Butternut Squash Soup and Apple Pie

"Life's too short not to eat dessert first," wise people say, and I'm figuring that the parallel axiom is "life's too short not to blog about dessert first." Let me tell you about a drool-worthy apple pie.

My backup dancer had the idea to top "Apple Pie by Grandma Ople" (AllRecipes) with stars, using a cookie cutter on the pastry, rather than making a latticework crust as suggested in the recipe. It turned out great. 

You're wondering, of course, how I screwed up this recipe, and the answer is that I put the butter, flour, sugars, and water onto the stove all at the same time. Fortunately, it was perfectly fine, so go ahead: save yourself a couple minutes and make that mistake just like me.

I have a persistent problem with apple pies that are too juicy. They overflow in the oven, and then they don't cut well, even though they taste great. Next time I make this, I would cut down on the sauce by at least a third, but if anyone has a better idea, I'm all ears.

It's not as fun as dessert, but perpetuating the autumn theme, we also tried "Coconut Butternut Squash Soup" (NYT Cooking; subscription required). Our squash was quite large so I used the flesh of half of it, and put the rest in the freezer for a future use (and then found an identical tub of squash already in the freezer, from when I apparently had the same idea in the past).

I added about a tablespoon of miso, just because I had some in the fridge, and also used about a teaspoon of salt. I used homemade veggie stock.

And hey now, that soup recipe is vegan! This blog is about making food choices that minimize our contribution to climate change, and foods that don't contain animal products are great options.

Another foodie way to help the environment is avoiding food waste. Food creates greenhouse gases when we throw it away. Want to learn more? There's a free Nov. 5 webinar on reducing food waste to fight climate change, on Thanksgiving and beyond! Register by Nov. 4: https://www.cvent.com/c/express/d536c748-5d5c-44bd-a616-4d425233fa3b