Sausage squash soup with rosemary

My in-laws brought us a hefty haul of apples, squashes and cabbage back from New York yesterday, which translated to lots of delicious smells in the kitchen today. I've made squash soups before that were good, but became boring or too sweet after a few bites. So I thought it might be interesting to process the squash and broth into a nice creamy texture, but then add some sausage, onion and potato for a more chunky texture. The results were a success, even if a bit labor intensive and left behind a sink full of dirty dishes.

4 lbs. squash (butternut or acorn)

1 lb. bass farm hot sausage (or similar ground sausage)

3 small-medium yukon gold potatoes, cubed bite-size

1 onion, diced

3-4 cloves garlic

32 oz. chicken broth

1 sprig fresh rosemary (3-4 inches?)

1/2 tsp. thyme

Preheat oven 400 degrees.

Half squash & seed. Place squash flesh side up in shallow baking dish with 1 inch of water in bottom. Rub 1 tablespoon of butter over squash and sprinkle with rosemary, salt and pepper. Bake 30-40 minutes or until tender. Set aside.

Cook sausage and drain fat. Add onion, garlic, rosemary, potatoes and saute 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Set aside.

In large pot, add chicken broth, thyme and softened squash, heat through. Process in blender, in batches and pour pureed squash back into pot. Add sausage mixture to pot and allow to reheat 10-15 minutes. Serves 5-7

2 Years 6 Months

Dear North,

You are still making music out of trash. At this rate, I might start to paint you blue and market you as a Baby Blue Man. But I love hearing you make music out of thin air. If you're not banging on something, you're singing into a makeshift microphone. I'm not sure where you learned the microphone part from. So I'll just say you were born to rock. It will be interesting to see your musical inclination, especially considering how many instruments we have in the house.

Another example of your vocal ability. Kid, you can wail.

Then there are moments when you are just a lovely weirdo. You delight in making someone laugh, often at the expense of your own eye balls. You may notice in this video that you pronounce your name "Dorothy". Maybe this is your stage name? But the only time I can get you to pronounce the "N" is if you use a deep southern drawl to say it, "Noa-thy". It is equally hilarious.

It strikes me in all of the videos from this summer, that you are never wearing pants. Some days, it even took too much effort to put a shirt on you and so we let you run around like a hammer-wielding diaper-clad savage. Maybe I should be more embarrassed about this.