A follower of my blog (Kevin @ http://nittygrittydirtman.wordpress.com/) has asked me for the recipe to the soup I mentioned in yesterday’s post: 17 Inches. I told him I didn’t have a recipe per se, because I just winged it. Generally, I do not follow recipes. That said, I promised him I would try to recollect how I constructed the soup and post the recipe.
So here goes nothing…
Susan’s (slap-dashed) Vegan Butternut Squash Curry Soup
Ingredients:
- Diced Onion (I used Vidalia because it is all I had on hand)
- Curry Powder ~ eyeball it, I use the palm of my hand to measure
- Cumin ~ eyeball it, I use the palm of my hand to measure
- Oregano ~ eyeball it, I use the palm of my hand to measure (OPTIONAL)
- Coconut Milk (1 can – mixed well) ~ Optional NOTE: you could make this non vegan by adding heavy cream
- Celtic Sea Salt ~ eyeball it
- EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) ~ eyeball it
- 17 inch Butternut Squash – rough chopped (sorry, couldn’t help myself ha-ha!)
- Water (I used a full Zero Water Pitcher and then some ~ again, eyeball it)
- Fresh Cilantro ~ add at the end when the soup is finished
Method of Prep:
Gather all of your mise-en-place and equipment
Preheat Stock or Soup Pan
Prep your vegetables: dice onion; peel and rough chop BN Squash, chop cilantro (and set aside for garnish)
Once pan is heated, add evoo and sauté onions, toss in some Celtic Sea Salt (eyeball the amounts to your liking) and cook onions until translucent (I liked to wait until mine turn slightly brown).
Add spices: curry and cumin (or whatever spices you have on hand). When you begin to smell the spices cooking, add the oregano, saute for another minute (careful not to burn) and then add some of the water, all of the chopped squash, and then the remaining water. NOTE: If you add all of the water first, you may not have enough room for the squash, which is why I add some water, all of the squash and then the remaining water.
When the squash is mushy (past the point of fork tender); begin pureeing the soup, either with an immersion blender, regular blender or food processor (I used my blender pureeing the soup in batches). NOTE: You can either puree all or some of the soup – it all depends on what consistency you are going for. I pureed most of it, leaving some texture. While pureeing the soup, begin adding the coconut milk (or dairy) so as to temper it before adding it back into the pot. It is important to temper your coconut milk or dairy, otherwise, could wind up with a disaster on your hands. Ha-Ha!
Once you have pureed the soup with the coconut milk add everything back to the pot and simmer until the coconut milk and soup flavors blend together seamlessly. Once the soup is heated through, be sure to taste it to see if it needs more salt, cumin, et-cetera and adjust the seasonings to your liking.
Serve with chopped Cilantro and toasted Ezekiel Bread.
If you have any questions or are not sure of my instructions, please contact me.
-GiRRL_Earth
Girl for Animal Liberation 
I need to try this. I love butternut squash soup!!
I threw it together. Hopefully, I remembered everything when I wrote up the recipe. Circle back if you found a way to improve on it. I’m always open to hearing how others make recipes better. 🙂
Thats how I cook too! I just throw things together. Like yesterday I raided my garden which is waning now that it’s fall and I was able to put together an all vegetable soup. Squash soups are a bit tricky for me. I end up adding a lot more salt or seasonings than usual because the squash seems to absorb other flavors, do you find that too?
Yes I do too, which is why I tend to be a bit heavy handed with seasonings when I cook with squash. That’s an excellent point. I probably should have mentioned it when I posted the recipe. Oh well… Ha-ha!
Not everyone needs that much seasoning though. I do, but some people hardly use any…I don’t know why. Just a matter of tastes.
True. I used to be friends with a girl that didn’t use any salt while cooking and her food was tasteless and bland. I tried to explain to her the benefits of cooking with natural salts, hoping my culinary education and background would encourage her, but it didn’t. She viewed salt as the enemy. Oh well.
Salt is the enemy! 😀 But I love it. Actually if you eat food cooked at home sodium is not as big a problem but when you get older, blood pressure starts to be a bit of an issue – not yet for me, but a lot of older people have to cut back on salt.
Actually, I went to culinary school as well as worked in the field and natural salts, such as Celtic Sea Salt isn’t the enemy… natural salts used at the beginning of the cooking process is fine. As is naturally derived salts from say seaweed. Table salt, the iodized stuff people tend to used on their food after cooking is the problem, as well as preservatives such as MSG which is found in the majority of processed/canned foods disguised under different names. My dad is from Italy. He eats 3 meals a day, nothing from a box or can, and at 83 years of age is healthy. The one thing he says about Americans, which I think may be true is, we tend to eat between meals and snack excessively. My dad never eats between meals or snacks and he has never had a problem with his weight or his health. I think there is something to be said for the way Europeans eat versus Americans. At least IMHO. 🙂
Wow, you know a lot about the subject then. I love salt and I never used Celtic salt, I am so intrigued! I must find some. I usually use sea salt, typically I pick it up in a place like Trader Joe’s. What do you think of the Himalayan Pink salt? It is pretty, but its not expensive so makes me wonder if it’s any good.
My inlaws are Armenian and they are also very healthy for their age, except they eat tons of salt, pickles etc. – doctors always tell them to cut back on the salt. My mother-in-law suffers from high blood pressure, both are slim and walk everywhere but I think it might be more her tendency to stress out than the salt?
I love Himalayan salt. Back when I used to be a pastry sous chef, we would garnish some of our desserts with it. Himalayan Pink Salt is a terrific “finishing salt”.
Try The Grain & Salt Society. That is where I buy most of my hard-to-find culinary/nutritional items. They also carry the Celtic Sea Salt. I love the grey salt but they have other varieties. 🙂
It just sounds romantic, Celtic Sea Salt… *sigh* I often use salts as an accent for desserts and different kinds of foods too. It really doesn’t need to be loaded on if you just add a few sprinkles on top! 😀 Thanks for all your good information!
My pleasure! Thank you for checking out my blog. 🙂
You’re welcome! 🙂