Bold & Beautiful Butternut

We got another butternut squash in our local yokel order today. I decided to use my half to make some soup. My mom has the absolute best recipe for Curried Sweet Potato Soup (which I will share with you later), so I decided to try out a similar, but slightly different and new, recipe using the squash:

Curried Butternut Squash Soup
*My changes below, original recipe found here

Ingredients

•  olive oil
• 1/2  cup  thinly sliced leek (I didn't have any leeks-I didn't even have any yellow onions, so I used a red onion. It worked just fine)
• 1  tablespoon  curry powder
• 1  tablespoon  brown sugar
• 3/4  teaspoon  ground cumin
• 1/4  teaspoon  ground red pepper
• 3  garlic cloves, chopped
• 6  cups  chopped peeled butternut squash (I have no idea how many cups I had, I used 1/2 a squash...probably more like 3 cups)
• 6  cups  water (I used vegetable broth..I even cheated and used the boxed kind. Make sure you always check your broth for sodium. I stopped using chicken broth because even the low sodium kind is still so high....if you search, you can find some veggie broth with WAY less sodium)
• 4  cups  chopped peeled Granny Smith apple (I used 2 gala apples)
• 1/3  cup  whipping cream (I left this out completely)
• 3/4  teaspoon  salt (and this)
• 2/3  cup  minced fresh cilantro (and this)

Preparation

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute for a few minutes.

Add the spices, squash and apple and saute for 2-3 more minutes:

 

Add the broth to cover the squash and apples and bring to a boil:

 

Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes until squash is tender.

Next, get your blender, or your IMMERSION blender ready. We got an immersion blender for our wedding from one of our good friends (shout out to DC) and I really wasn't sure quite what to do with it. But it has certainly come in handy making that sweet potato soup, and now this!

Just put it in the soup and puree until smooth. If you don't have one of these handy tools, carefully transfer the soup in batches to your blender and puree.

This soup is not as good as the sweet potato but it's pretty good. It's much sweeter, I think because of the apple and the squash is naturally sweeter, but it still tastes pretty good :)

Enjoy!
--Lindsay--