VeganMoFo: feeling fall

It was a beautiful autumn day today and after going on a bike ride, eating a pumpkin danish, and depositing our ballots (I miss the ritual of going to a polling booth on election day and getting my "I Voted" sticker, but it's definitely less stressful to have mail-in voting), I felt inspired to make something fall-ish for dinner.

Let's face it, nothing says fall like winter squash (in spite of the name). I love all the different shapes and colors, but I'm still not terribly well versed in what to do with them. We used to get the occasional squash in our vegetable delivery box and I would like looking at them more than figuring out how to cook them. But luckily for me, I've gotten over the initial mental block by realizing how easy they are to work with. You can just cut them in half, take out the seeds (which make a nice snack when salted and roasted) and bake them for half an hour and then you've got squash at your disposal. Tonight I decided to add an apple and red bell pepper to the baking pan along with an acorn squash, and ended up with a tasty blended soup. I was never much of a blended soup girl either, but have found that our handy hand blender makes it a cinch and it adds textural variety. Sometimes it just really hits the spot.