Pumpkin Season

It's getting cooler already.  Houses are decorated for the upcoming Halloween celebrations.  With this season comes an abundance of pumpkins.  So after you are finished with your pumpkins don't throw them away, here is a good soup recipe to warm you up. 
You can use butternut squash if you like it better, a mixture of the two is fine and of course the great sweet potato goes in for health, flavor and thickness....what could be bad.  You could also make this into a cream soup by simply adding heavy cream at the very end when pureeing the soup, but who needs the extra calories!

Pumpkin-Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

1 sweet potato
1-2 carrots
2-3 cups butternut squash or pumpkin or both
1 onion diced
3 cloves of fresh garlic diced
1 tsp mark off
salt and pepper to taste

1.  Wash, peel and chop up the vegetables.
2.  Use a 5qrt pot, fill 3/4 way up with water
3.  Put all the cut up vegetables into the pot, on medium heat and allow to boil
4.  After about 30 minutes or more, the vegetables should be soft, remove from the heat
5.  Add salt, pepper and marak off to the soup
6.  Meanwhile, saute the chopped onions and garlic and set aside when nice and brown
7.  With a hand blender, blend all the vegetables in the pot, add the onions and garlic and mix until  well blended
8.  Keep tasting the soup and adjust the seasoning as needed

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While browsing on the Internet a while back I came across a simple recipe for a Sweet Potato Bread.  I thought to myself, I love sweet potato and I love bread, so the two together must be amazing....and they are.  So here is the recipe, it makes 2 loaves.  I've made it a few times and each time it comes out really delicious.

Simple Sweet Potato Bread

2 cups of sugar (white or brown is fine)
1 cup oil (veg)
3 eggs
2 cups of sweet potato (from the can is fine too 15oz)
3 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup walnuts, chopped

1.  Mix the sugar, oil, egg, sweet potato and vanilla in a large bowl
2.  In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves
3.  Now add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix them together really well
4.  Now add the chopped walnuts, stir them in gently
5.  The oven should be preheated to 325
6.  Pour the dough evenly into two bread loaf pans
7.  Every oven will vary but they should bake for between 60-80 minutes....just wach the last 10 minutes so you don't burn the tops....stick a tooth pick into each loaf, if it comes out clean, bread is done....cool them off before cutting into them.

Enjoy,

Hagit and Dafna