happy new year

New Years Day: making two soups and a bike ride...
First the soup. Here are most of the ingredients.


Split Pea Soup (based on a recipe by fat free vegan) This soup is so easy. Chop the veggies in the food processor, and toss everything in the pot to simmer for an hour or so.


At the end, I added some spinach and blended the whole thing up.


I also made Butternut Squash Soup. It has to be some of the best soup I have ever eaten. My only regret is that I did not note which website I got the recipe from, so I can't give proper credit. Anyway, here goes: Peel and chop an onion and 2 or 3 garlic cloves. Cut up and peel 2 small butternut squash.

Saute the onions and garlic for a few minutes in the soup pot. Add 2 cans of diced no-salt added tomatoes, a tablespoon of thyme, and a bay leaf. Let that start to simmer, then add the squash and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer until done. meanwhile, blend 1 cup of plain soymilk and 1 cup of cashews (sorry, mom) in the blendtec. When the squash is soft, begin to blend with an immersion blender. Add the soymilk mixture and blend until smooth. Not too sweet like most butternut squash soups. Could use a little cayenne pepper or maybe white pepper, but really it is just fine the way it is.





Now for the fun part, the bike ride :) The weather was really nice again, cool and breezy, but warm in the sunshine.We decided to ride the Port Charlotte 'Beach'. Pretty pathetic as far as Fl beaches go, but it is peaceful, and nice to sit by the river. More importantly, it is within biking distance.
This is part of the route, just a random shot.

This is a bridge we cross:



We call it the bat-bridge cause there is a large (flock? gaggle? pride? herd?) bunch of bats that live underneath it.



When we got to the beach we found a some trees and parked ourselves for awhile.



We got there just in time to see some dude launch this:






And then he was gone....