I was fortunate this past week to have some house guests! My older sister, Mikken, her husband Jeff, and my dad came to stay for a few nights. What better excuse to cook a harvest meal! I’ve been dying to try out some of the fall recipes I’ve seen cooked up on Food Network lately, but they make so much that I needed someone more than just me and Brian to cook for. We actually had a few cold days this week, so I was thinking some pumpkin soup, and a comfort food side.
Last year I tried out a pumpkin soup recipe from Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill. It was a Mexican spicy one. I remember liking it, but wanted to try a new recipe this year. I decided to search the Food Network database and found a recipe of Rachel Rays that had about 221 great reviews. And since I was doing a recipe from Rachel, I decided to make a Harvest Macaroni and Cheese I saw her cook up on an adult Halloween meal episode last week. It was actually nice because these two recipes called for a lot of the same ingredients, thyme, and hot sauce, onions, so I thought they would compliment each other nicely.
Trying out two new recipes in one night, and cooking for seven people can be kind of hectic, but luckily Mikken and Dad helped me out, and it was so fun cooking with them! I love my family. Mikk is an excellent vegetable chopper, and Dad worked wonders on the Mac and Cheese sauce. I think I wore them out with all my running around. Mikk had to go take a little nap before dinner was served. All in all the meal turned out great. I thought the Mac and Cheese could have used a little more something, maybe I skimped on the hot sauce, or not enough cheese, but it was good. I’ll try making it again; just try to add more seasoning. The pumpkin soup was amazing. I’ve been eating it for lunch the past two days. I didn’t make the apple relish, due to time constraint, but the reviews said it was a good compliment. I did add a little honey to the soup to take the bitter edge off and we all agreed it was a great touch. I also used an emersion blender to puree the soup. Brittany said, “this meal tastes like fall.” That was the best compliment, totally what I was going for. We used some soft bread to get every last bit of soup out of the bowl.
The recipes can be found at these links to foodnetwork.com
Harvest Moon Macaroni
Pumpkin soup
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