FIRST POST! HI EVERYBODY!
Okay, lameness over, if you’ve been following my tweets, to soothe my angst over student loans and photography, I’ve been throwing myself into making lots of food. Gloria reminded me of this blog’s existence, and today I’ll share with you a pretty simple curried butternut squash soup that I thought up while eating a different, inferior, store-bought squash soup.
What you’ll need:
Blender or Food Processor
Pot for soup. 
Butternut Squash – medium sized, ours yielded about 4 cups of inner meat, but James ate a lot before I started making this.
1 medium onion – I used red because of what’s on hand, but up to you!
1 tbsp unsalted butter – OR all the butter you want in the world.
3 cloves garlic – confession, I used more, but I’m a garlic addict. Spice to taste.
1.5 teaspoons curry powder – again, I used 1 tbsp, but not everyone is as spice dead as me.
3 cups chicken broth – Vegetable broth okay.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Optional: Heavy cream for fancy spiral topping.
First things first, you have to roast the butternut squash. Cut that sucker in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, put it on a baking sheet face down and stick it in the oven heated to 400 degrees. After about 20-25 minutes, it should be done. Check on it occasionally. You’ll know it’s done when the outer skin is easily pierced by a fork.
Alternatively, you can cut the squash into quarters, put it on a plate, cover it all with saran wrap, and microwave it on high for 6 minute intervals until done. I vastly prefer baking, but James did it the microwave method, before swearing “NEVER AGAIN.” Now, that’s a resounding success if I’ve ever heard one.
After taking the squash out of the oven and setting it aside to cool, you can chop up your onion and garlic, and start frying up the onion in your butter. I just used a regular stainless steel pot that I knew would hold all my ingredients. When the onion starts looking translucent and yummily cooked, put in the garlic, chicken broth, and curry powder and start bringing it up to a simmer.
As that happily gets up to a warm bubbling, turn back to your squash. If you haven’t already removed it from the oven for whatever reason, do so, and prepare to scald your fingers. Now, remove the inside “meat” of the squash from its skin and put that meat into the soup on the stove. If you’ve baked it properly, the meat usually just falls off and it’s quite easy to separate the two. If you find yourself having some trouble, I use an ice cream scoop to get every little bit I can out of the rinds. You should have a yield of about 3-4 cups of squash meat.
Once all the squash meat is in your pot, you should now have all the ingredients heating on the stove – butternut squash meat, butter, onion, garlic, curry powder, and chicken broth. Bring this up to a nice bubbling simmer and let it sit for about 30 minutes. I check on mine and stir it around every 10 minutes, but whatever you feel comfortable with as long as it’s not on fire.
After 30 minutes, pour the mixture into your food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Salt and pepper it to your taste, or add more garlic/curry powder if you want, and tada! Delicious soup! Because I was trying to be fancy and had heavy cream lying around, I put a cream spiral on top of the soup I was serving, but this is completely optional. Highly recommended for those with steadier hands than me, though!
