I've never repeated a blog entry, but this one is from three years ago (and delicious), so I thought it was time. Enjoy!
Winter Squash Soup
So I would have thought that once I got heat in my house (yay heat!) I
would have starting veering away from soups, but apparently that is not
the case. I have recently been falling in love with squash soup. It’s
so simple and so delicious.
When winter squashes started showing
up at the farmers market I realized that I didn’t know much about most
of them. I love butternut and, of course, pie pumpkins (be prepared for
the best pumpkin pie recipe ever in November), but I didn’t know much
about the rest. And one of the lovely things about this blog is that I
have to get outside of my food comfort zone to keep writing columns (my
blog would be very boring if I did nothing but write about the stir
fries that I make more often than I should). So I started bringing
squash home and roasting them (it’s so much easier than peeling and
boiling them). At first I was just eating them straight (or with butter,
for the drier varieties). But that wasn’t very interesting (and could
be quite fattening). So I came up with the brilliant idea of soup!
Last
week I bought a bunch of squash at the farmers market and when roasting
time came I had butternut, delicata and a variety that I had never seen
before. It looks like a cross between a delicata and an acorn. The
farmer at Dog River Farm told me the name, which I promptly forgot. But,
when in doubt, roast! So I sliced the squashes in half, composted the
seeds (some folks like to roast them, but that’s never been my thing)
and placed them upside down on a greased, foil-lined pan. I roasted them
at 350° F “until done.” Done, to me, means that a fork slides easily
through the skin. This time ranged from about 30 minutes to about 1 hour
15 minutes depending on the squash and the size.
I went ahead
and made squash soup with my delicious delicatas right there on the spot
(see below), but as it was around 11 pm on a Sunday night I decided to
leave the other squash for later. I shelled out each type of squash into
a separate container and tossed them in the refrigerator. As luck would
have it, this ended up making me perfect lunches all week. My roommate
had brought a whole bunch of leftover chopped onions home from a company
picnic and she decided to sauté and freeze them for later use. So, each
morning I’ve been pureeing some of these sautéed onions with chicken
broth and the roasted squash to make some absolutely lovely squash soup
for lunch. All of the squashes have made excellent soup, but so far that
mystery squash has been my favorite. I’ve played around with adding
curry, roasted garlic or chili pepper flakes, and I encourage you to do
the same. But I’ve put my super simple recipe below because it’s still
my favorite and it makes a good jumping off point.
So, I hope you
enjoy this simple soup as much as I have been and keep an eye out for
my upcoming blog entry on making your own homemade broth!
Winter Squash Soup
4 delicata squash (or a similar amount of your favorite type of winter squash)
1 medium red onion
2 tsp olive oil
pinch salt plus more to taste
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
black pepper
1)
Slice the squash in half, discard the seeds and roast the squash, open
side down, at 350° F on a greased, foil lined baking pan. The squash is
done when a fork easily slides through the skin, about 30 minutes for a
delicata and longer for larger squash. Remove the squash from the oven
and let them cool.
2) Dice the red onion and sauté over medium
high heat in the olive oil and the pinch of salt in a large saucepan
until the onion starts to brown. Remove pan from heat and scoop the
contents of the squash into the pan, discarding the skin.
3) Add
the broth to the pan and with an immersion blender, puree the mixture
until smooth (or puree in batches in a standing blender). Return the pan
to the stove and heat the soup, over medium heat, until hot. If the
soup is too thick, add more broth or water. Add salt and pepper to
taste.