Curried Butternut Squash Soup and Bale of hay Blessings!

I don't know about you but as soon as the cold weather hits, I want soup!!  This is one of my all time favorites. I found the recipe here so I cannot take the credit for it. It is absolutely delicious!  I make it at least a dozen times over the winter months. It definitely fits in the comfort food category. I just finished my 3rd bowl today and I threw some tortellini in this time- scrumptous!

The original recipe calls for cream which I never use. Sometimes I substitute milk and sometimes nothing at all, depending on the size of the squash and thickness. It really doesn't need the extra richness.

So, on to other "crafty fun stuff", in the kitchen.  I wanted to make little bales of hay around Halloween but just never got to them. Since it's not quite Thanksgiving yet, I decided why not give it a shot and we can use them as little teacher gifts.

 I started with Unsweetened Organic Coconut and toasted it slowly in my toaster oven as I did not want it to burn. It gets brown quickly when the temp is high. I started at 275 and just kept watching it and moving it around the pan with my spatula. It finally got toasted to where I thought it looked like straw.

 I then took some mini kit kats and put those in the oven about 10 seconds. They even started to lose shape so the next time I would put them in and WATCH them, then pull them out as soon as they are glossy.

  I doused each with the toasted coconut and put them in the fridge to firm back up. Easy Peasy!

 I had some jelly pumpkins and my daughter let me borrow her turkey button because I was complaining telling her that I didn't have a turkey for my picture. I'm going to bag these up and make up some tags and we'll have a little treat for teachers, coaches, friends....and whoever else we can think of for some Bales of Blessings!  



Hope you all enjoyed. Still working on organization in the kitchen but I hope to be back with some pictures soon.

 Happy Thanksgiving!

Jen