Roasted Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

I am a serious soup lover.  A hot bowl of soup on a cold winter night is one of my favorite comfort foods.  A smooth creamy soup can be just the thing to bring warmth and comfort, but those calories can get a little out of hand.  I have just the fix, a rich creamy soup with no dairy and very little added fat.  Roasted butternut squash, one of my favorite winter vegetables makes a wonderful creamy soup that your whole family will enjoy.

Ingredients:

2 Butternut Squash halved and seeded

1 Apple pealed cored and diced

1 Pear pealed cored and diced

2 Cloves of Garlic chopped

1/4 cup of Calvados (apple brandy) optional

1/2 a medium onion chopped

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

8 cups of vegetable stock  or chicken stock (Click for my stock recipes)

1 tbsp Good Olive Oil

2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 and sprinkle the squash with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.  Roast the squash for 45 minutes to an hour until slightly browned and fork tender.  Allow to cool so it can be handled.

Heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a stock pot over medium heat.  Add onions, pear, apple, garlic and a tsp of salt.  Stir until it slightly caramelizes.  Deglaze the pot with calvados or a little vegetable stock.  Add vegetable stock and simmer until the apple and pear are tender.  Scoop the butternut squash out of the skin and into the pot.  Simmer for about 15 min.  Blend the soup in the pot with an immersion blender (Kitchen Aid makes a good stainless steel model that comes with a little food processor).  When the soup is smooth stir in the balsamic vinegar, you can adjust the consistency by adding more stock if it is too thick, we want a creamy soup not something akin to babyfood.  Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

If you make this with chicken stock you have a totally vegan soup and even with chicken stock it is very healthy.  It is a soup that uses local winter product, all of the produce for the stock and soup I obtained from Nova Scotia providers.

Variation

For those of you like my buddy Sairam (a faithful vegetarian follower and good friend) who love to feel the spice, here is a simple addition to kick it up a notch.

When roasting your squash roast off one pablano pepper.  Let it cool in an air tight container to make pealing easier.  Peel and seed the pepper when cool and add to the soup before blending.  If you are cautious about spice add it in a quarter at a time blend and taste.  This adds a very nice level of heat to the soup.

Special Thanks to my Providers

Active Live Farms for the Chicken for my Chicken Stock and the Garlic

Noggins Corner Farm for all of the wonderful Fruit and Vegetables

And as always the Halifax Seaport Market for giving me a place to find local product.

Local product also pictured

Oatmeal Bread from Aziz Best Bakery obtained at the Halifax Seaport Market

Cranberry Cheddar from Fox Hill Cheese 

Beef Stock – The base for a perfect winter soup

My favorite winter food is a good hearty bowl of soup.  So many people I know love a good bowl of soup but say they just can’t get it to taste right or that it is just too much work.  It does take time to make a great bowl of soup but it does not take a lot of effort.

The foundation of a great soup is the stock.  I have already given you the recipe for my chicken stock, and now I am going to give you my beef stock recipe.  Tomorrow I will release the vegetable stock and then we will embark on a series of blogs on soup making.  With these three stocks you will be able to make a wide variety of flavorful soups that your family will love.

I will again reiterate that factory food soup bases and stocks don’t come close to homemade in flavor or nutrition.  The high levels of sodium and the level of processing require to provide the desired shelf life in my opinion results in a substandard product from both a taste and health standpoint.  Careful caramization of ingredients and slow simmering will build flavors that will not need to be overloaded with sodium.

This stock takes about 8 hours on the stove but can be left overnight or put it on the back burner and let it simmer away.  It can also be finished in a slow cooker when you are at work.  Don’t let 8 hours of sitting bother you because it only takes about 15 minutes of actual time to prepare.

Ingredients

2 pound beef soup bone (shank piece with meat and bone)

One onion Pealed and course chopped

1 Tbsp Grape seed Oil

3 carrots washed and course chopped

3 stalks celery washed and course chopped (remove bottom white part – bitter)

1 bulb of garlic cut in half loose peal removed

3 Tbsp Tomato Paste

1.5 cups Dry Red Wine

1 Tbsp Freeze dried Sage Leaves or 3 Fresh Leaves

6 sprigs of Fresh Thyme

6 pepper corns

Salt to taste – 1 to 3 tsp

Preheat the oven to 375.  Sprinkle salt and a few turns of fresh ground black pepper on all sides of the meat.  Place on a roasting rack in a pan for about 45 minutes until meat is browned.  Turn about half way through.  Be careful not to burn the meat or bone because it will add a bitter flavor to the stock.  You just want to get enough brown on to add flavor.

