Butternut Squash + Apple Soup

*Guest Entree Entry*

3 tbsp butter

2 tbsp organic coconut oil
1 + ½ cups chopped yellow/white onions
2 tbsp curry powder certified organic, salt free (Spice It To A T, Brevard)
4 cups (2 medium + 1 small) butternut squash, peeled, gutted & quartered (compliments of Brian's dad's garden... Brian and I are becoming quite the "Peter Rabbits" of Farmer Richards' garden)
5 medium mixed apples (Mutzo, Honey Crisp, Gala), peeled, cored, & quartered
2 cups water
1 + ½ cups apple cider
Salt + pepper to taste

Mix butter, coconut oil, onions, curry, salt + pepper in a sauce pan and simmer over medium/low heat for 15 minutes until onions are soft.  Then add in squash, apples, and 2 cups of water.  Simmer over medium heat for about 35-45 minutes until squash + apples start to soften.  (It’s worth the wait.)

 

Then, transfer the mixture into a blender.  I used my Magic Bullet to blend about 1 + ½ cups at a time… the first blended batch created a vacuum in the blender container and I struggled for a good 10 minutes trying to get my precious soup out of it!  I was very close to knocking on the neighbor’s door at 10:30pm to help me open it!  Nevertheless, 3 minutes in the freezer helped loosen it up.  And now you are wondering why I was cooking this at 10:30pm… well, I decided I would be SMART and cook two soups simultaneously… modifying my Curried Tomato +Okra Stew (see below) with Red Thai Curry spice instead… and the prep of both soups started at 8:30pm… thank God I cut the Okra up this morning, but peeling 8 tomatoes, chopping 6 onions, chopping 3 cloves of garlic, peeling, gutting, & quartering 3 squash, and doing just about the same to 5 apples was a lot of work!  So, after about 60 minutes of prep between the two soups, I started rolling around 9:30pm, maybe not so smart after all… I digress, now back to the recipe… oh yes, so after pureeing the mixture, transfer it back into the sauce pan and add 1 + ½ cups of apple cider.  Simmer again over medium heat for another 5 minutes or so until well blended.

Verdict: This is an extremely unique soup, full of many different types of flavors.  It’s sweet but has a lot of heat at the same time.  I am speculating the cayenne from the curry powder is responsible for the magnitude of the heat. The texture is wonderful too, very smooth with a pleasant thickness.  I am interested to find out if clove sugar would work well in this as well (picked up from Spice It Up, Hendersonville).  But I am too full at the moment to try that extra ingredient.  Oh and this pairs very nicely with Clos du Bois Savignon Blanc!  YUM!  I definitely will be doing again sometime.