… you just come home feeling defeated. Today was one of those days for me. It was only Tuesday and I felt like I had worked a whole week, and I felt like a miserable failure when it come to a work and personal life balance. I could have worked for a couple of more hours in the office tonight, but I had to pack it up after putting in an extra half hour at my desk.

I really wanted to get to the gym, but my knee was swollen due to an art installation at work and I knew I had a lot of cooking to do at home to keep up with my meal plan for the week. Last night I had every intention of cooking my butternut squash in the oven so that I could have that one step out of the way when it came to making my homemade butternut squash ginger soup. But once I got home last night, ate dinner, prepped breakfast, snacks and lunch for the next day i knew I was done. I could have easily prepped the squash and popped it in the oven. But it just did not happen.

I went home instead of going to the gym. I was really upset about this – but once I got home I felt it was the right choice. I prepped (cut in half, washed, scooped the seeds out and peeled) the squash and got it in the oven. It baked for just over thirty minutes.

During this time I iced my knee for 15 minutes and took two Motrin. Then I chopped shallots, half an onion, carrots, celery, ginger and melted a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil. I cooked the vegetables:

Soon enough the squash was out of the oven. I cooled it a bit, diced the squash and put it in the Le Creuset along with four cups of low sodium chicken stock.

Everything cooked away and as it did I started feeling better. I focused on the good things about my day. I ate well, I was very productive at work, and tonight I was being very successful in the kitchen. The kitchen success definitely helped save the day.

While the soup cooked I prepped my salad for the next day:

After the soup had come to a boil and then simmered for twenty minutes, I turned the burner off and used my newest kitchen tool:

Yes, I finally have an immersion blender!! I am really excited about this. I had been trying to come up with a time to pick it up but I finally gave in and called my mom to see if she would mind picking it up for me. She did a great job picking one – a Calphalon immersion blender was brought home yesterday and it really helped cut down a lot of time when I was cooking the soup today. I loved not having to transfer the hot liquid into my food processor – thank you Mom!!

I was really impressed with the blender. After I mixed it all together, we turned up the heat a bit and cooked the soup with the lid off for a couple of minutes. We toasted a couple of pieces of sour dough Seven Star bread, and eventually served up the soup. We both added a couple of splashes of hot sauce (I’ve converted my mom to a hot sauce fan!). I did season the soup with cumin, garlic, freshly ground pepper the smallest smidge of salt and some dried thyme.

My bowl of soup was extremely satisfying, especially due to the fact that it was snowing outside while we ate dinner. The first official snow of the season… I can’t stop wondering what this winter has in store for us!

Tonight I am thankful for ending my day better than I was feeling in the middle of the day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better – my fingers are crossed!