oh my god i love autumn.

now that i'm on my community medicine block, with FULL WEEKENDS OFF*, i decided to take advantage of my new bon appetit subscription and start cooking again. what with the crisp leaves and the cool air, i embarked on a dinner in celebration of my favorite season. if i do say so myself, it was a resounding success. the key elements:

number one: pumpkin soup.
i went ahead and added some diced onions at the beginning and a little extra sugar at the end. also, i couldn't stomach the idea of dumping in so much half and half, so i went with whole milk, but i thought it was just as creamy as it needed to be. i was doubtful as i was spooning in the curry powder because it ended up to be my whole jar of curry powder! that's a lot of curry powder! however, it was also a lot of soup. (friend's comment: "oh my god. we made a lot of soup.") a lot of delicious soup that i will reheat and savor! i ask you, is there anything more quintessentially autumn than pumpkin soup? i think not. and yes, i do feel like a cheater for using canned pumpkin, but sometimes roasting a whole pumpkin just isn't in the cards.




number two: these little turnovers.
now let me tell you, these are like autumn in new england rolled into a puff pastry. and while they seemed a little intimidating at first, they were actually a snap to make and so exceedingly delicious. i may have to refine my turnover-filling skills, since i only ended up using about half the filling and they were not quite as stuffed as they might have been, but there were no complaints (comment: "you should open a bakery."). i ended up using gala apples, which i think worked just fine. oh, and about the cheese...

... while i was shopping for the ingredients, i discovered a little something called raw milk cheddar at trader joe's. normally, i poo -poo raw milk as something for the hippies, especially since the one time i saw a kid who nearly had to go to the OR after complications from raw-milk-related food poisoning. but then i remembered that time i went to kripalu and joined a drum circle, and i realized it was really a pot-criticizing-kettle situation to pretend i'm not a hippie at heart. long story short i bought the cheese and HOLY SMOKES. it was soft, almost a mozzarella consistency, such that you could roll it almost into little sweet balls, but with a delicious mild cheddar flavor. if campylobacter is the price i have to pay for eating this cheese, well, sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do.



so, happy autumn everyone (even if it's autumn in your heart and summer outside)!



*so long as my pager is strapped to me at all times and i'm never more than two hours from the hospital, just in case someone gets sick and i have to cover for them on a moment's notice. i hate being an intern. also, please excuse the stock photos, i was negligent on the photo front.