• Squash or zucchini or pumpkin or anything squash like – cubed (the amount depends on how large your squash like object is. I usually 2 use medium sized butternut squashes)
• Broth enough to boil the squash in - the less broth the thicker the soup (two boxes ~1L sized ready to use broth is the amount I typically use  – chicken, beef, veggie, whatever broth you like or mix a couple)
• 1 large onion sliced
• Ginger to taste (I used lots of fresh ginger myself - about a one inch chunk grated)
• Optional: 3 cloves of garlic.
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Cream (one 1L half-half cream if you are working on the above measurements)
• Vinegar or lemon juice (the amount you use depends on the tartness of the squashes, sometimes it takes very little, sometimes it can take up to a half a cup.)

• This soup does well in a frozen/thawed scenario, though making multiple batches is better than doubling the recipe.
• You can roast squash to make it easier to take out of its shell, though I often don’t bother and just peel and cook the squash in the broth.
• If you have a lactose intolerant person add a bit more broth instead (though not the full amount as you would if you were adding cream) and a very small amount (a tablespoon) of cornstarch whisked into a bit of cold broth and added gradually to the soup while stirring)

Because everyone is busy for the holidays and there are times when you need to put your friends into a sugar coma quickly, here is my recipe for cheese cake.

Disclaimer: This has completely no health benefits... but neither did my last recipe. I promise I'll post some of the more healthy recipes in upcoming months... but it's That Depths Of Winter Festival season (of what ever stripe you believe) ... mid winter feasting is all about pushing evil goodies on the people you love, the people you love to hate, and everyone in between.

Plain no bake cheese cake

Ingredients
1 package (8 oz)  cream cheese
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
About a teaspoon of vanilla

1 graham cracker crust (I use graham cracker pie shells when I make this for others… but you could bake a pie shell and use that or make/buy any other sort of crust you think will go... for my gluten intolerant friends I highly suggest one of two options - cornflake crusts or just pour the cheesey goodness  into small bowls.)

Something for topping.

Directions
1) Precook crust if required

2)  Heat cream cheese in a microwavable bowl for 30 sec – just to soften it… or you can let it sit at room temperature for a bit to let it soften… or you can mix it with a spoon until soft.

3) Gradually add the can of sweetened condensed milk while blending (I use an immersion blender but you can use a mixer or a blender or you can blend it by hand but that’s the hard way). Work in all the condensed milk so you have a uniform un-lumpy consistency.

4) Add the lemon juice and vanilla in gradually while blending.

5) Once it’s a nice smooth mixture (taste it, add extra flavour  if needed… really you probably don’t need to taste it, but you know you want to)

6) Pour it into the pie shell (make sure if the pie shell needs to be cooked you do that before hand and cool it before pouring the cheese cake into it)

7) Cool one hour to overnight in the fridge (again, as with the previous recipe, it might be worth locking the fridge door against intruders)

8) Top with whatever fruit or sauce you like

Options and Subsitutions
For other  flavours  of cheese cake – instead of 1/3 cup lemon juice add:

1) Powdered baking chocolate and sugar dissolved in warm or hot water…. Slightly stronger than if you were making hot chocolate with powdered chocolate… so that’s like 2 tablespoons powdered chocolate to 3-6 table spoons sugar… depends on your taste… and just enough boiling water to make it sort of liquidy, increase the proportions of this until you get 1/4 cup.
 
Sometimes the chocolate will make the cheese cake runny and it won’t harden again (in which case you have chocolate cheese cake desert soup – which still tastes fine) so err on the side of too little liquid in the chocolate rather than too much. You want just enough that the powdered chocolate and sugar doesn't have a gritty feel to it. You can also try melting bakers chocolate and adding some of that straight to the cheesecake batter (I have had less success with that though… because it doesn’t have as strong a flavour as the powdered chocolate.)
 
The whole adding chocolate takes a bit of playing and depends largely on what you use for chocolate. If you want a perfect chocolate cheese cake be prepared to do some testing of your protocol beforehand (which, I know is sooo hard because the evidence of failure must be eaten) . Alternately you can give up on mixing the chocolate into the batter and either crush oreo’s into the mix (cookies and cream cheese cake) after it’s blended or add chocolate chips (chocolate chip cheesecake), or use chocolate sauce as toping instead.

2) Add 1/3 cup of the juice and some fruit from just about any fruit to make a fruit flavoured cheese cake but make sure there is a tang to it… or add half lemon juice and half the juice/fruit. Do not use a sweetened fruit juice or sugared fruit in the recipe (you run the risk of making it inedibly sweet.)

To make swirl cheese cakes you take some (a half cup or less) of the cheese cake “batter” out once mixed add a concentrated amount of  flavour/colour of choice to the batter. Then pour the non-flavoured one into the pie shell, drizzle a nice design on the top of the cake with the coloured stuff, then take a knife and push the coloured stuff down into the batter (you can get all barista on it and make fancy swirly designs if you want, but don’t swirl it so much that you lose the definition between the colours.