Category: Soups

Now that I seem to have my mind back (maybe it was the massage I got today!), I can write this up for you. It’s very tasty, and makes a LOT of soup. We froze about half of it. I think it makes 8-10 servings.

I threw this together out of my own head, but a special thanks goes to reader Caroline Cox for sending me a recipe that included toasted walnuts! I hadn’t thought of that, and they are fantastic with the squash.

Most butternut squash soup recipes will have you peel and cube the squash while it’s raw, then boil the pieces. Mine roasts the squash instead, which means you won’t have to deal with cutting it (other than in half) while it’s hard as a rock. Nice, right?

Butternut Squash Apple Walnut Soup

Sometime before you want to make the soup, roast:

• one butternut squash (2-3 pounds)

Cut in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds and “strings”, and place cut-side-down in a glass baking dish on top of a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Bake at 400 degrees for an hour to an hour and a half, or until the peel looks wrinkly and the flesh is soft. Then you can peel it super-easily.

(Left-handed videoing while right-handed peeling in lowish light doesn’t make for a great video, but here it is.)

Melt:

• butter (1/2 stick)

Add:

• 2 chopped onions
• 2-3 chopped carrots
• 2-3 chopped apples
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• salt, pepper, nutmeg

Cook until carrots and apples are soft, onions translucent, and walnuts are toasted. Then, add:

• cooked butternut squash
• 1.5 quarts (6 cups) chicken stock

Stir to break up the squash and combine everything, and heat through. Remove from heat. Then, use your immersion blender to blend the soup completely. Splash in

• some milk or cream

…until it’s the desired thickness. Then serve.

You can garnish with a dollop of sour cream, a drizzle of heavy cream, toasted chopped walnuts, or very thin cooked apple slices (I cooked them in a pan with butter while my soup was heating through).

For forever, I’ve had the Pioneer Woman’s Cauliflower Soup bookmarked. It just looks amazing, doesn’t it? My friend Meagan has made it and has confirmed its amazingness. But I never made it. Don’t ask me why. And now I wouldn’t want to make it as-is because it has flour in it.

So I made my own inspired-by-Ree Cauliflower Soup. And I’ll be making it again, for sure. It’s GOOD.

Comforting Cauliflower Soup

You’ll need:

• 1/2 stick butter
• 2 onions, chopped
• 3 carrots, chopped
• celery if you want, but I didn’t have any
• 2 heads cauliflower, chopped
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 1 cup whole milk
• the other 1/2 stick butter
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• garlic salt
• black pepper
• 1/2 cup sour cream

1. Melt half a stick of butter in a big soup pot.
2. Dump in the onions, and cook them for a while.
3. Add the carrots and cauliflower. Stir around, cover, and let cook for 15 minutes. You don’t need to add water or anything — there is enough moisture in the pot to steam them; just trust me.
4. After your veggies are all cooked, dump in enough chicken stock to cover the veggies. For me that was about a quart of good, rich, homemade chicken stock. mmm. Bring to a simmer.
5. Pour in a cup of milk. I don’t care if you measure. I do care if you use whole milk. It must be whole milk. Fat is good.
6. Now, because we’re not thickening with flour, here’s what I want you to do. Ladle 1-2 cups of the chunky soup into a separate container, and add the other half stick of butter.  Use your immersion blender (click to see the one I use and LOVE) to blend it into a heavenly puree.
7. Dump the puree back into the pot of soup, and stir to combine.
8. Pour in a good splash of heavy cream.
9. Season with garlic salt and black pepper. I’m not usually a pepper girl, but black pepper just BELONGS in this soup. Do it.
10. To serve, put a dollop of sour cream in each bowl, then ladle soup over it. Extra creaminess, and it helps to cool the soup so you won’t burn your mouth ad haff do dak like dis.

This makes about 6 generous servings. But of course, it’ll depend on how big your cauliflowers were, and how much stock you needed in order to cover them up.