yum

mackin-daddy, tb, and i had a family dinner last night. the boys had yummy coconut-curry chicken ala bri, and i made a gorgeous "autumnal abundance soup" with all kinds of delicious autumn veggies~~red and yellow beets
sweet potatoes
acorn squash
stewed tomatoes
onion, fresh ginger, and garlic
pumpkin seeds
loose black chai tea
cumin, salt, freshly ground pepper

in a casserole dish with olive oil, i roasted big chunks of veggies and crushed cloves of garlic on 400 till they were soft and juicy.

in a very large skillet, i sauteed the onion in olive oil till it was very soft, added the ginger and sauteed for a while longer, then the pumpkin seeds, cumin, and a coupla tablespoons of the dry chai tea and let them simmer on low until the seeds browned and started popping and the whole mess was smelling the house up something fierce! then i dumped a few cups of water, two cans of stewed tomatoes, in with the sautee and turned up the heat till it was a low bubble.
last of all i scraped all the roasted veggies into the soup and let it simmer with the lid off to mix it all together, adding water to keep it soupy. the boys said this soup was surprisingly sweet, with an astounding ruby color. (ok, i added "ruby"--but they did comment on the color.)

we had hot, soft corn tortillas to soak up the goodness:
1 cup flour (i used 3/4 wheat/ 1/4 corn flour)
1tsp salt
1/2 cup water--rolled out with plenty of corn flour on the surface, and fried with a bit o' oil in the pan and tasty sea salt on top.

your favorite dark porter or hot tea--this is a great celebration of home and harvest.