Recipe: Fridge Trash Butternut Squash Soup

Today is a beautiful, cloudy, blustery day here in the Pacific Northwest. It isn’t too cold, but with the wind, the autumn leaves and grey skies, plus my 3 butternut squashes… it’s soup time!

I call this fridge trash because I got to use some ingredients that have worn out their welcome. And I have too many squashies. Butternut squashies, to be exact.

Now, normally I’d use coconut milk or coconut cream in this recipe, but FRIDGE TRASH ALERT! I had a recipe that called for whole milk about a week ago, and its now about 4 days from expiring. I was all, okay, now, don’t let this get too hot and let the milk curdle and the BOOM, I went to fold a load of laundry and then it went and got all super hot on me and curdled the milk… so this isn’t perfect. I’d PREFER coconut milk in the future.

My singular carrot was sad, and my celery was getting a little brown on the tips, so that why they made an appearance in this. I generally HATE celery, except in soup. Raw, it is my enemy, but I made stew the other week and apparently they only sell 2 packs of celery bunches… so a spare celery bunch was staring me in the face whenever I opened my produce drawer.

Also, I used a few Full Circle items in here including: rojas garlic, yellow onion and butternut squash.

I used a whole (very small) head of the rojas garlic – it’s a little spicier than your typical grocery store garlic and SO PRETTY! If you haven’t seen it before, it has a pretty lavender/smokey purple and brown exterior and GORGEOUS pure white cloves. It has a hard stem in the middle, and it is pretty stinky (yaaaaasss!). I’ve enjoyed using this particular variety of garlic, I have about half of a head left and I’ll be sad to see it go! At the very least, it will be a tasty farewell.

As you read through the recipe, you might think “vinegar??” Let me tell you, vinegar is the shit. This will make the flavors pop but won’t make it vinegary, so don’t skip it. Too much vinegar, and it’ll get tangy which is OK in my book, but not everyone’s palate swings that way. I’d even go as far to serve it with a “float” of about a teaspoon of the vinegar (as well as with black pepper!).

This turned out super duper tasty, but just swap out coconut milk for the milk (1-to-1) if you’d prefer. Also, this recipe is INCREDIBLY easy to make vegan. Use vegetable stock, coconut milk (and I’d probably use coconut oil if I was using coconut milk). Voila – vegan friendly 🙂

RECIPE

• 1 medium/large butternut squash
• 1/2 large yellow onion
• 1/2 head celery
• 1 – 2  large carrots
• 6-8 cloves of garlic
• 1 and 1/2 cups whole milk (or full fat coconut milk)
• 4 cups of stock (chicken or vegetable)
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/3 cup white wine vinegar, more for serving
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a large pot, heat about a tablespoon of your preferred cooking oil over medium heat. I used olive oil, but you could use coconut oil or butter. Do watchu want, this is fridge trash soup!
2. Add onions. Cook for ~5 minutes, until they smell sweet and are translucent. Add garlic, let it cook for about 30 second, then add in the curry powder.
3. Once the curry powder has had a minute to open up, add carrots and celery. Cook for another ~5 minutes, until the celery is bright green and starting to really soften up.
4. Add butternut squash. I let it get a little warm first, about 3-4 minutes, then added the broth. In my case, it was 4 cups of water and a few tablespoons of Better than Bouillon, since FRIDGE TRASH! I only had a little left, and want to pick up a jar.
5. Add milk, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper and bring to just boiling and let it simmer for 20-25 minutes, until the butternut squash is super squishy and past fork tender.
6. Put half the soup into a blender, blend until smooth. Repeat with other half.
7. Add the vinegar and stir.
8. Serve with a “float” of white wine vinegar (about a teaspoon) and black pepper. Enjoy some bread, add croutons or whatever you have laying about.

Let me know what you think!

-Zsanelle