October 17, 2017
A few days ago, I was telling a friend of mine “I can’t believe the Fall weather we’ve been having. The past few weeks have been fantastic”. Then Mother Nature decided to remind us that it’s the middle of October and that the lovely weather won’t last forever. In the span of a few hours the temperature dropped from 22 degrees to 9 degrees, and that’s after hitting us with some high winds and some heavy rains yesterday afternoon. This change in the weather is what nudged my body into craving something hot and comforting. Gone are the last few days of raw vegetables and cold salad.
I decided that today’s Monday night meal would still put the emphasis on vegetables (in honour of meatless Mondays) but I would focus on roasting and then boiling those veggies into a soup. I’ve decided to share one of my favourites with you: Butternut Squash. Although I enjoy the creamy texture of butternut squash soup, I don’t particularly like the added calories that normally come with this type of ‘cream’ soup so I’ve omitted the cream (or milk) in favour of vegetable or chicken broth.
This soup tastes delicious and is loaded with vitamins A and C. One cup of butternut squash provides 298% of the daily value for Vitamin A and 49% of the daily value for Vitamin C. One cup of butternut squash also provides 11% of the daily value for fiber. This recipe calls for very few ingredients but feel free to substitute with some of your other favourite vegetables.
Soup’s On!
Ingredients
- 2 T Olive oil
- 1 t Sea salt
- 1 t Pepper
- 3 cups butternut squash, chopped
- 1 cup sweet potato, chopped
- ½ small onion, chopped
- 6 cups of vegetable or chicken broth
- 1 t Herbes Salees (Salted Herbs Preserve – popular cooking condiment from Quebec) **optional
- 1 t Cumin
Instructions
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F).
In a large bowl, toss vegetables with olive oil and salt and pepper. Mix well. Arrange coated vegetables in an even layer on a baking sheet.
Roast for 30 minutes. Squash and sweet potatoes should be brown and tender.
Empty roasted vegetables into a medium pot and add broth.
Bring to a boil over medium high heat then simmer gently for approximately 20-25 minutes.
Turn off heat and let sit for 15 minutes, until cooled slightly.
Using a hand blender, puree the soup until it has reached your preferred consistency.
Notes
I sometimes use a ‘regular’ blender when I want a thinner smoother soup. Be careful with this method because the soup will still be hot and you don’t want to get burned with the steam when you take the lid off the blender.
If you prefer a bit of that creamy taste, you can also reduce the broth to 5 cups and add 1 cup of 1% milk into the pureed soup.
Serve with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt and some fresh bread.
