Nate recently brought home half of an acorn squash. I thought, 'cool already cut and cleaned... now what to do with it'. I looked up a lot of baked squash recipes and squash soup recipes but none were very inspiring until I stumbled on this one on the Food Network.
Aside from making enough soup to feed an army (why are soup recipes sized for a family of 10?! I really don't want to eat the same soup for a week!) I liked the ingredients. I sized it way down intending to do make 1/3 of the amount. I baked the acorn squash and fearing it wouldn't be enough (since the original recipe calls for 3 whole squash), threw a sweet potato in the oven too.
Then I bagged them and left them in the fridge for almost a week. They nagged at me, but I just couldn't find the time to get back around to the soup! Finally on Sunday I had enough lazy time to get on with it. I kind of scrapped the whole 1/3 the recipe thing and just altered it to fit what I wanted. I had an epiphany. Soup is easy, really easy. I dumped the precooked veggies into a pot, covered with broth and stick blended. Then added different things to taste until I liked it. Because the sweet potato and squash were precooked this came together very quickly. I think I altered it enough to list my own recipe.
One thing surprising to me was how much salt I needed. I usually don't cook with salt but I kept adding generous pinches until I could actually taste it. It was necessary to bring out the other flavors. So while I normally say skip the salt etc etc. Don't this time.
Halved and brushed with olive oil.
Garlic and shallots arranged on the veggies. I added pepper at this point too, but it isn't necessary.
Out of the oven (1 hour and 15 minutes) and looking roasty!
DAYS later... out of the bag.
I ended up using all of the squash and 1 half of the sweet potato. I didn't want it to be too sweet. The rest of the sweet potato could be pureed for a side dish to another meal!
I bought this Better than Bouillon at the store the other week in preparation for soup season. I wish I could use homemade stock every time, but I just don't have enough saved and not enough space in the freezer to stock up (har har stock...). I like the idea of this stuff because I don't need to open a whole can of broth to use just some of it or ever risk having unused broth go to waste. I know this isn't culinary taste magic but sometimes convenience wins out.
Broth and veggies in my cast iron pot. I skipped the whole part of the recipe that adds in more sauteed shallots and garlic because it was already quite pungent from sitting in a bag for 5 days. If you want to do this all at once you might need more garlic and shallots to really get a strong savory flavor.
Stick blended! After I stick blended it I just went nuts adding things. The mustard I used is Annie's Horseradish Mustard. I used half and half because I had it and I chose 2/3 because it seemed like enough to add richness without being too milky.
This was so easy when I just relaxed and used the recipe as a guide instead of trying to math out 1/3 of everything (!) it turned out really well. Spicy, savory and very filling. If you don't like spicy, skip the cayenne. Or skip everything. Or use just squash or just sweet pots. You get the idea, soup like this is easy and fun and tastes like Fall.
No comments :
Post a Comment