Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

You all know those Days…Days where it is raining outside and all you want to do is stay inside, cuddled up in some comfy sweats watching your favorite movie with a fire crackling in the fireplace! This is the PERFECT belly warming dish for those kinds of days! This soup is also the perfect entree to have while welcoming Fall back into our lives! It is healthy, warm, colorful, and uses quite the array of fall veggies! It is also a very healthy dish as it is basically just roasted vegetables and olive oil and it is so So SO yummy! It is also Gluten Free and can be Dairy free if you substitute Goat Cheese for the Feta as a garnish! Hope you LOVE It!

ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

• 1 large Butternut Squash
• 1 Medium Zucchini
• 3-4 Large Carrots
• 1 Onion, any color will do
• 5-6 Stalks of Celery
• 2 Tbls of Garlic Powder
• 2 Tbls of Salt
• 1 Tbls of Pepper
• 2 Tbls of Onion Powder
• 4 Fresh Thyme sprigs or stems
• 6 fresh sage leaves
• 1 32 oz box of Chicken Stock
• 2 Cups of Water
• 1/4-1/2 cup Olive Oil
• Feta Cheese for garnish
• Balsamic Vinegar for garnish

Now I am warning you…there are A LOT of pictures of vegetables in this post and I apologize for that. However, I could not help myself as the beautiful colors of fall were so apparent in these beautiful edible creations that I had to post them!

First step of the soup is to peel and cube your butternut Squash. The bottom half of the squash will have seeds in it…I simply cut around it and then scoop out the seeds. See below.

It looks like cubes of cheese….but it’s not…it’s SQUASH.

Now lay all of your cute little cubes out on the biggest Sheet tray you have! If you only have small trays, you might want to divide the squash. It is now time to chop the rest of your veggies into chunks of a smillar size to your squash cubes and pile on the goodness!

A quick note, I peel my zucchini as I think the skin does not add a great flavor to the soup, but you do whatever you like!

Now I evenly distribute all of the spices and fresh herbs over the veggies and drizzle with the olive oil. Then with my very clean hands, I toss all of the veggies until they are properly coated with WONDER and have an even chance to become tantalizingly DELICIOUS!

This is a picture of sage on the left and thyme on the right…both from my mom’s garden! THANKS MOM!

It is now time to Roast your Veggies!

Have your oven preheated to 420 degrees and roast them for 40-45 minutes or until browning and starting to caramelize in the corners! Yumminess will be happening! I actually find it hard to move past this point in the process as I usually just want to eat all of these amazing roasted morsels right on the SPOT! However, I usually just eat a few spoonfuls and manage to finish the cooking process as the end result is WELL worth it! We can always justify a few tastes to make sure the flavor is right……right?

At this point you are almost to Soupity Soup time! Take the veggies after they are cooled just a bit and have them take turns in the blender accompanied by the Chicken stock.

I put about 1/3 of the veggies and 1/3 of the chicken stock in each blender batch. The last batch I add in the water to thin the soup a bit and also to help rinse all of the goodies out of the blender!

Pour each blender full into your soup pot and heat on the stove till bubbling and SERVE RIGHT AWAY!!!! Or you could serve it later, but I guarantee you will want to taste a little of the fruit (or vegetable) of your labor as soon as possible as it will be tempting you with its beautiful color and scentualness…get it…scentual instead of sensual…haha…but I digress!

I always serve this soup with a teaspoon or so of Crumbled Feta or Goat Cheese and a small drizzle of balsamic vinegar! It adds the perfect bit of excitement to this soup and makes it very pretty too! We also usually serve garlic bread with it to mop up every drop out of our bowls And if the bread runs out…I simply lick mine clean. I am not joking. It is really that good!

Happy Fall and Happy Souping!