Butternut squash is one of those few ingredients that really has it all. It’s beautiful to look it, full of nutrition, low in fat, and delicious. I had some leftover pureed squash as well as a small whole raw one, so I thought I’d make a quick, lazy soup. I started by halving my uncooked squash, removing the seeds, and coating it with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. I preheated the oven to 350 and put the squash, cut side down, into the the Dutch oven I wanted to make the soup in. I then sort of forgot about it, probably for about 30 minutes.
I made sure it was nice and soft before I took it out and put a whole onion, halved and sliced thin, in its place, along with some more olive oil and salt. Then I proceeded to work, and I forgot about them, probably for an hour. When I retrieved them, they were sweet, brown, and caramelized.
Next, I scraped the roasted squash into the pot with the onions in big, soft chunks. After that I poured in some chicken stock I had in the fridge, maybe three cups, and the aforementioned leftover puree, about one cup. Then I put the lid on, put the heat on low, and retreated to the sofa to watch Oprah interview Sarah Palin on DVR.
(What? I love to hate Sarah Palin. Sure, she makes my skin crawl, and yet I cannot turn away. If you missed it, rest assured, Sarah Palin remains nonsensical and ridiculous in every way.)
Anyway, when that was all wrapped up (only 40 minutes on DVR) I stirred the soup, killed the heat, swirled in cream and Parmesan cheese, and decided to against blending it and called it butternut squash bisque. Dan will never know I left it chunky out of laziness. And you know what? The brown strands of onions and chunky bits of squash really give it a welcome hearty texture.
And, see, now Dan has a good leftover lunch to take to work tomorrow. I owe him one for all the work he did on this blog tonight.
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I really like squash a lot and wish I could get the rest of my family on board. For now, I’m sneaking it into things, like vegetable soup and hoping they’ll change their minds about it one day.
dan is so lucky,.he has you for a wife, and you feed him well!!!!!
So, I saw this post and immediately bought a squash. I’ve been feeling inadequate hearing about everyone else’s adventures in pie baking, but squash I can handle.
I get to cook over the next few days, so hopefully I get to implement some of the ideas … but at least I have squash.