Lizzie has ruined me. She told me a few days ago that she tried to re-create the squash bisque I got at our first blogger meetup. Even though that particular bisque was made with summer squash, I haven’t been able to get the idea of butternut squash soup out of my head.
I had these teensy little things from our CSA that I needed to use up…
So I searched the Food Network website for a recipe and found this gem. In addition to the two puny squashes (seriously…look how tiny:
Looks like sushi, right?), I used two packages of frozen squash from Publix (and next time, I’ll ONLY use the frozen stuff…so much easier than peeling and de-seeding and chopping), and I used a can of diced tomatoes instead of whole. I’ve been disappointed before with the blandness of homemade soup, but this recipe taught me a trick that will hopefully work for other recipes:
BALSAMIC VINEGAR!!1!!!!11 Seriously, I could drink this stuff by itself – why haven’t I poured it in my soup before?? It added some mad depth of flavor.
A giant orange mug, some parmesan cheese and extra balsamic vinegar, and I was good to go:
This mug is the Cafe Au Lait mug from Pier1, and it’s my professional opinion that everyone needs one. It holds all 4 cups’ worth of coffee from my little coffee maker, and I haven’t used another mug since I’ve gotten it.
In addition to the soup, I made chicken in the same vein as the pork with apples and onions I made a couple of weeks ago, but I covered it in foil for the first 20 minutes and then uncovered it for 10…aaaaand it was still undercooked so I nuked it for 5 minutes.
And then I exploded.
What’s your favorite fall or winter soup?
EDIT: I hadn’t read Lizzie’s latest post about butternut squash when I wrote this…how insane is that coincidence??