Simply Delicious Butternut Squash Soup

This isn't a particularly fancy recipe.  It's quite basic, but can be spiced up to suite your menu or mood. The wonderful thing about butternut squash soup is that you don't really need to do much to make it taste good.  Microwave the squash, add liquid and a little salty flavor, and puree.  With just that, it'll taste decent.  Now, if you want to take it up a notch, adding a few extra vegetables and roasting the squash will lend more depth of flavor.  And that's what this recipe has you do, while still coming together pretty quickly and without any fancy ingredients.

If this recipe seems like more work than you feel like on a particular night, microwave the whole squash (make sure to poke holes!!) and omit all extra veggies and the apple except the onion.  I've made it this way and it's still quite tasty.

This will make a good sized pot of soup... I think I got about 8 servings.  It's perfect reheated for lunch the next few days, and it also freezes well.

If you want to make it a little richer, you can add Greek yogurt, milk, or coconut milk at the end.  Coconut milk goes particularly well if you are using the curry powder for seasoning.

What you need:

1 medium/large butternut squash, cut in half lengthwise and seeds removed
Olive oil, salt, and pepper

1-2 teaspoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 celery stalks, sliced
1 apple, cored and sliced/chopped
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste

Seasoning options:

1) 2-3 teaspoons curry powder (or possibly more if you have a mild curry powder)

2) 1-2 chipolte peppers in adobe sauce, added after apple and before broth.
2 teaspoons cumin

Start by roasting the squash.  This can be done ahead of time if you want.  Heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil on the cut sides of the squash.  Season with salt and pepper.  Place cut sides down on a baking sheet.  Roast for about an hour, or until tender.  Remove from oven to let cool enough to handle.  After it has sufficiently cooled, remove skin and cut into large chunks.

Heat a large pot over medium-high.  Add olive oil.  Add the onion, celery, and carrots.  Saute for 5-6 minutes, or until they begin to get a little color.  Add apple.  Saute for a couple more minutes.  Add cooked butternut squash and stir.  Add broth and your choice of the above seasonings.  Once it has come to a boil, cover, reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer for 10-30 minutes.  30 will allow more flavor-melding, but 10 is sufficient, so do what you have time for.

Turn off the heat.  If you an immersion blender- awesome!  Just puree up that soup until smooth.  If not, use a blender.  Let the soup cool a little first (maybe wait 10 minutes), and then transfer in batches to your blender.  Blend each batch until smooth.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

And that's it!  If it's a little too thick for you taste, thin with water, broth, or milk.  Enjoy!

Roasted Beets and Butternut Squash with Rosemary and Sage

This is a great fall or winter side dish.  Perfect for Thanksgiving next week too!  It is comforting and warm, hearty yet healthy, and just so delicious.  You can add in other hardy vegetables too- parsnips, sweet potatoes, carrots, rutabaga all work well.  And you can certainly omit the rosemary and sage if you want, but I had some already and thought that they'd be a nice change of pace from my usual more basic roasted vegetables.  They add a subtle earthy "herbiness" and fall flavor.  I also added a couple jalapenos for some kick, and, boy, did they add a kick.  We like spicy around here, but you'll probably want to leave those out if you don't. :-)

I served this with seared tuna steaks.  The leftovers would make a great topping for a salad with goat cheese, nuts, and a light vinaigrette.

What you need:

I medium butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks

1 1/2 pounds beets (I think I used 7 medium/small ones), ends cut off and cut into 1 inch chunks

2 jalapenos, stems removed, cut into 3-4 pieces
Olive Oil

1-2 teaspoons cumin

A few sprigs of fresh rosemary and a few sage leaves

Salt and Pepper

Heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place your cut up beets, squash, and jalapenos in a large bowl.  Your squash pieces should definitely be larger than the beet pieces!  They cook faster.  Drizzle with olive oil (I try to keep it light, using about 2 tablespoons).  Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt and cumin.  Add the rosemary and sage.  Toss everything around to make sure the oil and salt are evenly dispersed.  Spread this on a 13 by 9 inch sheet pan.  Roast for about an hour, mixing halfway through.  If you want a little extra crisp on them, leave them a little longer and turn the heat up to 425.

Remove rosemary stems. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!!

Thai Curry Chicken with Butternut Squash

This is an easy recipe to put together on a weeknight... especially since I used a store-bought jar of Thai Red Curry Sauce from Trader Joe's.  You can sub in a different sauce if you want, or play around with making your own- coconut milk and a lot of curry powder would probably do the trick.

