Food Friday: Butternut Squash Soup

A wonderful brother and sister couple that we love (who are living their later years together as they are both widowed) grow a fabulous garden each year.  They are very generous with their produce.  They gave us two beautiful butternut squashes and a large blue hubbard squash.  I love squash and decided to make it into soup.

To start out I washed the squash, cut off both ends, then cut off the seed receptacle and cleaned out the seeds. (This time I did not roast the seeds. Wasteful, I know, but sometimes...)  I placed the squash pieces, cut side down, on a large rimmed baking sheet and roasted in the oven at 350 degrees F. for 50 minutes.

Squash ready to roast

After the squash cooled, I scooped it out of the skins.  There was almost 3 cups of cooked squash.  At this point I put the other ingredients together.

2 medium potatoes, chopped
1 cup chopped carrots
1 large onion chopped
2 cups chopped celery

(The carrots and celery were from some vegetable sticks I had cut a week ago and put into the refrigerator.  For some reason the refrigerator froze them so they were not so fun to eat BUT chopped and put in soup they were superb...!)

In a large saucepan I placed the chopped vegetables and a lot of water.  Brought them to a boil then turned down the heat to simmer them until they were nice and soft.  After the water came to a boil I stirred in:

1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon/large pinch dried thyme
1.5 teaspoons of Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Seasoning

When everything cooked and was soft, I tasted the broth.  It was not quite salty enough for me so I added some ham broth powder (which I had found on a clearance table at a grocery near us...ham broth flavoring something I had never heard of before) which added a nice flavor as well as the needed salt.

At this point I carefully dumped in the cooked squash then (finally! successfully!) used the immersion blender we had given to my mother-in-law for Christmas many years ago which was still in the box when she died in 2007 and which we then brought home.  I have never been successful before.  Honestly, this is only about the third time I have used it...

Anyway, this made a nice sort of smooth soup that tastes really yummy.  It sure hits the spot on a cold and snowy day.  I did need to add more water several times while it was cooking since I really like broth-y soups.  Actually, a good soup broth is the best part of the coup..