Thai Squash Soup

After that crazy dream from last week, I decided I needed a little break. Ellie and I hopped in the car and headed 2 1/2 hours south to Mayfield Lake and my best friend Bev. Bev and her husband Vince have a lovely home overlooking the lake and sky and mountains. It's just lovely.

Bev and I became friends through quilting about 20 years ago. We used to have Friday night quilting and wine meet-ups when we lived nearer each other. Now we see each other every couple months, but we get to talk on the phone a lot. 

So, Bev's is where I go for R&R, some girl time, and did I mention...wine? It was a pretty lazy couple of days - walked around the lake one afternoon, spent some time quilting,  chilling on the deck watching the moon rise over the lake. We also cooked this amazing Thai Coconut Squash Soup. It was pretty labor intensive - lots of chopping. Oh, and it included this made-from-scratch Panang Paste, an intensely flavored curry paste, which involved finely chopping a long list of ingredients and then grinding with a mortal and pestle. We also made the avocado-grapefruit salad (from a previous post....yeah, I could link you there but I haven't figured out how to do that in blogger yet...just take look to right for past blogs...).

The soup was warm and slightly spicy, flavored with the panning paste as well as shallots, garlic, onions, and coconut milk. It was worth the time, especially when you are cooking in the kitchen with one of your best friends. And did I mention there was wine?