squash bisque and pumpkin sausages

Yeah, that's right.  I've eaten soup 3 times in the past week.  Wanna make something of it?  I didn't think so.  Because soup is awesome, when it's done right.  And this soup, my friends, was done completely and totally right.  If you haven't been over to VeganYumYum yet to make the Delicata Squash Bisque, do so immediately.  I have never had a soup this good.  Ever.  Michael and I ate the entire pot and then lolled around on the couch/floor (not enough room for both of us on my stupid loveseat to lounge) with bellies full of pure love.  Speaking of love, look how Michael put little hearts in his soup with the cashew cream:

darn that boy and his creativity!

We've decided that once I get rich and famous from my silly food blog, I will do most of the cooking and he will do all the presentation and be my photo helper by holding the lights.  We make a good team.  What you see there on the side is some pumpkin sausages I made.  Except....  they weren't as good as I wanted them to be.  They were good.  Just not great.  And they would have been great if I hadn't chickened out at the end and added fennel to them because I was  nervous that all the sage I put in wouldn't be enough flavor.  Result?  They tasted like nothing but fennel, and I only added like 1/2 a teaspoon of the stuff.  Frustration!  They would have been so good otherwise.  Well, also I used a different brand of wheat gluten than I normally do and it has a strong taste, for some reason.  They tasted gluten-y.  So, with the complete and total eradication of fennel and using my normal gluten, they would have been great.  I'll give you the recipe (with the right way to do it) when I get it right.  We also decided, for the sake of color, that the dish required a little sauteed salad of spinach, clover sprouts and cherry tomatoes.  It was pretty good.  

but nothing tops this soup.  nothing.

I feel like I haven't said enough about the soup.  It's just so good.  The cashew cream is what makes it so good.  It's smooth and creamy and soooo savory...  I could eat this for the next 2 weeks and not be sad about it for a minute.  I mean really, do yourself a favor here.  I didn't have 3 pounds of delicata squash (we had 2) so I subbed in a small butternut.  I also used 'chicken' bouillon instead of homemade veggie stock (no time no time! and i was out of veggie bouillons).  Still awesome.  

The reason soup is so big on my mind right now is that I'm freezing already.  Ok, I just looked at a thermometer in my apartment and it says 66F.  Why am I so cold?  I don't know, but I always am, and I feel like I'm colder than usual this year.  Which doesn't make sense because I weigh 10 pounds more than I did this time last year.  Insulation?  Psh.  Not working.  I honestly, right at this moment (and for the rest of the winter) have a space heater pointed directly at me on full blast.  We don't heat our apartment with anything but space heaters (our gas heater is old and crappy and ineffective and expensive), so it gets mighty chilly in here.  Just wait til it snows outside.  I will be complaining more than you can imagine.  That being said, soup is perfect for those cold nights with no real heat in the apartment.  I even tossed off my blanket and turned the heater away from me for a few minutes during and after eating it last night!  

In other words, I like being warm.  Not hot, just warm.  I bet if our apartment had real heat, I wouldn't eat soup so much.  At this point, I want to spend as much time in the kitchen with the oven on as possible, so...  I'm gonna go bake some cookies.