butternut squash & apple soup

This soup. This soup makes me feel like a kitchen goddess of some kind. The success of this soup makes me think that I can now attempt to make homemade breads and those pretty macarons everyone out there is making. The tastiness of this soup was, frankly, quite empowering, and I recommend you make it, stat.

There are apples in here. How crazy is that?! There's pumpkin ale in here. Heck, I even substituted my favorite hard apple cider for apple juice and threw it in here. You can pretty much do anything you like to soup, I discovered. And it came out delicious. Like, really, really good. If you taste carefully, you'll be able to pick out each and every ingredient, though the sweet notes of the apple really shine.

Butternut Squash & Apple Soup

I found this recipe over here, but made changes because, 1. I didn't have all the right spices, 2. I felt like adding a hint of pumpkin in there, and 3. I also wanted to add carrots and garlic and whatnot. Whatever you do, this seems like a pretty solid starting point. Here's my version.

1 medium onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

2 small apples, peeled, cored, and diced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large butternut squash, halved, with seeds removed (I used pre-chopped squash from the market)

3 cups chicken stock (you can also use vegetable!)

1/2 cup pumpkin ale (or any dark beer)

1/2 cup hard apple cider (or apple juice)

1 large carrot, chopped

2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced

salt, pepper, parsley, and oregano to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Rub some olive oil on halved squash and roast it for about 45-60 minutes, til soft. I put mine in a baking dish and covered it with aluminum foil to keep it from drying out.

In the meantime, saute the onions, apples, celery and carrots in a large pot with some olive oil until soft. Add the roasted butternut squash (cut it into smaller pieces if you need to) and the garlic, and saute 5 minutes more.

Deglaze the pot with pumpkin ale and hard apple cider, and stir.

Add chicken stock and seasonings. Simmer about 10 minutes.

Puree in blender in small batches. Return to the pot to reheat if necessary. Serve sprinkled with parsley, and swirled with a dash of milk, if you like.