Full-time cooking job
Dec. 21st, 2020 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
When we lived in California, we made "cheese soup in a pumpkin tureen" at Thanksgiving. We brought this tradition to New England, but then at some point we ended up always inviting people who were kosher, and so they didn't want cheese soup, and we ended up dropping it from the menu. As I mentioned earlier, I got excited about being able to do it this year, but then of course we only had five people, so it really was inappropriate.
So, I decided yesterday was the day! And, today was Solstice, so we had to have our regular fondue thing, and so making a few things for dipping was appropriate.
I started around 3 PM, and finished after 10, with a break for dinner.
Scooping out the pumpkin.
Cleaning up the seeds.
Baking the seeds.
Baking the pumpkin.
Making the soup, which involved using the Cuisinart several times – shredding vegetables and cheese, and puréeing the soup, plus the usual sautéing and cooking and seasoning and all that.
Putting some ingredients in the bread machine (for cubes to dip in cheese fondue).
Making an angel food cake (for cubes to dip in chocolate fondue).
Rinsing out the pumpkin tureen, baking it some more, and puréeing it (another use of the food processor) for future use in pies and pumpkin squares – net 9 cups.
And then Jocelyn said "let's make a gingerbread house!", so making the dough for that to chill overnight.
Don't forget washing the dishes in between items and afterwards!
Fortunately, today's cooking was much less intensive – just shred some cheese and melt it into wine or milk, and chop up a million things, for which there were other hands making light work. Though, we used our fancy dishes, which require hand-washing.
I should probably transcribe the pumpkin cheese soup recipe and instructions (and some modifications – it takes a lot longer to bake than the 45 minutes they tell you). The recipe currently is on a very very faded newspaper clipping from 1984.

So, I decided yesterday was the day! And, today was Solstice, so we had to have our regular fondue thing, and so making a few things for dipping was appropriate.
I started around 3 PM, and finished after 10, with a break for dinner.
Scooping out the pumpkin.
Cleaning up the seeds.
Baking the seeds.
Baking the pumpkin.
Making the soup, which involved using the Cuisinart several times – shredding vegetables and cheese, and puréeing the soup, plus the usual sautéing and cooking and seasoning and all that.
Putting some ingredients in the bread machine (for cubes to dip in cheese fondue).
Making an angel food cake (for cubes to dip in chocolate fondue).
Rinsing out the pumpkin tureen, baking it some more, and puréeing it (another use of the food processor) for future use in pies and pumpkin squares – net 9 cups.
And then Jocelyn said "let's make a gingerbread house!", so making the dough for that to chill overnight.
Don't forget washing the dishes in between items and afterwards!
Fortunately, today's cooking was much less intensive – just shred some cheese and melt it into wine or milk, and chop up a million things, for which there were other hands making light work. Though, we used our fancy dishes, which require hand-washing.
I should probably transcribe the pumpkin cheese soup recipe and instructions (and some modifications – it takes a lot longer to bake than the 45 minutes they tell you). The recipe currently is on a very very faded newspaper clipping from 1984.
