Butternut Squash Soup

As part of our working towards eating healthier, we've been searching for new recipes to try that are outside of our comfort zone.  Enter butternut squash soup.

I read quite a few before deciding to sort of take a little bit from each one in order to come up with my own.

My husband cleaned his bowl.  I cleaned my bowl.  Our son (16 months) cleaned his bowl plus another half!

I will note what I'll likely change for next time below the recipe/pictures.

**You'll need:
2 large butternut squash
2 T butter
Oil (we used veg oil)
Salt
Pepper
2 Granny Smith apples (peeled and cored)
1 pint Half & Half
2 1/2 cups chicken stock/broth

 

We chose organic because we only give baby J organic stuff.  You can use whatever, but we figured this might make it a smidge even healthier for us to keep it to more natural products.

First- you'll need to roast the squash.  There are NUMEROUS opinions on this, so we just went with cutting them in half, placing them on a baking sheet cut side up, and then brushing the tops with oil and sprinkling on salt/pepper.  We did almost an hour in the oven on 350.  The flesh scraped out pretty easily.

We love our Ninja!

Once it was roasted, we scraped the flesh out and put about half a squash in the blender at a time.  I poured some of the stock and cream in as well as apple slices each time.  I'd empty each batch of that into a soup pot.  Be sure to keep enough of your liquid ingredients so that you can have some for all 4 halves of squash!

Once it's all completely blended, put the pot on a burner on medium heat.  Use a separate small pan to brown your butter (best I can tell that means melt it and simmer for a second).  Pour that into the soup and mix thoroughly.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  (*My husband added way more salt and pepper and some other seasonings to his once it was done.)

Cook through for a few minutes.  We served with bacon crumbles on top, but I'm really interested in trying feta or something next time as a garnish.  I also read that creme fraiche is a yummy finishing touch.  Up to you!

 Tada!  The finished product!  It was quite yummy and there was a TOOOOON of soup!  We'll have this for a few meals to come!  We're going to have some organic French bread with it next time.


*We used a peeled carrot in there and I could tell and didn't care for it.  The bacon crumbles were good, but I felt they took away from the soup rather than adding to it.  That's why I think a cheese type garnish would be better.

Please let me know what you think if you try it!  I'd love to hear back!