Squash Soup

It was cold and rainy when I got home from school yesterday.  It seemed like the perfect day to have soup for dinner.

Last week one of my neighbours gave me a squash from her garden. At the time, I cut it up and put it in the freezer, thinking I would use it next month for Thanksgiving, but I decided instead that it would become the base for my soup.

I placed my  enameled cast-iron Dutch oven on the stove, added about 1 tablespoon of canola oil and switched the stove on to heat up the oil.

Putting on my onion-cutting goggles (I hate the fumes that make my eyes sting), I chopped an onion into chunks, and put it the pieces into the pot to cook.






While the onions were cooking, I grated some fresh ginger, about a tablespoon, and added it to the pot with the onions.  Next I coarsely chopped about three cloves of good garlic and added the pieces to the pot.



When the onions were translucent, I added the squash (it was a big squash, so if you were buying acorn squash, I would suggest getting two of them!), one chopped carrot, and  1/2 chopped sweet potato to the pot, and I added enough vegetable broth to cover everything.  I added about a tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper and about one teaspoon of Trader Joe's everday spice.   I let the contents of the pot come to a boil, then I put the lid on, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.



At this point all of the veggies in the pot were very soft.   Now comes the fun part.  Using my immersible hand-held blender (it's a Kitchenaid with ten speeds - super handy!) I pureed the soup in just about fifteen seconds.  This is much quicker, neater and safer way to puree a pot of soup: there is no need to be moving hot soup around the kitchen to put it in and out of a blender or food processor.





I served it into bowls and we ate it in the living room sitting in front of our fake fireplace.