Fall Yumminess

As part of my attempt to help control my Rheumatoid Arthritis I have made some diet modifications. The first and most noticeable one was cutting dairy out of my diet. If you know me, you know that my diet was dairy..I could have been on some commercial eating yogurt, milk, cheese, cottage cheese, ice cream...you name it and I loved it. However, when I cut it out I saw a huge improvement in my pain. Huge! And thus started reading up on the inflammatory effects of certain foods. It has not been easy, but to me it is worth it to try and prevent the damage to my joints. I also cut out meat, which I a might or might not stick with...I have been a vegetarian at various other times mostly because I like it and have never been crazy about meat. Then I read the China Study, which will shake your decisions about meat eating (atleast it did mine). It is not about how animals are treated cruelly, but about various scientific research linking high intakes of animal protein to disease (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune, etc). I still think there is room for moderation in that and just being aware of how much animal protein you take in. I think there is still a part of me that knows that my diet has been working and I have been feeling great and am scared to try something and risk the opposite, so until then, I am dairy and meat free.
Wow, what a tangent. I got on here to post a yummy butternut squash soup recipe. I have never cooked with this fall favorite, but I did the other night and it was great. There is another recipe I want to try that is sweet potato and butternut squash soup, but I forgot to buy a sweet potato and I hate going to the grocery store for one item..hate it. So I tried this one instead:

These are the majority of the ingredients: 1 butternut squash, 1 onion, 3 stalks of celery, 4 carrots, 4 cloves of garlic, olive oil, 4-5 cups veggie broth, salt, pepper (that is pepper in the mini corona bottle), ginger and other spices to taste. Cook the chopped onion in oil until soft, then add the carrots and celery and cook until soft. Next add butternut squash chopped (no need to pre cook) and veggie broth. Let cook on medium for 20 minutes until veggies are soft. Add spices to taste (I just used ginger and allspice but I think you could do a lot of different things here, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc). Once cooked, place in blender and blend until smooth. You can add 1/2 c of milk here but I think it would be fine without..I used a little almond milk.
I did not include a final product picture because it is hard to make pureed soup look glorious, but it sure tasted that way. Enjoy.