Zombie Soup

Most days, I ride my bike to work. After a few months, I figured out something...
Rules for wearing a skirt (of any length) while riding a bike:

1) Don't.

2) Bring safety pins--both to pin up a long skirt before and to fix the inevitable rips afterwards.

3) Lose sense of shame.

4) Wear cute undies because you will flash people.

5) See Rule #1.

Especially because of the cold, I've given up on skirts for a while.

Soup! Because it's cold outside. There's probably 1,001 variations on some vegan, gluten-free, roasted butternut squash curried soup because it is brainlessly easy to prepare. Even a zombie could make it.

Zombie Souuuuuuup

1 butternut squash, de-seeded and cut into 4 pieces (slice off neck, cut neck in half, and cut bulb in half)

1 white onion, quartered

1 head of garlic, decapitated (slice off the crowns of the bulbs)

1 16-ounce can lite coconut milk
2 cups water

1 quart GF vegetable broth (I used a teaspoon of veggie Better than Bouillon plus boiling water)

4 teaspoons sweet curry powder (or whatever heat level of curry you like)

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat. Place squash cavity side-down and onion quarters on the sheet. Wrap decapitated garlic in foil. Bake for 1 hour or until onion is browned and squash is knife-tender.

In a food processor or blender, blend half the squash with all the coconut milk and water and curry. Blitz to desired smoothness, adding water as necessary. Transfer to a large bowl (or pot if heating through to serve immediately). Repeat with the onion, broth, and the rest of the squash (careful with blending hot liquids--press a towel over the lid hole to let some steam escape). Season with salt and pepper to taste. Either heat through on the stove and serve immediately or pour into a container and cool to transport.

I served mine with a sprinkle of pumpkin seaweed seasoning and some black rice sushi S made. We had intended to go to a potluck, hence the soup and sushi, but had a quiet Solstice instead.

Parting shots:
I ain't baking no fucking cookies December. Whoops, made another batch of these oatmeal peanut butter cookies with a bar of 85 per cent dark chocolate. A friend and I made some last week and I liked them so much (breakfast cookies? yesss) I made more.

Three-month-old almond butter at Castle Merciless turns into almond bread.

I received Natalie Slater's Bake and Destroy cookbook for X-mas, from which I made the pizza cupcakes. The TJ's GF flour blend is very "white flour," and the tofu makes them pleasantly chewy. Being Italian, I could NOT buy jarred sauce; I made my own with a can of fire-roasted tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spices. My friend entertained me with plot summaries of the Hannibal Lecter movies while I cooked.

From Emma Goss-Custard's Gluten-Free Sweet Treats, I converted this lemon poundcake recipe into an orange pepita pound cake. Somewhere in the metric conversions I missed something, and it turned out a tad gummy. However, unlike the original, it did not have a sinking problem. The taste is there but the texture is not.

Eat me, drink me--"Q" foods at Whole Foods.