Purée the day away

I spent a good part of the day cooking. First I made another puréed soup, this one for a dinner party on Saturday. I figure if the leftover soup I had for breakfast was so damn tasty, holding a batch for a few days will only help.

Roasted a sugar pie pumpkin while caramelized a sliced onion, boiled a yam and a couple of carrots in vegetable stock to soft, sautéed a sliced Macintosh apple in olive oil to soft and brown. All into the blender with some grated ginger, a blob of black strap molasses, a few teaspoons of sea salt and a dash of cayenne. It's now all in the fridge mellowing and coming together. Saturday I'll make the parsley oil for the garnish, and this time I gots me a squeeze bottle.

For dinner, I roasted an acorn squash along with the pumpkin, and once it cooled, I scraped it out into the food processor with a 10oz container of marscapone, and blended to smooth. Brought a couple of quarts of chicken stock to a boil, softened a diced onion in olive oil, toasted 2 cups of arborio rice to translucent, hit it with a half cup of sherry and let it cook off to dry. As I added a ladleful of stock to the rice one by one and stirred, I prepped a half pound of shrimp and tossed it in olive oil, salt and cumin just for giggles.

When the rice had absorbed and felt right to the tooth, I salted to taste. I threw the shrimp on a hot, hot grill pan. Took the squash purée and folded it in to the rice with a cup of grated parm. The spice in the shrimp marinade browned nicely, contrasting against the pale orange risotto.

I was blazing hungry, and took me half the bowl to realize the risotto needed a hell of a lot more salt. I salted the leftovers, and into the fridge for...maybe arancini?

ADDENDA:
Looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.

BREAKFAST: 11:15am, half an apple, banana, homemade butternut squash soup, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
The apple was organic, but from the west coast, so it was kinda unappealingly soft and low on flavor. I gotta get local, pesticides be damned. Soup was totally awesome as a leftover, I must make some freezer stock of this stuff.

PM SNACK: 12:45pm, handful of Reese's peanut butter cups. .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
I shouldn't have bought a Halloween candy that I used to love so dearly as a kid. I had a Reese's t-shirt that I wore through childhood up into high school. -sigh-

PM SNACK: 4pm, pickle

DINNER: 6:30pm, grilled cumin shrimp with acorn squash risotto, handful of peanut butter cups, quart of water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5