Souper Day

Tomorrow afternoon I'm hosting knitting at Zambaldi Beer instead of at my house. The hostess makes the "main course" and the others bring whatever. Since it's winter and cold, I thought I'd make soup. So I did. I made a cauldron of Jamaican Cream of Pumpkin Soup. Not with pumpkin which is what Jamaicans call all winter squash, but with butternut squash. I learned a good lesson by buying two smaller squash which were much easier to trim, peel, and cut up than one biggie.

 

Two of the things I like about that soup are there's lots of onions that get sauteed in 4 tablespoons of butter. I love cooked onions. I always over-onion soups and stews. Anyway, it's a very simple recipe. All you do is saute the onions, throw in the cubed squash, add 50 oz. of chicken broth, and simmer it for about 45 minutes. Then I mash the squash before whirring it with the stick blender until it's mostly blended. Next you add a can of evaporated milk (you could add cream but that makes it almost too rich) and a shake of hot sauce. Oh, and plenty of salt and pepper. And, voila!, you have soup. I'll heat it up in my smaller slow cooker and take it down to the brewery along with a bag with bowls, spoons, and a ladle.

 

Oh my God, you guys. I nearly fainted when I saw how many people downloaded The Seaview yesterday and just now I checked and it's way more. The total free downloads for yesterday and today are 8,517. The sales for Open For Business are 542 and for Spies Don't Retire they're 530. I don't understand why the other two aren't even but I guess not everyone buys the bundle. These numbers are beyond my wildest dreams. The Chirp Freebie Friday Promo was a good investment. It runs through Monday, so if you're interested, go on chirpbooks.com, sign up for an account (there's no membership fee), and download the entire Seaview Series for just around $5. GBB said you have to put in my whole pen name to find it. It's Barbara Angermeier Malcolm, just in case you're interested.

 

I thought you'd enjoy seeing the end of my 4-year-old neighbor's sledding run. She and one of her parents start up on the snow pile from the parking lot kitty corner from our backyard and ride the slide down to my yard. This time it looks like she stopped short, usually they end up past the bird feeders. They have so much fun. I love hearing them laughing and cheering. 

 

Today's flower is a Gerbera daisy. I worked really hard to make the petals that jut toward the viewer short so they look right. I didn't do too badly. I like the way I colored the petals with orange, yellow orange, yellow, and red. Cheerful.

 

I was kind of distracted by the whole promo thing so I didn't get as much writing done today as I might have. I reread the critique pages for Monday and then worked on a couple more short stories. And I took a shower. You're welcome. ;)

--Barbara