I've missed you guys.
This month has been crazy hectic with work, traveling and just wrapping everything up before I leave for Christmas - which by the way is officially less than a month away! I haven't really had a chance to do anything exciting this month other than errands, gym, work and repeat. My camera also had technical issues for part of it, which is why I haven't been blogging lately.
I feel like every time I do blog though, I talk about the weather, which has been absolutely miserable. Feeling a cold coming on, I passed by the supermarket on the way home from work and thought I would try to forget about the snow by making a warm winter soup.
The ingredients are simple, healthy and clean. The main component is the butternut squash and everything else revolves around it. There's no set recipe I use, just whatever vegetables I'm feeling like that day.
Today, I threw together a mix mash of onions, garlic, celery and carrot.
Roasting the squash takes the longest time, but if you're feeling particularly lazy (like me), 10 minutes in the microwave is a little shortcut I like to use. It's sweet alone, but a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper will bring out the nuttiness of the soft flesh.
Vegetables don't have to be finely or carefully chopped since everything will blend down anyways. My kind of prep.
The vegetables need to be simmered until they're mushy soft before blending. The first time I made a vegetable soup like this, I tried to immersion blend while the soup was still on the heating element. Bad idea.
Take it off the stove and let it cool a bit before adding the spices and blending everything together.
The last ingredient is a bit of a secret. When I make this for my family, I tuck the milk carton down at the bottom of the garbage can so no one finds out. The heavy cream is what really pulls this soup together, and in my opinion, if I'm eating a whole pot of vegetables. a little cream is justified. Right?
And it's done!
One thing I love about this soup is that once you have the main ingredient, you can literally do anything else with it. Any combination of vegetables, spices, and even the amount of stock you put in to make it thicker or thinner. Talk about options.
Garlic Butternut Squash Soup
1 medium butternut squash
10 cloves of garlic
3 medium onions
3 stalks of celery
3 carrots
1 liter of chicken stock
2 tbsp butter
250 mL heavy whipping cream
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp sage
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground red chili
2 tsp Olive oil
Sprinkle of Mediterranean sea salt
Sprinkle of ground black pepper
It's cheap, quick, and healthy. Start to finish, this soup took me 35 minutes to make and I really wish you guys could smell my kitchen right now, which is bursting with warm swirls of cinnamon and all the other goodness.
I don't know about you, but I'm just about ready to escape this chill, and there is nothing better than piping hot bowl of creamy and sweet butternut squash soup on a cold Winter day.
naomi
