A "Soup-er" Day

It was very hot and humid this past week.  I am hot natured and sweat buckets-ful around this time of year.  I really don't enjoy soup in hot weather as I'm looking for something to cool me off after being outdoors.  However, it was raining, and my wife said, "It looks like soup weather."  I guess you could look outside and trick yourself into believing that it was a cold, rainy day, if you had an active imagination.

Tricia had already pulled out one of the last Butternut Squashes that we harvested and had positioned a sharp knife over it.  I really wanted to save it for later, when it got cold.  Butternut squash store nicely.  But it was not to be.  She plunged the knife deep into the flesh of the butternut, killing the squash along with my hopes of butternut squash soup on the first cold front of the season.

The squash was beautiful, orange, and meaty.  The color of the squash screams "fall" or "autumn!"  The temperature outside is still screaming, "SUMMER!"

Tricia always has fresh chicken broth stored in the fridge, so she was good to go as far as ingredients.  She started throwing things together in the kitchen.  She uses Emeril's recipe for Butternut squash soup.  It goes like this:

1 Butternut squash (approx. 2 lbs.)
2 T butter

1 Cup onion

1 1/2 tsp garlic

1 1/2 cup carrots, thinly sliced

1/2 tsp cumin, ground

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 T jalapeno, finely minced

2 Cups chicken stock

1/4 cup cream

Cut the squash in half and scoop out seeds.  Peel and cut in 1" pieces.  Heat butter.  Add onions and garlic.  Cook about 5 minutes.  Add carrot, cumin, salt & pepper.  Cook 1 minute.  Add squash, jalapeno and stock.  Simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Puree.  Add Cream.

And here is the final product:

Hot soup on a hot day.  I added more jalapenos and some green onion tops for additional flavor.  This is some delicious soup.  I'm talking restaurant quality style.  So rich and smooth and creamy and tasty!

I asked Tricia for one favor.  I asked her to save some seeds from the pretty butternut.  She did just that.  She scooped out the seeds and put them in a bowl.

Then she washed off the stringy material and separated it from the seeds.  The seeds were placed on a paper napkin on the window sill to dry.  Once dry, I'll package them and label and date the package.

These were organic, open pollinated butternut squash so I should end up with good stock when these germinate.  I'll try to get some of these in the ground shortly so that we can enjoy many more soups, in cold weather this time.