Soup and Sicily

We love soup. Tim especially loves soup. I like soup because it's warm and I'm usually cold. Being winter, I have been experimenting with different soups lately. The first one was an Oktoberfest soup, made with chopped potatoes, celery, carrots, sliced sausage, and oktoberfest beer instead of chicken broth. Then I've experimented with a potato soup, but I haven't gotten it quite right yet. The first time, I didn't mash the potatoes enough, the second time, I didn't put in celery because it was the only vegetable the grocery store didn't have. But what I have so far is cooking chopped potatoes, celery, and carrots like I was making mashed potatoes. Then draining and mashing them, then adding butter, sour cream, milk, and cheese, and getting it hot again. Surprisingly, the celery is actually very important to this soup. It adds an incredible flavor.

Finally, the best soup of all: pumpkin with roasted apples. I've made it with both roasted and canned pumpkin, so either works. First, roast the apples by chopping them and baking them on a foil-lined baking sheet for 20 minutes or until they are soft. Cook one or two finely chopped onions in 3 tbs of butter in a soup pot until they are translucent. Add some chopped garlic (or I used garlic powder) and cook for a minute. Then add a can of pumpkin (about 4 cups) and about 4 cups of chicken broth. Season with salt, pepper, and cinnamon and put in the apples. Cook on low for about 30 minutes.

And I can't be done without a quick note about our trip to Sicily. We ate dinner the first night at our agriturismo and the meal was bigger than the Thanksgiving meal the day before! The appetizers were mostly fried: fried dough, fried veggies. They were excellent! There was also something that was a Sicilian specialty that had eggplant (and maybe something else) cooked in olive oil and totmatoes. I think that was our favorite. The pasta was pasta with pumpkin (I can tell you how to make that, just ask), and we just really didn't have room for the meat course. For dessert, cannolis, of course. We had to get up and walk around the room for a few minutes because that could not be passed up. They are stuffed with sweetened ricotta cheese, but they aren't too sweet, and oh, so good! We also tried Sicilian pizza, and shocking as it may be, I think I like their crust more than the Neopolitans'. It's a little thicker and less burned. But then again, maybe it was just a fluke. Pistachio gelato first came from Sicily, so that was definitely the thing to eat. All in all, Sicily was a culinary delight.