Soup is Good Food

So, I got a food mill. Last time I made applesauce (actually apple-persimmon sauce) I cooked the fruit with the skins still on to maximize flavor and then just sort of ate around the skins because, hey, not serving it to anyone else, so who cares? But the second dumpling recipe in my big book of seasonally appropriate dumplings is for spaetzle, and while they recommend a spaetzle maker, the instructions suggest using a food mill instead. Aha! I said to myself, a food mill would be handy for making applesauce! And for pureeing giant butternut squashes that I don't want to peel before I cook but I don't want to eat the skin or seeds. And many other uses, I am sure. So I got one. It came yesterday.

Today, I figured I'd go ahead and finish off the leftover roasted squash by making soup. I had a pint or so of really delicious chicken broth still in the fridge that I figured I could mill the squash right into, add whatever other things squash soup might call for, and have dinner. So I started the broth a simmering, assembled the food mill, and got out the squash. Which was starting to get fuzzy with mold.

So, squash into the compost. Broth still simmering. i quickly threw together the spaetzle batter per the dumpling book and milled it right into the broth (the recipe is a little fancier, the spaetzle is supposed to get cooked in water and then drained and eaten with sauce - I'll do that later to get the full effect), possibly overcooking it a little, but it was excellently tasty and filling. So much easier than making pasta with the kneading and the cutting and the drying, but a pretty similar effect. Glad to add that to my repertoire.

Going tomorrow to order my bees and queen, yay.