Butternut Squash Soup

This is my favorite soup. It's simple, delicious, and good for you.



You'll need about 4 cups of butternut squash puree for this recipe. That is usually 1 really huge squash, 2 medium squash.... or 3 tiny baby squash grown from my garden plus 1 I got from the
farmers market. Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, lay them cut side down in a baking dish, cover them with foil. Bake at 375 for 30-45 minutes or until you can easily stick a fork all the way through the flesh.
(notice I tried to peel the one on the right.... gave up after only a second or two. It's much easier to bake it)
Let the squash cool and scoop out the flesh of the squash. Set it aside while you get the onions ready.



In a med-large pot, melt 1 Tbsp. butter and 1 Tbsp. oil (I used Olive). Then add 1-2 chopped onions (depending on how much you like onion) You want to sweat these... not brown!


You should hear them quietly sizzling but no loud frying sounds. These are going to take a while to get as soft as you need them to be. Remember... NO browning!


If you want a slightly sweeter soup, you can add a chopped apple to your soup. I used a pink lady apple but any will do. You want these really soft too so cook them along with the onion.

After the onions (and optional apple) are REALLY soft, put these in the food processor (with the pulp from the butternut squash. Add chicken broth if you need to in order to make a smooth puree.


Add the puree back to the pot (over med heat) and stir in chicken broth (reduced sodium or homemade... recipe next week). I think I used about 3 cups. Just keep adding chicken broth until it's the consistency you like. Taste for salt. If you used store bought chicken broth, you may not have to add any salt. My chicken broth didn't have any salt in it so I added about 2 tsp.



Bring your soup to a boil. HAVE THE POT LID NEARBY! When this comes to a boil, if it's as thick as mine, it will send hot soup flying from the pot! Keep the lid on while it simmers and take it off the heat long enough to stir it from time to time. Taste it for salt and then check to make sure you can't taste any bits of undercooked onion. If you can still taste/feel onion, cook it until you can't any longer. Then it's ready to serve!

I'm lucky that the rest of my family won't eat this... more for me!!