Rough chop all of the vegetables and heat the grape seed oil (preferred because of the high smoke point and neutral flavor) over medium high heat in a 6 liter stock pot.  Add the vegetables to the hot oil in the stock pot stir occasionally until the onions start to turn golden, be careful not to let anything too dark.  To quote Gordon Ramsey “If it’s brown it’s cooked if it’s black it’s …” (I’m not famous enough to get away with that.J) 

Once there is a light gold on the onions add the tomato paste and cook for another 5 minutes or so stirring frequently.  Deglaze with the red wine.  Add in the soup bone and fill the pot with water.  Add in the herbs and pepper corns.

Simmer on low heat. Do not bring to a rolling boil the odd bubble is not a problem but keep just below the boil covered for 8 hours.  If you see foam on the top skim it off, this contains fats and other impurities.  I usually do this two or three times during the process. 

After 8 hours salt the stalk to taste and then drain the stock into a bowl through a strainer.  (Don’t do like a buddy of mine as stain it in the sink and be left with the veg and bone :s).  You can save the meat off the bone and discard the rest.  Cool the stock.  At this point you can skim the fat off the top and strain through cheese cloth if you desire a very clean stock. 

This flavor rich stock will be an excellent base for your soups or stews.  I will be posting several recipes using this stock in the near future.

Thanks to:

WippleTree CSA for providing the onion
Active Live Farm for providing the garlic
Noggins Farm Market for providing the carrots
Getaway Farm for providing the soup bone
Jost Vineyards for providing the wine
River View Herbs for providing the Thyme and Sage

And of course the Halifax Seaport Farm Market for giving me a great place to pick up my local products.

Chicken Stock - The secret to great soups

There is nothing more comforting than a hot bowl of chicken soup on a cold fall day.  Rich broth with chicken, veggies and either rice or noodles.  The biggest secret in making a good soup is the stock.  You can buy stock but it is not very good.  For companies who package food shelf life is the most important consideration.  Now that I am over 40 I am more concerned with my shelf life than the shelf life of the food I eat.  Even using the reduced sodium stock you are getting half your allotment of sodium in a bowl of soup and it is really not very flavorful.

Making chicken stock is simple and cheap.  It does take time but just the time the pot is sitting on the stove.  Make lots, it is great in soups, stews, gravy and for cooking rice and freezes well.

Ingredients

Bones and skin from 1 or 2 chickens

2 carrots

3 ribs celery

1 onion

5 black pepper corns

1 tsp salt

Thyme (2 to 3 tsp dry) or a bunch of fresh thyme tied with string

Simple Approach:

Clean and rough chop all of the vegetables (peal the onions).  Put vegetables, chicken bones and thyme and salt and pepper into the pot.  Fill the pot with water (about 8 to 10 cups).  Over medium heat bring the stock to a simmer and reduce the heat to maintain the simmer.  Do not boil the stock, it draws the gelatin out of the chicken and muddies the flavor.  Simmer for 3 to 5 hours.  Strain the stock well and then put back in the pot and boil the stock down to concentrate flavors; I usually reduce it by about 20%.  After the stock is reduced add salt to taste.  Adding salt before you reduce will result in salty soup.

For Richer Stock Flavor:

Place chopped vegetables and chicken into a roasting pan sprinkle with salt and olive oil.  Roast in a hot oven 400 degrees for about 15 min until slightly browned.  Deglaze the roasting pan with white wine and empty the roasting pan into your stock pot.  From there add water as above and continue with the recipe.

This stock gives you a good base for your cooking.  Play with the recipe, add additional herbs, sometimes I like to crush a knob of ginger and add it with the veggies.  Some good soup recipes to follow.  Updates will be announced from my Twitter @CheckRaiseNS.