I'm in the process of making the most wonderful calabaza soup right now. You could use seminole pumpkin instead. Rate the Recipe Read Reviews (0) Yield Makes 12 cups Ingredients 4 pounds peeled calabaza or acorn squash, cut into 1-inch cubes 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1/2 cup diced onion 1/2 cup diced celery 1/4 cup bacon drippings (about 5 slices bacon) or olive oil 2 tablespoons curry powder 1 tablespoon red curry paste 1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme 1 bay leaf 1 quart chicken stock 2 cups heavy cream Salt White pepper Garnish: toasted almonds and sunflower sprouts Preparation Combine first 4 ingredients on a foil-lined jelly-roll pan. Bake at 400° for 30 minutes or until squash is tender. Set aside. Sauté next 3 ingredients in bacon drippings in a large skillet until tender. Stir in curry powder; toast 30 seconds. Add calabaza, curry paste, thyme, and bay leaf; stir to combine. Add stock and cream; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes. Puree mixture in a blender, pour through a wire-mesh strainer, and press with the back of a spoon. Season with salt and white pepper to taste. Garnish, if desired. Coastal Living, APRIL 2007 Yum.

Squeezo is a very old name for the newer model Villaware or Roma food strainer. These use a very good design that incorpoates a spiral auger that pushes the juices through a fine holed screens and removes all traces of seeds and skins. No prepping needed, unless the tomatoes are really big, where you simply cut them in quarters. Its similar to a meat grinder, but its for most any food that has skins and/or seeds. I use it for red raspberry jam without seeds. The use of a finer hold berry screen is what gives me just the juices and soft pulp, and any seeds are pushed out the end of the conical sieves. They also make a shorter spiral for large grape seeds and a pumpkin screen or even a 3/16 inch hole salsa screen. These are extra attachments. If you were dong a LOT of tomatoes or othr things, also suggest the motor unit. I have one here and 'crank' out a bushel in about 10 minutes. The newer ones have a twist on strainer screen, while teholder models have two big wingnuts on each side of the screens. Of allthe models and improvements, the nerwer ones work better, leak less and are very easy to work. Here is a link that might be useful: Food strainer

Soup finished and I just had it for lunch. Thanks for the recipe Chloe, this is going into my "keeper" file. Best combo overall for squash/pumpkin soup I have tried so far. My notes: Roasting the butternut squash was a great idea. I always find butternut to be one of the blander squashes, so roasting it definitely doesn't hurt if you make that substitution. Of course I started with a garden grown squash, but you could easily use one of those frozen squares of squash, as I often do for soups in a hurry. I added/used about a scant half cup of dried yellow split peas. Not sure how long I had the peas, but I soaked them for a few hours before cooking and then cooked them for TWO hours in extra water, and even blended them up with the stick blender and the soup still had a little "tooth" to it because of the hard peas. I know old beans take forever to cook, but this taught me that although beans and peas don't really go "bad" there is a point when they are practically better suited for craft projects and pie weights . . . On the other hand, a little bit of yellow peas added some depth and protein to the soup which was not a bad thing. Depends on what you want the soup for. Being mostly vegetarian, soups are usually part of a full meal for me rather than a starter. I might even add a wee bit of brown rice to this soup before blending to complete the protein, depending on what else I was serving. Could also add some other type of white or beige bland flavored bean, but keep the proportion small or the nature of the soup totally changes. The 1.5 hot peppers I added from the garden with the saute just skirted the edge of acceptability for me with heat. I'm glad my watery eyes alerted me to stop after 1.5 and not add that last half. I had peppers from the garden to use up, otherwise I would have done better adding a dash or two of tabasco after the soup was finished to taste. It was good with a bit of hot pepper though. If I do it again I think I'll also add some ginger, I have a small jar of ground ginger in the fridge. Saffron always a good addition. Don't overdo, but it was fab in this soup. I just added a few threads in with the broth. I used 1 tsp. curry powder and 1/4 tsp garam masala, Spice Islands" brand. All curry blends are different so it will make a difference in how the soup tastes but I imagine most folks have a blend they like. I am not a big fenugreek fan so I look for blends without that. I dialed down the butter to half with no noticeable effects. Could go slightly less even, if you're worried about such things. I also used about 1/3 cup lite coconut milk and 1/3 cup half and half, because I had those to use up. The soup will be good with any type of creamy beverage if you have dairy issues like we do. Easily dialed back if you're watching your calories. Kale addition was fab. but we love kale. I love kale with root veggies or squashes, great flavor combo, IMHO. But mushrooms or corn would also be cute floating in this soup I think, if you want to guild the lily. Or red pepper, although we are not big fans of cooked peppers, particularly matched with blander things and not tomatoes. None of this would be critical to the basic goodness of the soup though. Thanks again Chloe for sharing!

Shielajoyce, why do you say Kalamata olives are not "ripe" olives? Kalamatas are just a Greek variety of olives and for me have a lot more flavour than those black Spanish olives that taste of nothing. They should indeed be ripe, but their natural colour is purple. At our last olive harvest party, I found out why Spanish olives are relatively flavourless- apparently it takes two years for the flavour to properly develop if they are brined and left to mature as olives usually are, but the big Spanish companies are in too much of a hurry so they dump them in a vat of lye to speed the process.