anyone who tells you that two kids more than doubles the work is totally correct. Wow.

Anyway, in addition to being up to my eyeballs in kids, this site’s software lost it’s marbles for a bit and none of our intrepid authors could login to share their culinary adventures. Apologies that it has taken me so long to get things sorted out.

And being back, I thought I should share something food-ish. In fact, I have two things to share: squash stuffings, and a nifty thing to do with soup.

Squash Stuffings:

I don’t know what’s happening where you live, but we are well into fall here, and that means squash.

In the past weeks, our CSA share has provided a few butternuts, a couple of acorn, a kombucha and some truly amazing delicata. I’ve been kind of down on the peel, roast, eat practice recently - maybe since that was all I ever did with squash so lately, I’ve been stuffing it. Below are two suggestions for stuff squash - the sausage one filled out the roasted delicata, while the bean and greens stuffing filled out roasted acorn squash. The butternuts and kombucha are likely to find themselves in a soup or pie in the not too distant future.

Sausage stuffing for squash: This couldn’t be simpler. Get some good bulk italian sausage. Cook it. Make a simple tomato sauce - I put fennel and peppers and garlic and onions and capers in mine. Halve, scoop, lightly oil and roast your squash (cut side down) - I did ours at 400 and tucked a sprig of thyme under each half of squash. When cooked, spoon sausage into squash and top with tomato sauce and some grated pecorino or parmesan.

Beans and Greens stuffing for squash: Another simple one. Cook some great northern beans. Chop some bacon, cook until it’s mostly done, then add diced onion, garlic, carrots, and peppers assuming you’ve got some from your market or CSA. Cook down, adding some salt and pepper and some crushed red chili along the way. Add your greens. I used some lovely “saute greens” from our CSA - a mix of all kinds of little greens. You could use any greens you like. I think dino kale, chard, spinach, or arugula would all be lovely. Beet greens would be fantastic, and you’d have beets too! Once the greens are wilted, add your cooked beans without the liquid they cooked in, and reduce heat and let it hang out for a bit, stirring occasionally and maybe adding a bit of water if it looks like it needs it. Once again, roast your squash, stuff it with this mixture, and enjoy.

Really, these are shared not because there’s anything terribly interesting about them - you likely already do stuff like this all the time - I just find that sharing and hearing about what others do with their veggies inspires me to get a bit more creative with my cooking from time to time.

Nifty soup trick: Yes, I was rather proud of myself when I thought of this one. Does that make me a food nerd? Fine, then I’m a food nerd.

Anyway, I was making some celeriac, carrot, and beet soup, and I thought it would be swell with a poached egg in each bowl. So, instead of poaching them separately, I just broke the eggs directly into the simmering soup and waited till they were cooked to my liking. Just don’t forget how many eggs you put in!