I've made a squash soup that's easy because there's no need for a blender. Plus you can customize the spices to make one batch two different ways.

I came upon a recipe for Thai-Spiced Pumpkin Soup at the fantastic blog 101 Cookbooks last year, and loved the results. I use acorn squash without pumpkin, and have a smaller ratio of coconut milk to squash, but one of the great things about this recipe is its adaptability. Add liquid a little bit at a time, and you'll get the consistency you want.

I knew my kids would not eat anything ``Thai-spiced,'' however. So I experimented with making half the soup slightly sweet, to play off the idea of that gateway drug -- pumpkin pie.

A little Trader Joe's pumpkin butter did the trick.

My daughter, who usually wouldn't touch a vegetable soup, said it did taste like pumpkin pie. But she was kind of mad that it wasn't pumpkin pie. She gave the soup a backhanded compliment, saying that ``if it was the only thing to eat, I would eat it.''

Rather than starve.

My son didn't like it. I didn't have either of them try the spicy version -- which, by the way, is great for a sore throat.

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