As usual, been busier than ever!

This month, I made:
-Tomato sauce from scratch -- thanks to the 20 lbs of romas my coworker brought me!
-butternut soup -- from the 1 butternut squash that I buy each year because they're so pretty
-butternut cornbread
-fettuccine carbonara -- this is actually one of my most favorite dishes, and a comfort food in our home
-cream puffs! (well, sort of)

Tomato sauce is surprisingly easy, I actually made 2 different kinds. Sauce #1t was just chopped tomatoes with seeds, peels, and all thrown into a saucepot and cooked down with a little salt and italian seasoning until it thickened and the tomatoes fell apart. I served it with spaghetti noodles and shrimp with fresh basil.

Sauce #2, I actually went to the trouble of blanching the tomatoes, then peeling them & removing the seeds prior to cooking them with the seasonings. While it was cooking, I went at the tomatoes with my immersion blender to get a nice smooth sauce. I made 2 quarts of this type of sauce, one for crockpot venison rotini for my co-workers and another quart for the freezer.

The butternut soup is good, but it tastes just a little bit off compared to what I normally make, it just seems more rich than normal...I think I put too much of something into it, but I can't put my finger on what. It could be a number of things, I roasted my butternut this year instead of just boiling it and I added bacon fat instead of butter to the base puree...but I really only put like 2 tablespoons of bacon fat into it, so I'm not sure. I also used roasted garlic out of a jar instead of fresh garlic...so there's a whole bunch of changes compared to last year. Anyway, I can't remember the exact ingredients, and I didn't so much care for the soup to begin with no recipe on that this year.

Butternut cornbread was made from the above puree, so same flavor issue. The cornbread consistency and texture was great though, not nearly as dry as cornbreads in the past -- but still not quite as moist as I'd like.

And cream puffs! I used a basic recipe from the Joy of Cooking, with 2 modifications -- I used 1 c. 2% milk instead of 1/2 c. whole milk mixed with 1/2 c. water, and then I added Trader Joe's pumpkin butter to my whipped cream. The pate choux came out a little tougher than I'd like, but I attribute that to my use of a hand mixer in lieu of a kitchenaid that I so covet...but who knows, it could be that milk substitution I made. I just couldn't justify buying a quart of whole milk when the 2% was sold in nice neat little 1-cup cartons. Photos & recipes to be posted later!