Butternut squash sweet potato soup

Here are the recipes for the greenbean salad and squash soup -- both of which turned out really good.

Green bean salad:
2 cups blanched green beans
1 cup of fennel, sliced thin
approx 1/2 cup calamata olives
1 shallot, diced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
salt & pepper
4 oz feta cheese
some lemon juice
2 slices of decent bread, toasted and cut into chunks

Toss all but the bread together and let it sit for a while, then add the bread. It was really good.

The soup was from the NY Times' fitness and nutrition section

The only thing I did differently was add some garlic and allspice, and some grated parmesan at the end. Really good. We had leftover soup tonight, with a spinach and grated carrot salad with a warm shallot/olive/cherry tomato dressing. And some feta thrown in. I had a ton of spinach from the CSA in the fridge, and was happy to use it.

I also spent the majority of teh day reading about survey design, and pre-coding survey instruments to allow for easier analysis and data entry after the fact. No small feat, that. It really is amazing how many details there are to figure out with this survey business. Aside from the conceptual issues of what to ask people and why -- and planning what to do with the data once you've got it -- there are a million details having to do with things like sampling, of course, but also formating, wording, placement of words on a page .... I'm having trouble getting through the conceptual things because I am a bit overwhelmed with the practical. But I have an actual draft survey (in brochure form, pre-coded) to work from, so maybe that's a start. I really, really, need to get to the data collection part, and fast. The survey methods book i am currently reading tells me that I am at stage 8 or so of a 12 step process. I had felt pretty much at step 2, so at least that's encouraging news.

Oh -- I have all of these pomegranates I need to figure out what to do with. i just don't really see the point of them. It's all seedy and sour, and hard to get at. Maybe puree it and make syrup or sorbet or something?