Tag: blender soup

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Squash Soup

Autumn is my favorite season of the year; I love the colors, the smells, the beginnings of a chill in the air and this soup is Fall in a bowl. Make this for your friends and they will think you are fancy as fuck! They don’t have to know how easy it is. For real.

My kids love this soup. We often eat it as an alternative to that sickeningly sweet condensed mess that most people call tomato soup. It also happens to be pretty healthy, just by accident, not by virtue. I suppose you could add some more rich and fatty elements, but I really don’t think it needs it. No need to gild the lily! It is especially good with a crusty grilled cheese sandwich on the side for dippin’.

I have no idea why so many recipes call for peeling the squash first. If you roast it, there is no good reason to make yourself crazy doing this. Just hack that baby in half, put it on a sheet pan and throw it in the oven to roast. This is a good tip for roasting pumpkins for pie or other uses as well.

I’ve used both acorn and butternut squashes and pumpkin for this soup. Pick what you like. Cut it, place cut sides down on a lined sheet pan or any other baking dish and roast it in the oven at somewhere between 350 and 400 degrees, you decide, until it is easily pierced with a fork. Let it cool a bit until you can easily handle it (I usually skip this step due to my own impatience and pay the price of burned fingers). Use a big spoon to scoop out the seeds and other stringy stuff from the middle. Then scoop out the flesh into a blender. Incidentally, my dogs (and cats I have had in the past) go nuts for the leftover skin; waste not want not! Add a spoonful of broth paste (I use Better Than Bouillon @betterthanbouillon), chicken or veggie. Salt and pepper. Thin out with a milk type product (I usually go non-dairy) and blend til smooth. You can thin this out as much as you like, just adjust the amount of liquid added. Then pop it into a pot and warm it to serving temp on the stove. I like to finish mine with a drizzle of Navidi’s @navidiscamas white truffle oil and some good grindings of black pepper.

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Asparagus Potato Soup

I love roasted asparagus! But what to do with the left over parts of the stalks? I have always just snapped the stalks to see where they naturally break in order to find the most tender parts for roasting, but it kinda hurts to throw so much of it away.

I tried using the reject parts to make vegetable stock once, but it tasted sort of weird and looked murky.  I do have a non-discriminating old dog who eats them like jerky sticks, but I really wanted to find a way to make them tasty, for human consumption. Enter this soup.

I chopped up the more tender parts of the leftover stalks into thin rounds and discarded the really woody end parts. Sautéed some shallots in olive oil (butter would be good here to, alone or in combo with the oil). Added most of the asparagus parts for a minute or so, but kept a few aside as well. Peeled a few  soft, sprouting, aged potatoes found in the bottom of a fridge drawer and diced them up. Added potatoes to the pot and enough stock to cover (I used veggie because The Vegans were dining with us) and simmered until potatoes were tender. Put the whole lot in my Magic Bullet with a bit of almond milk (but other milks or creams, unsweetened of course, would work) and blended til smooth. You could use an immersion blender here too. Leave it as chunky as you like. Then back into the pot, corrected seasonings with salt and pepper and added in the reserved asparagus parts. Warmed for a few minutes until the asparagus was no longer crunchy. Off the heat I stirred in a bit of truffle oil ( totally optional but really good) and served it with left-over bread croutons (see recipe).

Next time, If I’m  feeling more fancy, I may add some fresh tarragon to the seasoning of this soup since I now grow my own! I am happy with it though considering it is made from usually discarded remnants. And it happens to be vegan, for those who care about that stuff.