Cooking for one: the Squash and Carrot Soup Adventure

It isn’t often that I commit to following a recipie. But… I had a squash and it was too cool outside to do much. Staying inside and making soup seemed like a good idea.

The recipie I found called for Butternut squash. I don’t know what kind of squash I had, but a squash is squash. And, I knew I liked the kind I had. At least I liked it last year.

So, I found the recipie on line and pulled out the main ingredients. It’s lucky that I just bought a big bag of carrots because the recipie called for 2 cups of thin slices. (I don’t have a mandoline / slicer. I had one once. I gave it away after I discovered that it sliced fingers as easily as it sliced veggies.) Creating 2 cups of thin carrot slices seemed like it would be an eternal task, so I turned on the tv. There’s nothing like distraction to make cooking go easier.

(I considered only making half a recipie, but realized that if I made the full recipe I could skip cooking the next time I wanted soup. I love having stuff in my freezer, even though I can never find what I’m looking for without emptying it.)

With the carrots cut, I took on the 3/4 cup of chopped onion. Fortunately, this onion didn’t make me cry, but the lack of anything interesting on tv almost did. I feel bad for people who rely on tv to entertain them day after day. Maybe they’re just more tolerant than I am, or have a broader range of interests. Whatever it is, I hope I don’t have to develop it.

Pealing the squash was the next step. However, my pumpkin-like squash was really hard and had all those dents and curves to deal with. There was no way I’d be able to acutally peel it — unless (yes there’s always a way) I put it in the micro. Jabbing it with a sharp knife so it wouldn’t explode in the micro brought a few tense moments when I couldn’t get the knife out, but I perservered. (Did I spell that right?) Anyway, I didn’t quit and was rewarded, 10 or 15 minutes later, when I was able to gingerly peel the hard shell off the almost cooked, one billion degrees hot, squash.

At last all the main ingredients were ready. The next step was to melt a tablespoon of butter (I used oleo) in a big pan. That shouldn’t have presented any problems, but I hate my stove. For years I had a gas stove and loved being able to change the heat instantly. This stove is electric. It takes forever to heat and forever to change temprerature — and I’m stuck with it. So, I put the oleo in the pan, turned on the burner and stood over the pot, watching so the oleo would melt and not burn. Success! I added the carrots, onions and squash, put the cover on the pot as instructed, set a timer for eight minutes (per the recipie) and went to see if I could find anything worth watching on tv. I lucked out. Jeopardy came on.

The veggies were supposed to be soft when the timer went off, but of course they weren’t. The burner probably wasn’t hot enough to cook them, so I set the timer again and reread the recipe. It called for two 14.5 ounce cans of reduced-sodium chicken broth. Well. I fluffed that ingredient off and substituted what I had: 2 packets of dried low-sodium chicken bullion which I added to two cups of hot water. (As long as I was heating water, I heated extra and made myself a cup of English Breakfast tea as a reward for cooking.)

The recipie said to add the chicken broth to the veggies and let the combo cook for 25 minutes. I added my broth. Setting my timer again, I headed for the couch to watch the rest of Jeopardy and enjoy my tea. Going back to the kitchen to during commercials to stir the soup added steps to my daily count, and getting up and down from my chair took care of one of the exercise requirements of a program I’m taking. (If I’d known the homework included exercise I would have given more thought to signing up.)

The cooking time passed quite pleasantly. I was hardly in the kitchen at all. However, the carrots and some of the squash were still hard. I gave it a little more cooking time and went back to watch Final Jeopardy. The guy I was rooting for didn’t win, but the end was exciting. Only one of the contestents knew the answer, but I did! (Sometimes it pays to be old. You know or lived through stuff the younger generation doesn’t pay attention to.)

The last step, after the veggies were soft, was to put part of the potential soup into a blender and blend it until it’s smooth, then repeat the process until all the ingredients are smooth and blended together. Small catch. I don’t have a blender. I do have a gadget that fits inside a glass and cuts up a banana when I want to make a smoothie. (Sorry, the name of the thing isn’t coming.) To make a long story short, I used my thingie and whipped the veggies into a smooth mess right there in the kettle. Then I added the 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon of white pepper the recipie called for. The last step was adding a fourth of a cup of cream. Not having cream, I added skim milk. (Fewer calories is always good.)

I liked the soup, but I’m not much on spicy food. I wish I’d left the nutmeg out. To counter the spice, I fried some bacon and crumbled it on top. Perfection!

My freezer now holds three one-cup servings of Squash and Carrot Soup. 1 cup = 12 carbs, 2 grams fiber, and 82 calories — or at least it would have if I’d followed the recipe exactly. Even so, I’ll use those counts and thank Eatingwell’s website and Diabetic Living Magazine where the recipe first appeared. As for the actual cooking — it wasn’t bad — and I got to watch Jeopardy while enjoying a lovely cup of tea.