If the weather is not enough to let you know it’s Fall, the farmer’s market will. Every other stand has a beautiful selection of fall veggies, including many types of squash. After laughing about how some pumpkins were bigger than Ice (our dog); I picked up a butternut and a delicata. My goal was to make a glowing orange, fall soup that could shine above the rest, something to really get people excited about squash soup.
Jessica and I LOVE the finished product. It is perfect, seriously. The spice and fall flavors combine perfectly, this soup will make you feel warmed for the cool weather. While eating it, Jessica said she could imagine herself sitting in a log cabin, by a fire, drinking this soup.
Unsquashed Squash Soup
~ approximately 10 cups
Ingredients
- ~8 cups roughly cubed Butternut Squash (1 good size squash)
- ~2 cups roughly cubed Delicata Squash, (1 squash)
- 2 tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
- Fresh Cracked Black Pepper
- 6 ounces Bacon (3 thick-cut slices), cut in 1″ wide pieces
- 1.5 cups roughly chopped Yellow Onion (2 small onions)
- 1 cup roughly chopped Carrot (2 large carrots)
- 1 cup roughly chopped Parsnip (1 parsnip)
- 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon Turmeric Powder
- 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper Powder
- 1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/8 teaspoon Allspice Powder
- 8 cups Chicken Broth or Bouillon equivalent (room temp.)
- 1 tablespoon Buckwheat Honey (or any dark honey)
- 3 Roasted Pasilla Peppers, roughly chopped (seeded) (use Poblano if Pasilla not available)
- 1/2 Lemon
- 1″ of Ginger, peeled & roughly chopped
- 2″ Cinnamon Stick
- 1 teaspoon Black Peppercorns
- 2 large Bay Leaves
- Parsnip Leaves, rinsed and most of stems removed.
Instructions
- Spread squash on a sheet pan, toss with salt, a few twists of black pepper, and oil. Roast at 350 deg F for 25 minutes; turn once; roast another 10 minutes.
- Prepare a bouquet garnet (wrap in a cheese cloth) of lemon, ginger, cinnamon, peppercorns, bay leaves, and parsnip leaves.
- Render bacon, in a large stock pot over low heat. When browned, remove bacon meat, set aside.
- Sautee onions, carrots, parsnip, garlic, and red pepper until carrots are softened, about 8-10 minutes. Add turmeric, allspice, and cayenne, cook another minute.
- Deglaze pot with vinegar. Then add chicken stock and honey, stir well. Add bouquet garnet and raise heat to high and bring to a boil. Then reduce to low and simmer for an hour.
- Turn off heat, remove bouquet, and blend soup (I used stick blender, but traditional is good too). Taste for final seasoning (salt & pepper).
Serve soup piping hot and garnished with reserved bacon. If you were so inclined, you could salt and toast the delicata squash seeds and use those for garnish as well (but I did not). I love the green specks of pasilla and red specks of red pepper. It’s a beautiful, delicious soup.
Filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
I made butternut squash soup last night; I used apples and coriander. But I love the spices in your recipe; I bet they work really well.
Love the top picture.
Looks good–I love the bacon garnish.
I love squash and making soup with these lovely fall beauties is divine. Can’t wait to try that recipe. Nice crispy bacon on top of that pic.
Erik, yum, apples and squash, favorites of this season!
K&S;, thanks!
Asianmommy, the soup was just too healthy otherwise, haha
Manger la ville, these farmer's market squash are so tempting aren't they?
that’s a massive list of ingredients, but it sounds like the soup was worth the effort. looks perfect from my desk chair. 🙂
Grace, I know! haha, I said to Jessica as I was writing the post that the ingredient list was a bit ridiculous. However, after your comment I went back to look at one of my all-time best soup/stew recipes: Fusion Chili. It has won many award from various people submitting it to contests as their own. I was thinking it was more complicated, but I realized… it has the exact same number of ingredients (23)! Apparently, 23 is the magic number.