Yeah, I know, I hate the gourd family. No one needs to remind me. And I should not be cooking with gourds or admitting that I cook with gourds, or, God forbid, admitting on the Internet that I cook with gourds. But I have an amazing recipe for this butternut squash soup, and just had to cave to create this culinary masterpiece. To document this portion of the soup process, I used my handy Kodak EasyShare C340, a la AliThinks. I just adore her food photos and want to take pictures just like her.

I started with this recipe from the Cooking Bible (best birthday gift ever; thanks, Mom):

Then I sliced the butternut squash. As you can see, they really are quite beautiful, even though they smell like a cross between a gourd and a melon, two hated food families of mine.

After the hour of baking the squash, my house smelled magnificent and cozy. I thought I did such a great job on the baking of the gourds that I might want to wait until tomorrow to actually make the soup portion.

To be continued…