Lately, I've been making a lot of chicken in the oven while I do some sort of vegetable on the stove. Super easy, and you don't have to monitor two frying pans at once. A two and a half pound bag of chicken tenderloins lasts us for three or four dinners, and I just make new vegetables to go with the leftovers to mix it up.

I had leftover cooked butternut squash from last week when I made Coconut Curry Butternut Squash Soup.  Some of it got used up over the weekend when I made some nachos and added chunks of cooked squash to them (give it a try!), but I still had a over a quarter of my large squash.  And I had this jar of sauce that I bought on a whim sometime earlier.

So I went with it.  You could leave out the butternut squash if you want, but it really added to the dish.  In fact, next time I'll be adding more.  Because I had a lot of chicken, I added a few spices.  But if you had less chicken, there'd be no need and you could just stick with the jar of sauce.  You could also jazz it up with some onion, fresh ginger, and/or jalapenos if you have the time or inclination.

What you need:

2 1/2 pounds of chicken tenderloins
I (11 ounce) jar of Thai Red Curry Sauce
1-2 teaspoons curry powder
1-2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
~2 cups cubed cooked butternut squash (or more, but that's all I had on hand.  Next time I'll be adding more)

Heat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.  Mix everything but the squash together in a 13 x 9 inch baking pan or casserole dish.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Add squash and mix it in.  Bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through (internal temp registers 165 F if you use a thermometer).  Or cut into a couple and make sure the juices run clear.  Enjoy!

Coconut Curry Butternut Squash Soup

It was a rainy fall day- perfect for soup!  This soup is easy to make and delicious.  I made sauteed mushrooms and some Quick Sauteed Seafood to top it.

What you need:

1 medium butternut squash (I actually had a pretty big one, but only used a little over half of it in the soup)
1 teaspoon coconut oil (or oil olive or butter)
1 medium-large onion, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 inches of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
~3 tablespoons curry powder (or a red curry paste would be better... but I didn't have any!)
4 cups chicken broth
1 can (15 ounces) light coconut milk (or 1/2 of a can of regular.  Trader Joe's only had light, but I usually get the regular and use half.  The light stuff is just watered down regular anyway)

Start by roasting the squash:
      You can do this a few different ways.  I always bake/roast it.  This time I did it whole.  Heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (no need to preheat).  Poke your squash a few times with a fork.  Bake for about an hour and a half, two hours if you have a large squash.  The squash should be tender.

Now, for the rest:
      Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Add in the onion, ginger, and garlic.  Saute for 3-5 minutes.  Add in the curry powder.  Stir that around for a minute or two and let it get nice and fragrant.  Add a little chicken broth and deglaze the pan.  Add the rest of the chicken broth and the roasted squash and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and let simmer for about 15 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Add in the coconut milk.  Puree with an immersion blender or regular blender (just be careful if using a regular one... might want to let it cool a bit!).

Top with green onions, some crushed red pepper, greek yogurt, or whatever else you feel like.  Or this Sauteed Seafood recipe.  Or leave it plain, 'cause that's tasty too.

Lamb Stew with Winter Squash, Ginger, and Spinach

Wow!  It's been a while since I posted.  After moving back to the States from Saba, I got so caught up on just being able to DRIVE places and see family that I completely forgot about doing any blogging.  Now we're moving around while Rob does his clinical rotations and I am spending a lot of time by myself again.

This recipe is for a lamb stew that uses boneless leg of lamb.  Leg of lamb is fairly expensive, but I add a lot of vegetables, which both ups the healthiness and stretches it a lot farther.  I cut the leg of lamb in half, trim the fat from both pieces, and plop one of them in the freezer for next time.   Just the half leg is enough for about 6 hearty servings.

This is a very easy method and can be used to inspire lots of variations.  I vary the vegetables pretty much every time I make it, but this version is what I made last.

I was going away for a few days and leaving Rob home all alone, so I made a pot of this to last him for a few dinners (and a perfect post driving all day meal for me when I got back home).

Not the most appealing looking, but I promise it's super tasty!

What you need:

Half of a boneless leg of lamb (~ 2-2.5 pounds)
1-2 teaspoons coconut oil or oil olive
1 two inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped (I prefer roughly for this recipe)
3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 celery stalks, sliced
1 red bell pepper, chopped roughly
1-2 jalapenos, sliced
1 medium kabocha squash, cut in half and seeds removed
1/2 cup red wine or beef broth
5 ounces spinach (fresh or frozen)
Cardamon, salt, and pepper to taste


Heat coconut oil in a large pot over high heat.  Sear the lamb on all sides, about 4-5 minutes per side. It should develop a nice brown color, almost to the point of looking black in spots.  Then add in the ginger, onion, celery, red bell pepper, and jalapenos.  Stir and saute this for a few minutes, allowing the vegetables to get a little color on them.  Then add in the wine or broth, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pot.  Turn the heat down to medium-low, cover, and let simmer for about 3 hours.  The lamb should become very tender and fall apart.

