Last week I cooked something from a pretty awesome cookbook that my sister bought called 'Food' by Mary McCartney (yep, Paul McCartney's daughter). It is full of tasty vegetarian meals and I have already bookmarked a few other recipes for the future (including a tomato soup for tomorrow night).
So on Wednesday I made a Roasted Butternut Squash and Rosemary Soup.
As I've mentioned previously, I love a good pumpkin soup and am pretty proud of my staple recipe which I blogged about here. While I have my fave recipe, I am always looking for variations. This recipe caught my eye because of the roasting of the pumpkin and the addition of rosemary. I have heard that roasting the pumpkin before putting it in a soup is a great way to intensify the flavour. Well, the flavour was definitely intensified.
The soup also had onions, carrots, chilli flakes, veggie stock and a couple of tablespoons of sour cream. (It was also supposed to have celery, but the celery I had bought a couple of days before was quite soft and floppy so I omitted it...)
While this soup was fairly easy to make, it was a bit more time consuming than my old faithful. The roasting of the pumpkin took 45 minutes and then peeling the roasted pumpkin proved to be more difficult than anticipated. Oh well. It still turned out to be super delicious and I reckon it would be even lower in calories than my fave recipe due to the fact that it had no potato and no cream. I think the carrots added a sweetness to the soup that I am not used to, yet I really enjoyed. So I will definitely be making this again in the very near future.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In other tidbits from my world, there is only one more week of this term. This term has gone so much better than the first half of the year, but it is still challenging and I am looking forward to starting anew next year with a new class and new perspective and attitude.
The proverbial carrot that has been dangling in front of my nose to get me through the term has been my Bali trip. Four days and four nights on a tropical and exotic location with two awesome ladies. I can't wait. I am a Bali virgin and after hearing about how awesome it is from every single person I know, I am looking forward to experiencing it for myself.
This is a picture of our accommodation which is pinned up on my board in the classroom. Each suite has its own private pool. Fingers crossed it is a true representation!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I love to cook, but sometimes it is nice to have someone else cook for me. My sister planned a Mystery Meal a couple of weeks ago and it did not disappoint.
She cooked me a delicious Quorn Korma. The gorgeous curry aroma that filled the house left our mouths watering and the curry was pretty yummy too (I have now learnt to eat AROUND the cardamom seeds, lol).
To top it off, we finished it off with an equally yummy dessert.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHOE FLASH!
These lovelies were purchased to wear to the ball (which was last night). They are GORGEOUS, but oh my goodness, they KILLED my feet! I honestly think I need to accept that high heels should be in my past and instead embrace awesome sparkly flats.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And finally, it has been getting quite warm up here lately. We would normally be in The Build-Up which is characterised by hot and sticky days. However, we are having a lot of the hot and not much of the sticky, instead being hit by warm, dry winds. This ultimately means that the Wet Season will most probably be arriving much later than usual - with our first Wet Season storms not predicted to begin until mid December!
So we have been spending quite a lot of time in the pool lately.
Bring on the Wet Season!!
