Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Apple Squash Soup

Recipe #98: Apple Squash Soup

If it's possible to fall in love with the enemy, I have done so after making this soup. Squash and I have never been friends for as long as I can remember. Whenever squash is served - usually at a family holiday get-together or something similar because my mother knows I avoid it at her house - I give it the ol' evil eye and eat extra mashed potatoes instead. However, I am wise enough now to recognize the nutritional benefits of squash so I decided to see if I could fool my palate by eating the evil vegetable hidden in a soup.

Soup-to-be  

The worst part of making this pot of deliciousness was peeling and dicing the butternut squash and the sweet potato. I've never dealt with butternut squash before and today, I discovered that it oozes clear sap-ish stuff when you cut it. Weird. I had to manhandle it quite a bit to get all of the skin off with the knife after discovering that my peeler was not up to the job. I also had to stop to sharpen the knife I was using - yes, I worked so hard that I dulled my knife! Ok, maybe not, but it sounds good. This be one dense vegetable and I have the calloused hands to prove it.

I ended up buying 2 squashes (squashi? squishes?) at the store this morning to get the weight called for in the recipe. I guessed on the sweet potato weight and went for a "medium" size one. For apples, I used Spartan because they were from Canada and the cheaper ones next to them were not. The chicken stock tetra that I used all of (said 900 mL on the container, but measured to 4 cups...?) was the no-salt-added kind by Campbell's. I opted for the dried spices since I already had them on hand; I actually added the 1 tsp of salt (I don't normally add salt) since the stock had none added; and I freehand measured the pepper as I am prone to doing. Grind, grind, grind, stir, grind, grind, good enough. I used regular Carnation Evaporated Milk instead of the 2% or Fat-Free, and then I used some of the leftover to make more tea. Mmmm.....

As far as the cooking goes, this soup was very easy to make. Once it got to boiling, I could finish the dishes and attempt to restore order in the kitchen which actually ended up more like me checking Facebook and texting friends. What dishes? Ha! Although we own a food processor, I don't like using it because it has all these blades and parts that I have to clean afterward so I pureed the soup in the old-school blender. I hate cleaning it, too, but at least I know it better. I learned from painful past experience to puree small batches at a time - no more pea soup burns on my arm!
Soup SO GOOD!

At last, it was time to taste the soup and - oh, joy! What delight! This soup is SO GOOD! Mine has a nice flavour to it (probably from the pepper, in part), and it's filling and nutritious. I'm bringing some to my yoga buddy tomorrow morning for her breakfast. I think I might need to eat more of this one for dinner tonight!