Best. Vegetarian. Crocked. Meal. Ever.

We begin with another entry from the file of things I've never tasted/cooked before. Until today, I had never tasted butternut squash soup. Surprisingly, my other half had AND and he LOVED it. Little did I know that there are as many different recipes for butternut squash soup in the world as there are for beef stew. This is the one I picked...because it was the first one I found.

Butternut Squash Soup (6 quart pot)

~1 butternut squash
~2 T olive oil
~2 gala apples, peeled and cubed
~2 small onions, diced
~24 oz vegetable broth
~1 1/2 t salt
~1/4 t pepper
~1/4 t nutmeg
~1/4 t cinnamon
~1/4 t cloves
~1/4 t coriander

Cut the squash lengthwise with a sharp knife. Scoop out and discard seeds and stringy pulp.
Brush olive oil on inside of squash. Roast in oven on 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until skin pulls away from meat.
Scoop out the squash and add to crock pot.
Add the apples, onions, and broth.
Stir in spices.
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.
Blend in small quantities. (I used our magic bullet.)



4 servings.

I am officially a butternut squash soup fan. It's sweet. It's spicy. It's soooooo good. *drool* I will definitely make this again.

Ok...so you know that I love pumpkin. And chocolate. BUT did you know that my 2 favorite desserts are neither pumpkin-y nor chocolatey? I'll be making my all time favorite dessert as soon as I find an acceptable recipe for it, but this, my friends, is numero dos on my list. I made a different version of this a week or two before the birth of this blog, but it wasn't the best recipe in the world. Not even close. The recipe I used today came from a non slow cooker cook book. Did I not learn from yesterday?  Betty Crocker. Chick knows her stuff. So...I made it and guestimated the cooking time based on other carrot cake recipes I found on the internets.

Carrot Cake (3.5 quart pot)
~1 1/2 c sugar
~1 c vegetable oil
~3 large eggs
~2 c flour
~2 t cinnamon
~1 t baking soda
~1 t vanilla
~1/2 t salt
~3 cups shredded carrots
~1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

Mix sugar, oil and eggs.
Add all other ingredients except carrots and nuts. Mix well.
Add carrots. Mix.
Add nuts.
Pour into crock pot.
Cover and cook on low for 4 hours-ish.
Cool completely before inverting and icing.

I cooked mine for 3 1/2 hours and it ended up being slightly undercooked. I also didn't grease the pot well enough (apparently), so it didn't come out of the pot very nicely. I dumped the mess into some corning ware, turned it into a carrot cake loaf type thing, and iced it.

Icing

~8 oz Philly cream cheese
~1/4 cup butter
~1 t vanilla
~2 t milk
~4 cups powdered sugar

Blend with hand mixer until smooth.


12 servings.

The recipe is A-MAZ-ING. I just have to work on the timing. It is the perfect carrot cake.

I would make the soup and the cake every single day if they weren't so super complicated to make. It was a fabulous crock day. Yum.