Butternut Squash Soup
Margie Root, Norman Oklahoma
Ingredients
- 1 medium butternut squash (somewhere around 2 1/2 pounds) nonstick vegetable oil spray for roasting the squash
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped fine or pressed through a garlic press
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter or olive oil or a combination
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup of water if needed
- salt and pepper to taste
- low fat sour cream or half and half for garnish
Instructions
- Cut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds. . Place the squash cut side down on a pan or foil that has been sprayed with the vegetable oil spray. Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes at 400 degrees until very tender. Set aside to cool. When cool, scoop the squash out of the skin.
- While the squash is baking, melt the butter in a saucepan and cook the onion and garlic over low heat for 5 minutes or until softened. Add the broth and simmer for 10 minutes covered. Add the squash pulp to the pan. If you have an immersion blender, puree until smooth. Otherwise, use a blender to puree the mixture and work in batches so as not to overload the blender.
- Return the soup to the pan and add enough water to desired consistency. Heat until hot. Salt and pepper to taste.
- Garnish with the low fat sour cream or mix in a spoonful of half and half ( of fat free half and half) to give it a creamier texture and taste.
Each year, from out of my small compost, a rather vigorous plant is produced. We are granted a mystery plant. We never know what it is until the fruit gets large enough. One year I thought I had a cucumber plant. That is, until I figured out that the large globe cucumbers were actually cantaloupe from the seeds of the one cantaloupe we had purchased the previous year. It's really rather exciting to have a mystery plant and to guess of what crop we will have an over abundance. This year we were lucky. We got butternut squash. And yes, it was from the one butternut squash I had purchased the year before. We are rather late comers to eating butternut squash as it wasn't something my mom knew and cooked. It's a good thing we like it and better yet, the uncut squash keeps well without refrigeration.
