Food to accompany the sounds of falling leaves

Butternut squash soup and cornbread! My roommate and I signed up to make snacks this week for our residence hall's weekly study break, and that is what I decided to make. It's been getting chilly recently, and organic fall squash are 69 cents a pound at the local grocery, so voila! They're both vegan, since we have multiple vegans living in our hall and its nice to make them feel welcome. Plus well made vegan food is healthy and yummy.

The original recipes both come from the Post Punk Kitchen. The cornbread recipe I didn't really make any changes to, other than shortcutting on the mixing of ingredients. I was a bit more flexible with the soup, so here's my version of the recipe, with major changes noted.

Buttercup Soup (originally South African Butternut Soup)

Ingredients
1 buttercup, about 4 lbs (Honestly, any fall or winter squash would probably work. I have difficulty making distinctions between squash types so this is what I ended up with.)
1 apple
1/2 large onion
1-2 tsp medium curry powder
4 Tbsp flour
pinch of ground nutmeg
2-3 cups water
2 cups soy milk
The original called for stock cubes, boiling water and coconut milk, but I dislike stock, especially in cubes, and this was far more convenient.

Directions
Peel, seed and dice the squash. Peel, core and chop the apple. Peel the onions and chop roughly. In a large saucepan, saute the chopped onions in a small amount of olive oil or margarine. Add the curry powder and fry the mixture lightly. Add the butternut, apple, flour and nutmeg; saute. Add water and soy milk as desired, stir and cover. Cook until squash is soft. Puree or blend until smooth. The color of the soup should be a deep yellow and the texture creamy. Serve the soup hot. (I enjoyed it with some plain fat free yogurt and an extra sprinkle of nutmeg on top.)

Due to time constraints, I was cooking somewhat hurriedly and was forced to begin saute-ing before the squash was cut, with the result that the squash and liquids were added gradually as they became available and/or necessary. I also probably stuck the mixture into the blender a little early, as there were a few hard chunks left, but that might also be due to a poor peeling job (buttercup squash were not really meant to be peeled raw, I don't think). Nevertheless, it was for the most part smooth and delicious. One of the beauties of soup (other than the lovely warm and full feelings it gives you) is how easy it is to adjust recipes to the constraints of the situation.

As much as I like it, though, I'm not sure squash soup was a great choice for food to share, since squash is not a universally welcomed vegetable. Cooking for other people always makes me nervous, since I tend to be pretty nonjudgmental when it comes to (healthy) food. I always worry that something I consider perfectly edible will totally disgust the people I try to feed it too, as happened this afternoon when I tried to help my roommate make tomato sauce from crushed tomatoes, vegetables and garlic. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it, but though poor Jackie tried several modifications to increase the palatability of the sauce, I don't think she ever found something she really enjoyed. The corn bread, at least, was a success, though it is my experience that anything remotely edible that can be simply picked up and placed in the mouth is a success with college students (we are much like teething infants that way...)