So it’s Sunday and Sara is off on her cruise. A whole week in Bermuda….not gonna lie I am a little jealous. I am dog-sitting for her and her family while they are gone, which means….it’s just me and 4 dogs for a whole week! GULP!!! Don’t get me wrong I love dogs. I have one…his name is Bentley and he is a Beagle mix and is all hound. He barks at everything…and yes it is that unbelievably loud, nail grating, Beagle bark. But I love him anyway. Well the thing with these 4 dogs, is that they all have their little quirks that when you add them all together… it makes for an entertaining time. One is old and blind, one is scared of the house and won’t leave the bedroom (the is where the man with the beard lives, Sara’s dad, which is her arch nemesis!), one is scared of me and keeps hiding under things (so I keep having mini heart attacks thinking I lost her), and then there is my dog…who can’t figure out why the others don’t want to play! Poor guy, he is trying so hard. All I can say is that it is going to be an entertaining week.
But I digress. I am in Virginia this week (where Sara lives) and it is beautiful here. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, right above the Shenandoah Valley. It is an amazing place to be in fall. All the leaves on the mountains are changing colors, and the scenery is breathtaking. On top of that the weather has been crisp and sunny. Really it’s perfect!
I don’t know about you, but to me this weather just calls for soup. And in an attempt to further immerse myself in the fall spirit, I decided to make a Roasted Butternut Squash Soup. It was delicious. I started out by roasting the butternut squash, which gave it an extra depth of flavor. In addition, I added a couple of pinches of cayenne pepper, giving it just a little kick and cutting the sweet. For my local ingredient I used fresh picked Fuji Apples, which we picked ourselves on a local farm.
The soup was amazing! Creamy, flavorful, with just the perfect amount of spice. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Local Ingredient: Fresh Fuji Apples (we picked them ourselves!)
Local Ingredient: Fuji Apples
We halved and roasted our large butternut squash.
After the squash was roasted, we sauteed our onions, carrots and celery in a large stock pot.
Once the vegetables were slightly translucent and tender we added the butternut squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne, salt and pepper.
We simmered the ingredients for 30 mins. Then we pureed the soup using an immersion blender.
The pureed soup.
Ingredients
1 large butternut squash
3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
2 medium Fuji apples, peeled, cored and diced
½ large red onion, diced
1 celery stalk, chopped
4 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
2 pinches cayenne pepper
Sea salt, to taste
Fresh ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Cut the butter squash in half length wise and clean out the seeds. Place on a baking sheet and drizzle with a little olive oil. Place in oven to roast for about 1 – 1 ½ hours until fork tender.
- Scrape out the inside of the butternut squash and set aside in a bowl.
- Heat drizzle of olive oil in a stock pot over medium high heat.
- Sauté onions, celery, and carrots until soft.
- Add diced apples and sauté for 2-3 minutes or until they start to cook down and carrots begin to caramelize from the apple juices.
- Add chicken broth, butternut squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Stir until blended well. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer for 30 minutes.
- Using an immersion blender, puree the mixture until creamy. Or pour the mixture into a food processor or table top blender and blend until smooth.
- Serve warm.
[…] I decided to changes things up at dinner time and make some homemade Butternut Squash […]