... squash soup

Hello there everybody,

My last post was all about finally breaking into the first of our stored massive Hubbard squash. I received a request for my recipe for squash soup. I am sorry there are no photos but you will get the idea.  :)

I must tell you that most of my soup recipes are of the "fly by the seat of your pants or kitchen sink" variety.

If you read my blog regularly you already know how I feel about wasting food. It is something about which I feel very strongly.

When it is time to make soup in our house (which is about once a week or so), I simply go through the fridge to see what I can use. When I made that Hubbard Squash soup I did the very same thing. Here is what went into it.

First of all, I usually make my own stock. As you could see from one of the photos, there is a carton of Organic Chicken stock there. I had run out of stock and also run out of chicken bones so had to resort to a rare purchase of stock. I did do a blog post some time ago all about making stock. It is dead easy and very economical.

We will assume that you have some stock on hand, either chicken or vegetable is you prefer not to consume meat, homemade or purchased.

In a large pot I saute an onion or two with a couple sticks of chopped celery and a couple of carrots cut finely in a bit of olive oil. Cook over low heat until nicely softened and just a tiny bit coloured around the edges. You do not want to really brown the veg as it will change the taste of the soup.

At this point I add the stock and give it a good stir around and bring to the boil. You want to scrape up all the yummy bits that may be stuck to the bottom of the pot. That is where all the flavour is. 

Since we were dealing with the squash I knew that was going into the soup. In my fridge I had a nice big bunch of rapini (or broccoli rabe). I used half of the bunch and saved the rest for a  pasta dish. Pick off any yellowed leaves and cut a tiny bit off the dried stems at the bottom. Give it a good wash, chop up and add to the stock, along with the squash which is cut into chunks about 1" square or so. You could use whatever sort of greens you happen to have in the house. I often use cabbage, broccoli, kale, chard or spinach. It all works.

I decided to add some egg noodles to give the soup some extra body so toss in a couple handfuls of that as well. It only takes about 10 minutes to cook and then dinner is on the table. Sometimes I use Orzo or even rice instead of the noodles. I even use tortellini once in a while as that really ups the body of the soup. 

The point of this soup is that it is dead easy to make and can use up all the stuff that would otherwise turn into a science project in the back of your fridge. And the best bonus of all.... it tastes fantastic.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a tremendous day. Cheers.

  ~ Melanie ~

... hubbard squash

Hello everyone,

We harvested a great deal of squash from our garden this year. Some were little acorn squash, some butternut and some were those massive big Hubbards. They are all mostly stored on the stone floor in our unheated boot room on the north side of our house which is also where our freezer is located. We try to keep that room as cool as possible.

We had been working our way through the smaller ones and the time had finally come to tackle one of the biggins.

My husband Frank was needed to cut it up as I was completely unable even to get a knife into it. This was one of the smallest. I think it weighed in at around 10 pounds.

Frank cut the ends off so he would have a level area to set the squash down and then got the knife through so he could cut it into two pieces.

I really like the flavour of Hubbard squash but as you can see, there is a substantial seed cavity so there is really a lot of wasted space in there.

However, even with that large seed cavity, there is still a great deal of flesh on one of these monsters. Frank cuts it up into wedges first for easier handling. He then removes the skin. On a smaller squash like a butternut we can usually just use a vegetable peeler but these ones need to be peeled with a knife.

After he gets the skin off the wedges I then cut them into chunks. We used some of it that night to make a pot of soup. That left us with about 80% of the squash with which to deal. I divided it into two piles. Half of it I steamed as you see here and the other half I put on a cookie sheet and roasted in the cookstove oven.

I then lay it out in a single layer on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and put it into the freezer. When the pieces are frozen they go into zip top freezer bags labelled appropriately. 

Because the squash has already been blanched or roasted it will be very quick to use in a number of different dishes. We like it in soups, casseroles, risottos and of course just eating it as a side vegetable. When we have used up these two bags we will tackle the next one. None of the squash will be wasted. At this rate the squash should last well into the summer. I have already planned out what squash I want to grow for this year. All the varieties we are now growing are open pollinated heirlooms so we can now save our own seed and be completely self-sufficient in squash. One less type of seed to buy and a bit more money saved.

Thanks so much for visiting with me today. Do leave me any comments you may have. Cheers.

   ~ Melanie~