Food on Fridays post (give us the exact link to your Food on Fridays page, not just the link to your blog).You can also visit other people’s posts by clicking on Mr. Linky and then clicking participants’ names–you should be taken straight to their posts.Please note: I return when possible during the day and update this post by hand to include a list of the links provided via Mr. Linky. If I can’t get to the computer to do so, you may access them all by clicking on the Mister Linky logo.

Food on Fridays Participants

Food on Fridays with Ann

When the temperature goes down, I start to monkey around with soup concoctions.

Tonight’s combination turned out particularly well—the Belgian Wonder, who grew up with soup as a dietary staple, praised the blend and balance of flavors. “Very smooth, very tasty, very healthy,” he said. He took two servings and set aside some for lunch.

Here’s what it looked like in the pot. It uses all orange veggies.

I’ll do my best to explain it below.

Creamy Harvest Soup

Ingredients:

• 2-3 T olive oil (I just poured a little in–I guess that’s about what it was)
• 1/4 C diced onions (at most–I have to go easy on the onions)
• 1 or 2 carrots, diced (I was using baby carrots, so I’m estimating)
• 2 cans chicken or vegetable broth (vegetable broth makes this vegan)
• 1-2 C water (maybe more–enough to cover the veggies when cooking)
• 1 butternut squash, cut into pieces (you can cut it up raw or pre-cook slightly to soften it in the oven or microwave)
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed or diced (cooks faster if diced)1/3 to 1/2 C canned pumpkin (I had some left from baking muffins; you could make this recipe without it)
• Additional broth to thin out as desired
• Salt to taste

Instructions:

• In a large pot, cook carrots and onion in oil until onion is soft (carrots don’t have to be cooked through yet).
• Add broth and then add squash and sweet potato.
• Add water to cover.
• Bring to a boil, then turn down heat and simmer until veggies are soft.
• Add pumpkin (if you have some–not too much, though, or it will taste too pumpkin-y).
• When soup is slightly cooled, puree in batches using the blender; or it’s easier to use a hand blender to puree the soup right in the pot.
• Add water or additional broth, stirring until soup is desired consistency (I like my soup pretty thick, but some people like it thinner–you can experiment and decide what you prefer; after blending, this soup was very thick, and even I added a lot of water).
• Salt to taste.

If you have some, put a dollop of cream or half-n-half in the soup when you serve it. But it’s delicious without, so don’t sweat it if you don’t have any on hand.

Serve with a salad and thickly sliced multi-grain bread.

Food on Fridays p.s.

I scored big with a Kroger manager’s special: crème fraîche was on sale. Wow, was it good in this soup!

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The post Food on Fridays: Creamy Harvest Soup appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.