Puree pleasure.

Sweet potatoes, pumpkin, butternut squash. There's nothing like deep-orange vegetables to dress up your plate and hike up your intake of vitamins and antioxidant carotenoids.

Only one problem: by the time you wash and prepare these hearty veggies, your family may be rummaging around the kitchen for takeout menus ... that is, unless you start with Farmer's Market.

The company offers unseasoned purees of organic Sweet Potato, Pumpkin, and Butternut Squash in convenient cans that you can store in the pantry until you need them. Then grab your favorite recipe for soup, muffins, pies, or whatever and you're in business. You can skip steps 1 through 5 (wash, peel, chop, cook, puree) and go straight to where you stir the puree into your pancake or muffin batter, etc.

Want a 20-minute Pumpkin-Sweet Potato Soup tonight? Combine 1 can each Farmer's Market pumpkin and sweet potato puree with 3/4 tsp. each ground ginger, curry powder, and cumin, 1/4 tsp. nutmeg, and 2 cups each lower-sodium chicken (or vegetable) broth and water. (Add some sauteed onions if you'd like.)

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. (For a "creamy" soup, stir in a cup of low-fat milk after simmering or top each bowl with a dollop of plain low-fat yogurt.)

M-m-m-m. Carotenoids never tasted so good.

Farmer's Market: [phone]

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