Butternut Squash Soup

Autumn is the perfect time for homemade soups. The weather is cooling and life tends to get a bit busier with kids back to school and preparing for the holiday season to come. One of my favourite homemade soups is tomato soup because it reminds me of my childhood. This is the time of year instead of greeting the day with coffee, cappuccino or espresso I love a large mug of tomato soup. I did a bit of flicking through the weekly flyers to see what was on sale to do a bit of cherry picking the sales. On the back of one of the flyers there was a recipe for Butternut Squash Soup. I just had to try the recipe!

Stick Blending

The recipe started off simple enough involving only a few ingredients. I decided to do a bit of substituting when I opened the evaporated milk and decided that was not something that was going into what was shaping up to be a lovely Autumn soup. After a couple more substitutions I decided to just wing it then change the method and well the rest is history.

Pictured is my funky stick blender that doesn't see a lot of use outside of making sauces and smooth soups. Despite the colours it does a nice job. It really needs to get out a bit more! Here's the recipe I came up with.

Butternut Squash Soup

1 medium butternut squash
1½ c half & half
1 onion, chopped
1 large potato
3 tbsp butter
4 c homemade turkey stock
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp brown sugar
salt & pepper to taste

Peel, de-seed and chop the squash. Peel and chop the potato and onion. Put the butter in a large saucepan and melt on medium high heat. Add the squash, onions and potatoes. Cook while stirring often to prevent sticking until vegetables begin caramelizing (turns golden brown). Add sliced garlic and continue cooking 1 minute. Stir in broth and cook until squash is fork tender. Stir in milk, sugar, salt and pepper cooking for an additional 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Use a stick blender to purée until smooth. Garnish with a dab of sour cream and parsley flakes.

Note: If you want a slightly thicker soup stir in a tbsp of powdered instant potatoes.


Butternut Squash Soup

The soup had a deep, rich, beautiful colour reflective of autumn and wonderful, cosy aroma, a true comfort food. As soon as I tasted this soup I was quite pleased. I have to tell you the rich creaminess combined with wonderful butternut squash flavour was amazing. The soup had a lovely texture, just right, not to thick and not too thin. The two changes in addition to those already made would be adding a bit of garlic powder and a bit less sugar. Fresh ground pepper worked well in this recipe but it does need to be set to a fine grind or substitute a bit of ground white pepper for the flavour without seeing it. This soup could easily be made vegetarian by using vegetable broth, soy milk and omitting the sour cream. This soup has gone into my personal recipe book for a bit more tweaking but as it stands it gets a hearty two thumbs up!