Crusty bread.

Celery sticks.

With some good bread, certainly sounds like a meal to me.

Start with the soup. Then serve your favorite cooking greens (I like kale or chard - bok choy is also a great choice), sauteed with sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, soy sauce, a little lemon juice, and cayenne pepper to taste. For a vegetarian meal: soft, mild-but-tangy cheese to go with the crusty bread. For a meat meal: simple oven-roasted chicken legs. Stuff some peeled garlic cloves under the skin, cut up a small onion and maybe a few rosemary sprigs and scatter them around, drizzle with nice olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast.

I'm hungry now. Let me know if you have leftover soup.

bread and green salad

OMG OMG

Buy some sage and fry the whole leaves in butter till they're papery-crispy. Top sauteed or pureed butternut squash, mixed with some walnuts with the leaves. HEAVEN. My faaavorite entree in town is a crepe version of this. I don't think the crepe is strictly necessary.

I came in to suggest almost exactly what expialidocious did. I always serve squash with a side of something green and astringent, to balance the sweetness of the squash. Kale or swiss chard is nice, but so is brocolli.

I like my greens (kale, chard, whatever) blanched first, then sauteed if I feel like it, then dressed.

To follow through your handful-of-nuts suggestion, which sounds swell to me, how about blanched brocolli tossed in a sesame-orange dressing* and topped with toasted almonds (or whatever nuts you keep on hand)?

And I know what you mean about most people not thinking it feels like a meal, but a change can be refreshing for guests!

If I think a main course is unbalanced nutritionally, I sometimes fill it out when concocting the dessert or starter, i.e., if the main course is short on protein, maybe I serve cheesecake or pots de creme for dessert.

*When I make this, it's just fresh OJ with a dash of toasted sesame oil, a bit of orange zest, and some spices to hot it up a bit: cayenne, maybe a pinch of curry, salt, pepper, you get the idea, plus dry mustard to emulsify a bit.

on preview: Ambrosia Voyeur's fried sage idea rocks. That stuff is so tasty that every time it's presented to me, I make an absolute pig of myself, make myself quite sick eating it, and never have a moment's regret. I've only ever had it fried in oil; fried in butter, it must be transcendent.

Ambrosia: my sister serves that sage thing at cocktail parties all the time (without the crepe) and it just blows people away. Just butter-fried sage in amuse bouche spoons. So yummy. (My sister is so classy)

I think the kale idea sounds right on target. Thanks, folks!

Add garam masala to that soup and it's suddenly Indian. That means you could serve it with/over rice and some sort of curry.

I AM SO HUNGRY NOW you people wield swift and terrible recipes.

Yah, Indian is good. I make a curried butternut squash soup that you can adjust from pleasantly mild to fiery.

Sautee a chopped onion with some salt until soft. Add cubed squash and mild veggie stock to cover (also works fine with water). Add all the ground spices that start with C: cumin, curry powder, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne. (In descending order of quantity, down to about 1/8 tsp of cloves. Adjust to your heat level using the curry and cayenne.) Simmer for 20 minutes or until soft. Puree. Add more stock to get desired thickness. Adjust salt and spices. Serve warm. And call me crazy, but I like to grate that soft, mild-but-tangy cheese right on top.