This leek apple cheddar soup is sweet, creamy and topped with chopped walnuts and cranberries.

I had a distinct vision of what this soup would end up looking like days before making it.

In my head it was a warm yellowy orange, a visual representation of the loads of cheddar melted into the apples and leeks.

But then I got to actually making it and realized puke green was a more likely outcome.

Good news is leeks, apples and cheddar taste nothing like puke and everything like warm fall deliciousness.

I was at Trader Joe’s yesterday (at noon on a Sunday, sometimes I question my sanity) which had gourds, pumpkins and mums galore in pretty much every crevice of the store tempting me every time I turned the cart up another aisle.

I somehow walked away with only three small white pumpkins and a $3.99 fall bouquet.

I came home, pulled the fall and Halloween decorations out of the closet, arranged my bouquet on the table and got this soup going on the stove while Ulysses lit the chiminea out on the deck.

We put on sweatshirts and wrapped our hands around a steaming bowl of this leek apple cheddar soup for dinner while Ginger chased acorn obsessed squirrels up trees in the backyard.

I can’t really say I love New York too often but right now with the weather, the leaves and this soup, I’m digging it.

Soup season is the best.

I’ve got plans to make either this copycat Panera tomato soup or creamy homemade roasted tomato soup (haven’t decided which one yet) this week too!