Fall Spice:
Butternut Squash Soup

Uppie and I have a slight disagreement when it comes to soup, which she might like more than just about any other food. Don’t get me wrong, I love soup. It’s a wonderful amuse bouche, a small bowl of perfectly melded flavors. But it’s not a meal. It’s the thing you have before the meal starts. Uppie fundamentally disagrees.

Uppie will make soup and assume that’s what we’re eating until its gone. I on the other hand, assume that once I’ve had a bowl, I’m going to be good until the next batch. 

Like many things, it’s possible that soup is just another one of those things that I like the idea of more than the reality. I have a full beard and soup is just another one of those things that makes life difficult for someone with significant facial hair. I love ordering soup in a restaurant. It’s a wonderful starter.

Soup is just not a meal to me.

Uppie considers soup not just a complete meal, but a cure-all for everything that ails you. She really think chicken soup has magical properties that will give your body strength when you’re sick. As opposed to starving to death, I’m sure she’s right, but I don’t know that it’s doing anything more than a Wawa shorti for your cough due to cold.

One of the reasons I think Uppie is so captivated by soup is that she’s so good at making it. She really can’t tell you a recipe and every soup is a little different. She has a basic starting point and then anything goes.

For this batch, she started with some butternut squash she got at the farm stand a few doors down, along with some apples and onions from the same stand. Halved, brushed with olive oil and roasted in the oven, they got cooked down on the stove yesterday. 

Today, after a walk in the woods she pureed the soup and added heavy cream, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, salt and fresh ground pepper. There might be an eyelash from a Newt thrown in when I’m not looking, but whatever she puts in there comes out as magic. 

Not to allow a soup to pass her by as too simple, she roasted seasoned chic peas in the oven to use as croutons, which adds a wonderful texture.

It’s enough to make you rethink humanity’s contribution to the planet.