Curried Butternut Squash Soup - tastes like fall, but in India

My loves are asleep on the floor for the time being, an apple pie is in the oven, the dishes are (mostly) clean, and my hiccups are vanquished. Finally, I have time to sit down and write this post :)

First things first: I made caramel sauce today, from scratch. So proud! I feel more legitimate, somehow, as a person and a cook because of this. But that is another post for another time.

So, back last week when Mark had his wisdom teeth out (plus some) ... (and the week before that, actually), we ate a lot of soup. It is cheap. It is good for when you have dental work. It is delicious, and typically nutritious. And to me, it is a quintessential fall dish :)

Especially this one! It was a new recipe (I've been doing a lot of those lately ... most of them are wins, but I had a major fail last night. Let's just say savory bread pudding is not so savory, nor is it good - it just tastes like soggy bread. I think I'll stick with sweet dessert bread puddings with creme anglaise ... oh, yum!)

I keep getting off-topic.

Ahem. Where were we?

Oh, right. Soup. So, I found this recipe in one of my mom's old cooking notebooks (she has like pages and pages of recipes, and we went through them all the last time I was home), and it is SUCH a keeper.

You start with a basic Roasted Winter Squash recipe. I have no pictures of this step, because I have a new puppy, and had a sickly/sleepy/sore husband at the time. My hands were a little bit full.

Roasted Winter Squash
(This works for butternut, spaghetti, acorn, or just about any other winter squash you can think of.)

3 lb. winter squash
1 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/2 Tbsp. honey
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Remove stem from squash, cut in half lengthwise, remove and discard seeds. (Or save them, roast them, and use them in something else!) Cut each half into 4 wedges, place on baking sheet lined with foil. (If using spaghetti squash, cut each half into 2 wedges.) Stir together butter and honey until blended. Brush squash evenly with butter mixture, then sprinkle evenly with salt and pepper. Bake at 450 degrees for 30-35 minutes until tender, turning once. Cut skins from squash wedges and discard.

Now we can move onto the soup.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup
1 Roasted Winter Squash recipe
3/4 lb. unpeeled, medium fresh shrimp (I actually omitted the shrimp, making this a vegetarian dish, mostly because Mark couldn't chew anything at all. It was fabulous without the shrimp, and I also think it'd be fabulous with them - whatever your fancy!)
32-oz chicken broth
1/2 c. light coconut milk (I actually used the full fat to give the soup a little more thickness, and I probably used more than 1/2 c. Oh well.)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. curry powder (I definitely used more curry than this, and I also used some Rogan Josh for an extra dimension of flavor. Be creative with your curry! I don't think you can go wrong...)
2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro

Mash squash with a potato masher or fork, set aside.

Peel shrimp and devein, set aside. (Obviously, I omitted this step.)
Stir together broth and next 3 ingredients in a Dutch oven over med heat and cook, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat.

(While I was doing this, I also added a step, and an ingredient - I sauteed about half an onion, in order to give the soup a bit more flavor. I just added the sauteed onion to the broth mixture before the next step.)

Process squash and broth mixture together, in batches, in food processor or blender until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides. Return mixture to Dutch oven, add shrimp, and cook over med. heat until thoroughly heated and shrimp turn pink. Sprinkle each serving with cilantro.

I really wish I'd taken a picture of the finished soup, because it was a lovely orangey color totally reminiscent of the season. Oh well. Next time.

It was so, so delicious (even without the shrimp.) The curry complimented the flavor of the squash in the most delightful way, and it was so simple and lovely. I love when food tastes like what it's made out of. (Sounds silly, I know, but it's not as silly as you'd think anymore...)

And now, my pie is calling. Loudly. That'll be another fun post for a different day....

Happy cooking!

Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup

I am a really, really awful blogger. I apologize for the long hiatus ... it's not like we've not been eating absolutely delicious food ... I just got tired of taking pictures while cooking. But, this looked so scrumptious and exciting and FALL-ish that I couldn't resist.

We've been getting gobs of sweet potatoes in our CSA (which, by the way, I ADORE), and I've been coming up with some pretty creative uses for them, thanks in part to Epicurious, and in part to Smitten Kitchen. Oh Deb, you are genius. This particular recipe, by chance, comes from both - originally posted on Epicurious, Deb posted it on HER blog a couple years ago. And I'm posting it again.

It's the perfect recipe for fall/winter, when the weather's getting colder and the leaves are changing and falling, and the perfect recipe for when you've just had dental work done, and your mouth hurts. There's not too much chewing involved, save the sausage.

So here we go.

What you'll need:

-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided

-1 10- to 11-ounce fully cooked smoked Portuguese linguiça sausage or chorizo sausage, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices (I used chorizo)

-2 medium onions, chopped

-2 large garlic cloves, minced

-2 pounds red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams; about 2 large), peeled, quartered lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices

-1 pound white-skinned potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices

-6 cups low-salt chicken broth (I actually used just 4 cups, because I wanted more of a thick hearty stew than a soup...)

-1 9-ounce bag fresh spinach (And I didn't use this much spinach)

To Make:

Chop up all your veggies and sausage.

Then get a really big pot, and heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil over med-hi heat. 

Add the sausage, and brown, cooking for around 8-ish minutes. After it's nice and brown, transfer it to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. 

Then add the onions and garlic to the pot, and cook them till translucent, about 5 minutes. I personally had to add a bit of extra oil, since some of mine poured out onto the paper towels with the sausage.

Once the onions are translucent, then you add all the potatoes. It looks like a TON of potatoes, but it will cook down a bit. You cook them for about 12 minutes, until they're getting soft. It requires a lot of stirring and scraping.

Beautiful :)

Once those babies are nice and soft, add however much chicken broth you want - add more if you want a soup, add less if you want a thicker stew-like something.

Scrape the browned bits off the bottom of your pot, and then bring to a boil.

Once it's boiling, turn the heat down to med-low, cover your pot, and simmer simmer simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

After it's done simmering away, mash some of the potatoes in the pot with a potato masher. 

Then add your sausage.

The original recipe doesn't say this, but I sort of let mine sit for a few minutes and get warm, and let the soup soak up some of that sausage-y taste.

Then add your spinach, stir it in, and let it simmer for another 5 minutes, or until the spinach just wilts.

And voila, you're done! You can add salt and pepper to taste, but I honestly didn't think this soup needed anything extra at all.

I had every intention of making cornbread to go with this, but I completely forgot about it until after the soup was done. I figure I'll whip up a batch tonight, because we'll be eating leftovers for several days anyway, plus some different soup later this week. It's a soup kind of week in the Skinner household.

Hope everyone enjoys - this is DELICIOUS!