Recipe: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Squash season is quickly coming upon us and nothing feels more like fall than a beautiful squash and apple soup. This is a variation on a previous butternut squash soup I have made. This makes it a little easier (less labour) and removes the dairy, but keeps all the flavour and silky texture. I enjoy making this soup all winter as organic apples and squash seem to be readily available all year long.

The Recipe: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup 1 large butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes 1 large cooking onion roughly chopped 4 cloves of garlic roughly chopped 2 apples, peeled, seeded and quartered 1 tsp fresh groung nutmeg 1 tsp cinnamon 3 tbsp butter 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp sea salt 4 cups of chicken stock

Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients except stock in a casserole dish and place in oven for 45 minutes or until squash is very tender, stirring occasionally to ensure the oil and butter coat all the ingredients and nothing browns. In a large pot (you will add the squash to the same pot) heat the stock to a simmer and turn down. Remove squash from the oven and put all the contents in a blender (you may need to do a couple blender batches in you have a smaller blender). Add a small amount of the stock to the blender, start blended slowly and increase speed until very smooth adding stock as required to ensure it will blend properly. BE VERY CAREFUL WITH HOT INGREDIENTS IN A BLENDER AS THE PRESSURE CAN BLOW THE LID OFF AND CAUSE BURNS AND A GIANT MESS (speaking from experience), Always place a oven mit or tea towel over the lid and hold tight! Once blended, strain the mixture through a sieve into the pot with the stock. The mixture will have to be worked through the sieve with a spoon and it will take a little work, but this makes all the difference. Stir into the the stock and add sea salt to taste, place on stove top and bring back up to heat. Careful you do not heat too much or the soup will burn on the bottom (this is why we pre-heated the stock). Enjoy!