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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Butternut Squash Pumpkin Soup Update!!


I know I posted Ina Garten's recipe for this soup earlier today. I wanted to do a follow up post because when I made this tonight, I added a few touches and tweaked it a bit. I hope you enjoy it!
Here are the ingredients you will need.
This was the best version of the soup I have made so far. You're probably wondering what the giant loaf of bread is there for. I'm going to add a great recipe at the end of this post for Fontina cheese and honey on crispy crostini. That's really just a fancy word for toast. Now you'll be a HIT at your next party when you share THAT knowledge with someone! ;-) Just kidding. Don't do it.

I started by adding some olive oil and a little butter to the pan. Sorry, I hardly ever measure, but let me put it this way, I just wanted to coat the bottom of the pan so the shallots didn't burn. Shallots! They aren't in my picture, are they? Whoops! You need 2 medium sized shallots finely shopped. I know the recipe said onion, but I really, really love the flavor of shallots. They're milder, and I like how they didn't kill the flavors in this recipe. So add shallots. :-) Sautee the shallots in the oil and butter on medium low heat until they are translucent. Then I added the 2 packages of butternut squash, defrosted, of course. To the squash I added 15oz of pumpkin. Make sure it's actually pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie filling. Big difference! I could only find a large 29oz can so I just used half of it. Gently mix the squash and pumpkin together. To the mixture I added 2 cans of chicken broth. They were 14 1/2 oz each. This was all they had in the store, but it comes to about 2 cups of chicken broth. You can certainly use vegetable broth too. Mix it all together and keep it cooking on medium low heat.

I like to add a little flavor to the soup and make it slightly sweet. To my soup I added some pumpkin pie spice. Maybe a teaspoon and a half, not much more. I like a subtle hint. You might like more, so you should play around with the flavors. I also wanted some natural sweetness so I added a tablespoon of honey. And by "tablespoon" I mean I eyeballed it. ;-) It's a rough tablespoon. Mix it all together and continue to cook. This is a really quick soup, so you can cook it until it gets hot and you're done.

For a nice contrast in taste, add a dollop of Greek yogurt (or sour cream) and sprinkle with a bit more pumpkin pie spice. :-)
The finished product. YUM!


Fontina Cheese with Honey Crostini

This is a nice compliment to the dish, and I really like to dip the crusty bread into my soup. You can really eat this with anything you'd like.
You will need:
-1 baguette
-A chunk of Fontina cheese (I love Bel Gioso cheeses. You can get them in the supermarket for around $4 and change.)
-Honey

Set your oven to 350 degrees. Depending on how many people you are feeding, slice the baguette into small rounds. In a small bowl, mix a little olive oil and garlic powder. You are going to brush this onto each slice of bread so you don't really need to measure the oil or garlic. Once the baguette rounds are brushed with the mixture, put them into your oven to toast for 10 minutes. Like I have said previously, set a timer because they can burn easily! While they are toasting up, cut yourself some Fontina to put on top of the warm toast. Put them cheese on once you remove the toast from your oven. The heat will help to slowly melt the cheese...and Fontina melts very well. Before serving, drizzle each slice with a little honey. It's such a great compliment to something so simple!
The crostini. I promise it will look better when you make it! :-)


I hope you try this recipe, and as always, please let me know how delicious it tasted!

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