Beet Soup Supper

Even being unemployed motivation on Monday can be hard... it was a fairly active weekend and with the dog sitting keeping me extra occupied because for some reason I feel like I need to entertain the puppy when he stays with us, today I felt pretty tried.

There is, however, one thing that almost without fail is motivational... Food.

So, I decided to put some effort into dinner. I had a lot of beets so decided to do something with them and found a recipe for beet soup served in a roasted acorn squash on epicurious. The recipe called for a whole squash for a 'bowl' for each person but we only had one squash and that seemed like a lot of squash and soup and I wanted to make a few sides as well so, we each got to have half a squash. It was really nice to eat the soup with bites of squash.

When preparing the squash to become a bowl, I removed the seeds and toasted those (oven at 350, tossed in some oil with salt on top until they turn golden) and put those on the plate.

Since I still had a few beets even after the soup I steamed them and made a dehulled barley salad:

dehulled barley - simmered in water until cooked to tender

beets- steamed until just tender

broccoli rabe - sauteed with bacon and a spoonful of honey

blue cheese

salt & pepper

I let all the things that cooked cool a little and then mixed them all together.

I also chopped up a few slices of bacon, threw those in a pan and once it was fairly well cooked threw in quartered brussel sprouts.

I tuned into a vibrant color palate on the plate with the bright beet soup and the yellow acorn squash and green sprouts.