Butternut Squash Soup

I love how butternut squash looks. I like how it tastes. I like in sweet and savory things. But I hate peeling it. Sometimes I break down and do it anyway. More often than not, it's for this soup recipe. Once the peeling is done, the rest is fairly easy and the result is a tasty soup.

Ingredients

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into large chunks
1 onion, cut into large pieces
3-4 garlic cloves
1 can tomatoes
2 bay leaves
sea salt
4 cups vegetable stock
2 T olive oil (optional)
1 tsp dry basil (or 3 fresh basil leaves)

1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce (optional)
Thai curry paste to season (optional)

Place all ingredients except basil, soy sauce and curry paste in a large pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 30-40 minutes, until squash is tender. Let cool 10 minutes, remove bay leaves and add basil. Add curry paste and soy sauce if desired, then puree.

The hardest part is peeling the squash. Maybe it's just a mental block, because I think it took about one minute to do using a vegetable peeler. Cut the squash in half, remove the seeds, and cut the squash into large chunks.

Place the squash, tomatoes, garlic, and onion into a large pot. Drizzle with oil if you want, but it is okay without the oil as well. I added the dried basil before cooking, but if we would have had fresh I would have waited and added it at the end. Once I forgot the bay leaves and it completely changed the taste of the soup!

Add the vegetable stock and let the soup simmer for about 40 minutes.

When all the vegetables have cooked, add a few teaspoons of red thai curry paste if you would like a little kick. Add salt and/or soy sauce to taste and puree (I use a hand blender). You can serve the soup right away, or allow it to simmer for a little longer.

If you're up to it (sometimes I don't) you can rinse the seeds in strainer and remove the excess bits of squash. This takes about one to two minutes, but I must have some butternut squash block because it seems like a really hard task.

Drizzle some oil in a pan (a few teaspoons), heat the pan and then add the seeds. Stir the seeds around and allow them to fry for a few minutes. When they start to pop, remove from the heat.

Add salt or other delicious spices to enhance the flavor. I usually end up eating the seeds before the soup is done, but managed to save a few for this photo.