Butternut squash soup

Although the days are getting longer it's still cold out there and nothing feels better than a nice hot soup at the end of the day. I've tried soups with different types of pumpkins and squashes, but this is my most absolute favourite squash soup. The base recipe I found somewhere on a website many, many years ago. I've served it at all kinds of functions. 

The one time I will never forget is the time I had my coworkers in San Francisco over for a party. It was the first time ever that I was serving soup and I only had a small ladle. One of my friends asked me what the deal was and whether I didn't want her to enjoy too much soup. At first I didn't get it (for all my Sri Lankan friends, yes I am a total tube light). But then she very abruptly asked me whether I didn't have a larger spoon! I was so embarrassed. I dug into my drawers and found the largest coconut spoon that I could. She was still not totally happy. I think it was because she enjoyed the soup so much that she wanted a huge serving! The next day I went out and bought a proper soup ladle. Never again will I be embarrassed for the lack of a proper soup ladle!!

Preparation time: max 1.5 hours (includes 45 minutes baking); serves 4-6 

Ingredients:

1	Butternut squash
1-2 tbsp.	Honey
1/2 large	Onion
2 tbsp.	Butter (or oil)
2	Vegetable cubes
4 cups	Water
1/2 tbsp.	Chopped, fresh rosemary
	Salt and pepper

Method:

To make this soup taste good you have to have all the ingredients. Substituting will make it taste different. Not necessarily worse. Just not the same. If you are making this in Sri Lanka and can"t find rosemary, I'd love to hear what you substituted it with and how it tasted.

Take your butternut squash and split it in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and then brush the cut surfaces liberally with bees honey. Put it cut side up on a baking sheet and bake at 160 C in a fan oven for 45 minutes (180 C/350 F in a convection oven) or until well cooked. It is a good idea to put the squash on parchment paper or something similar. If either the honey or the sugar from the squash drip down onto the baking sheet it is a pain to clean. Once it comes out of the oven let it cool for about 10 minutes.

Saute the onions in butter for a couple of minutes over medium high heat. Add the water and the vegetable cubes to the onions and bring to the boil. While you are waiting for the water to boil remove the skin from the pumpkin, chop it roughly and add it, together with all other ingredients, to the stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Now you have choices! If you want a chunky soup you can mash the hot soup with a potato masher. If you want a very smooth soup (I prefer smooth soups) you either have to let the soup cool and then put it into a liquidizer or use a heat resistant stick blender and stick it directly into the boiling soup. If you use the last alternative you have to be very, very careful that the liquid does not spit. Although rather dangerous it's the method I use and the one by which I calculated the preparation time. 

Whichever method you use, bring the soup to the boil again. Serve hot with home made croutons and fresh bread. (Make pretty patterns with heavy whipping cream.)

Half an Hour Vegetarian Pumpkin and Potato Soup

Well this one was never truly meant to be! My shopping schedule is all off due to the kids vacations and as usual I forgot that on Sunday the shops are closed. Something that I have never quite been able to get used to. The fridge was almost bare except for some butternut squash and a few potatoes. So I decided to throw them "all" together and make a soup. I happened to have half a loaf of bread left over from yesterday and a few cheeses so I figured we could manage.

Oh and I forgot to mention it was day 2 of the girls musical performance so I only had ... yes, you guessed it, 30 minutes to prepare dinner. When we picked up the girls their first question (as always) was "what are we having for dinner?". They were not too happy when I said soup and bread.

I pretty much grew up eating soup. My mum's soup is famous! I remember my aunt, uncle and cousins coming to visit one evening and they joined us for dinner quite sporadically. My mum made soup and my aunt asked my mum what she put in it because it was delicious. The reason that this stuck in my mind was that my mum made the soup from the beans left over from lunch! Actually whatever was left over from lunch went into the pot together with onions, garlic, water and a vegetable cube. It was then boiled, put in the liquidizer and served with bread and butter. Hmmm delicious... if you only knew! Okay that's not to say that my mum didn't make soups from scratch. She did that all the time, with spinach soup being our all time favourite. Always made with organically grown spinach, freshly plucked from the back garden. And in case you are wondering left over soups really do taste good, depending on what was left over of course!

Serves 4; Preparation time 30 mins.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp.	Olive Oil
1 small	Onion
2 cloves	Garlic
500 g	Butternut squash or Pumpkin
250 g	Potatoes
750 ml	Water
1	Vegetable cube
12 stems	Thyme
	Salt & Pepper

Method:

Soup is ultra easy to make. First peel the pumpkin and potatoes and then cube them. The smaller the better because they will cook quicker and be easier to pulverize at the end. Also dice the onion and the garlic.

Then take a large saucepan and heat it on high. Throw in the oil, onions and garlic and stir fry until soft. Around 1-2 minutes. Then add the pumpkin and potatoes and mix it well. Let it fry for 5 minutes or so, stirring to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. 

Add the water, vegetable cube, salt and pepper stir it all up, put the lid on and let it boil. Reduce the heat as necessary. 

Now I have this thyme plant left over from making the caramelized leek quiche so I decided to put some of that in too. But I really could not be bothered with picking the leaves off so I just took around 12 stems of about 7 - 8 cm length and chopped them up. I picked out a few of the harder stems once I was done chopping and threw the rest of the leaves into the bubbling pot.

The vegetables didn't have to boil for more than 10 minutes and they were done. I then pulled out my Kenwood stick mixer (Stab or Bamix depending on where you live and your age!), stuck it in the pot and mashed everything up. If you want a lumpy soup you can just use a potato masher. If you only have a liquidizer your in for bad luck because you can't put hot liquid in a traditional liquidizer. Actually there is a way around it. If you prepare the vegetables with a minimum amount of water you can then add cold water to them once they are cooked. This is usually cool enough to use in a liquidizer. However, afterwards you have to heat it up again. 

The girls just looked at the soup and said "what is it?" After I explained what was in it our oldest agreed to having one soup spoon full and the youngest demanded half a spoon. But half spoons don't exist (according to my husband) so she had to make do with a whole spoon. Then they tried it and couldn't get enough of it! I had to fight to have some left over so that I could pack it up as a school lunch for the next day!!! So it was successful (otherwise I would not be sharing it here, no?).