Blisters on my...eyeball?

It's November in coastal San Diego, which means that yesterday I had to close several of the windows in my apartment to stay warm at night. This new chill in the air puts me in the mood for soups... with a butternut squash languishing in the metal hanging fruit basket of the kitchen and a fancy organic pumpkin in the wings, I decided to experiment with the less expensive gourd. It's been a while since I cooked up a butternut squash soup, but as my grandmother used to say, "you can turn anything into soup!" This is also what I told the curious man in line ahead of me at the market when I was purchasing bananas, an onion, and carrots.

So I got home and, in a burst of productivity, first turned half the chickpeas in my fridge into hummus (which, in my opinion, called for far too much tahini, so I've barely touched it, but I'm hoping to pawn it off on someone.)

Hummus made, but no satisfying appetizer at hand, I set out in earnest to create dinner with renewed interest. I halved the squash lengthwise and put it face-down in the oven to bake at 400F, in a pyrex dish with some water in the bottom. With that going, I chopped half an onion, sauteed that in olive oil in a stockpot until it became translucent. Meanwhile, I peeled and chopped 2 large carrots, about 1 tsp fresh ginger, and 3 large cloves of garlic. Threw all that into the stockpot and waited for everything to soften.

The hummus called for toasting 1 tsp cumin and grinding it. Well, that cumin smelled so good, I couldn't resist toasting 2 tsp and adding 1 to the soup. This got thrown in there with the carrot mixture. My advice: go easy on the cumin. When things were looking good and mushy, and starting to stick to the bottom of the pan a bit, I peeled a banana and broke it up into chunks, adding it to the mix.

Banana? Subtle sweetness, almost creamy, a "secret ingredient," if you will. Not as obvious as an apple, which is often added to pumpkin soup to sweeten it. Apples require peelers and knives.

Things were smelling good and the squash was mostly cooked. I added several cups of water- about 4- to the soup and scraped the bottom of the pot to loosen all the tasty bits. Brought that to a boil while I cubed the flesh of the squash, cutting it from its peel. The squash went into the pot, along with about 1/2 c. of the chickpea cooking liquid (why not?)- this is certainly not necessary, but I didn't have any stock in the freezer, so I improvised for flavor.

Salt (2 tsp), pepper (lots), 1 tsp curry powder, and 1/2 tsp crushed chipotle chile pepper (1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes would work well, too- adding more heat rather than smokiness). Boiled everything until I was sure that the squash was fully cooked.

Took the pot off the stove and used my immersion blender to mix everything up pretty well- all the squash got nicely blended, I left some of the carrots as chunks in there.

Returned the pot to the stove, adjusted the liquid, and added 1 c cooked chickpeas. Let that get well heated through. At which point, the soup turned on me. Once the boiling point is reached with a thick gruel-like substance, don't forget that it doesn't come to a gentle, rolling boil. Rather, it comes to an explosive boil. So as I was lovingly leaning over my soup, smelling it, a huge bubble erupted from the bottom and splattered very hot soup directly into my left eyeball.

I flew, cursing, from the room, abandoning the soup to visually examine this searing pain. Someday, my kitchen will have tall countertops, an eyewash station, and a safety shower. I contemplated flushing my eye with water or rubbing an ice cube on it, but the soup splatters all over the wall distracted me.

Safety first.

I cautiously added more salt, toasted up some pepitas, poured the soup in a bowl and sprinkled the seeds on top. By the time all that was done, the injury seemed to be mostly resolved.

Pepitas, incidentally, make the soup.