While the lamb cooks, roast the squash:  Place cut side down on a baking sheet and roast in a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven until tender, about 30-45 minutes.  Once cooled, remove the skin.

Add the roasted squash and the spinach to the pot about 20 minutes before lamb is cooked to completion.  Add in cardamon, salt, and pepper to taste.  Let simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve garnished with Greek yogurt and siracha if desired.  This stuff gets better after it sits for a day, so feel free to make it a day ahead if you have those kind of planning skills!

Spicy Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

I haven't been posting many of the soup recipes I've been making lately because I figured it would be soup overload (I've been making at least a couple batches a week of different types of pureed vegetable soups). But this one was too good to not write down and consequently forget about.  It's definitely pretty spicy, and I like spicy things.  Just use a milder type of hot pepper, such as jalapeno or Serrano, and also maybe take out the seeds if you don't want it very spicy.  

What you need:

1 large butternut squash, cut in half or quartered, seeds removed
Olive oil spray
Salt and pepper
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
1 medium/large onion, chopped
2 small hot peppers (I used Thai chili peppers), stems removed
2 chipotle peppers plus a bit of adobe sauce
2 small apples, cored and roughly chopped
2 stalks of celery, sliced
5-6 cups chicken broth
2 cups milk of choice (I used a combination of 1% and almond milk... if I hadn't been running out of the almond milk, I would have just used that)
1/4 cup fat free cream cheese (optional- I added it because mine was a bit too spicy and I figured this would help mellow it out)
1 tablespoon garlic-ginger paste


Start by heating the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Spray a baking sheet with olive oil.  Season cut side of the butternut squash with salt and pepper, and then place, skin side up, on the baking sheet.  Roast for 45 minutes to an hour, or until cooked through.  Let cool a bit and remove skin.  Chop roughly.

Heat 1-2 teaspoons of olive oil in a large pot on medium-high heat.  Add onions, peppers, and celery, along with a generous pinch of salt.  Saute for 5-10 minutes, or until vegetables are softened and browning slightly. Add in the apple and saute for a couple more minutes.  Add the roasted squash and the broth.  Bring to a simmer while stirring occasionally   Cover and reduce heat to medium-low.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Turn off heat, add the milk, cream cheese, and ginger-garlic paste.  Puree with an immersion blender until smooth. Enjoy!

Pumpkin and Butternut Squash Soup

Pretending that it's Fall even though it never feels that way on Saba.  I was going to make a purely pumpkin soup, but they didn't have the fresh pumpkin in the grocery stores that they usually have.  However, they did actually have butternut squash, which is a rarity.  So I got that and a can of pumpkin and made do.  The results were pretty great and I didn't miss the fresh pumpkin at all.  Try serving it with croutons (I made some homemade ones) and maybe a little goat cheese.

What you need:

1 medium/large butternut squash

Olive oil spray

Salt and pepper

1 medium/large onion, chopped

1 leek, white part only, chopped

2 small/medium apples, cored and chopped, peeling optional (it all gets blended in the end, and the peel is healthy, and less work!)

5 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin

4 cups chicken broth

4 cups Silk coconut milk (not the regular canned kind.. that would make this really high fat and creamy- though probably delicious, so I go for it if you aren't concerned about the fat) OR try regular skim/ 1% milk or maybe almond milk

Start with roasting the squash:

Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Slice squash in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds, spray with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and place cut-side down on a baking sheet.  Roast for 40 minutes to an hour, or until it is cooked thoroughly (easily pierced by a fork).  Remove from oven and let cool until you can remove its skin.

For the rest of the soup:

Spray a large pot with olive oil.  Heat over medium and add the onion, leek, apple, and garlic.  Sprinkle in a little salt to get things going.  Cook until softened and just slightly browned.  Add in the roasted squash and can of pumpkin.  Stir and let brown just SLIGHTLY.  Add in the chicken broth and let simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.  Turn heat off, add in the milk and puree with an immersion blender until smooth.  Season with additional salt and pepper if needed.  Annnnnnd, that's it!  Pretty simple to make and super tasty!  Enjoy!