Election day/late birthday soup lunch

My good friend Megan had me over for lunch today... a much delayed get-together that one or the other of us had been postponing (sick, overbooked, sick, guests in town, sick) for a few weeks... and it was the perfect day for soup. We had big big rain in the morning with lots of wind and gustiness (and snow on the mountains, too soon!) and it all cleared out this afternoon for a sunny-ish sunset.

But the highlight of my day was having lunch with Megan and Grace, her almost-4 year old. When I thanked Grace upon leaving for sharing her mom with me, she looked at me and most earnestly said, "I don't want to share my mom with you," like I had just uttered absolute nonsense. Very sweet.

It was too early to really pay too much attention to what was going on with the election, so we had a chance to catch up on kids and work and husbands and such. A real treat. And far too rare these days.

And the soup, oh the soup. She's made this before, for our now fairly-defunct book group. I loved it then, and I loved it today. A perfect fall soup. I begged the recipe, and warned her it was getting world-wide-web posting.





Gingered Pumpkin-Pear Soup

½ cup chopped sweet onion
2 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 T. butter
3 pears, peeled, cored and sliced
1 15-oz. can pumpkin
1 ½ cups vegetable broth
1 cup milk
¼ cup light sour cream
½ tsp. finely shredded lime peel
1 T. lime juice
Lime peel, optional

In a large saucepan cook onion and ginger in butter until onion is tender. Stir in pears; cook one minute more. Stir in pumpkin and vegetable broth; heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, about five minutes more or until pears are tender. Cool slightly. In a blender or food processor, cover and blend or process half of the pumpkin mixture at a time until smooth, about one minute. Return mixture to saucepan; stir in milk. Heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

In a small bowl, stir together sour cream, ½ tsp. lime peel and lime juice. Top each serving of soup with a drizzle of the sour cream mixture. Garnish with lime peel. Makes 6 side-dish servings.

Enjoy! And at the very least, let the country unite over soup.

I couldn't have said it better myself

I just wish I had discovered this a few days ago...



I hope all of my three readers that are eligible voters have done so! Polls close in a couple of hours here in PST-land.

Election eve limericks!

Not cooking tonight, no siree. Seth came home starved after basketball practice and got a quick supper of scrambled eggs and hashed browns, which he gobbled up. I fiddled around with a pomegranate and some yogurt and I now hear the sounds of husband foraging down in the kitchen... wow, things have fallen, and so quickly.

The dark of no daylight savings has fallen and I finally admit that autumn ain't all I've been cracking it up to be (I can hear you, oh mocking Jen). It will take me a moment or two to adjust. Meanwhile we'll nurse the lentil soup I made yesterday and soothe our souls with hot chocolate (and many many marshmallows).

But meanwhile, oh did I happen upon a time-suck tonight online!

Called OEDILF (The Omnicient English Dictionary in Limerick Form), this is one fun little place for wordy folks. Their stated goal is: "to write at least one limerick for each meaning of each and every word in the English language. Our best limericks will clearly define their words in a humorous or interesting way, although some may provide more entertainment than definition, or vice versa."

And how.

And in the food realm alone there are some real gems:

choux pastry by Dottie (Anne Clements)

Heat water with fat (butter's best),
Mix in flour, then egg; beat with zest.
Make small blobs (use a spoon),
Bake on 'hot'. Very soon
You'll have choux pastry fit for your guest.

Some words have only one entry, but for something as common as a banana, there are quite a few, 13 in fact.

And they even poke fun at themselves:

amusingly by David Schildkret

These limericks are carefully drafted;
No rhyme has been cobbled or grafted.
Each poem defines
A new word in five lines.
They're amusingly, lovingly crafted.

They are only working on the first four letters of the alphabet so far, and they already have 48,000 limericks! So no "e" for election, but there are still quite a few with a political bent, naturally. So if you want to take a break from the pundits and spinmeisters tomorrow, have a little limerick break!