Butternut Squash Soup

I've been experimenting with new vegetables this winter and the butternut squash has become a favorite. I kept seeing recipes for soup with it and finally got a chance to try it this weekend. Dang, it was good! I had a recipe from Bon Appetit that I'd been eyeballing, but then searched online and found this one at Elise's Simply Recipes and decided to go with that one. They both had an apple with the squash, but the Bon Appetit one had no carrot and celery. I always think of sauteed onion, carrot, and celery as a 'three sisters' kind of base for so many things. They smell heavenly cooking and are the basis for some many good things.

I served this soup as a first course for some turkey tetrazinni, using some leftover diced cooked turkey. I didn't actually vary much, unusual these days, but as written the recipe just sounded "right". I did saute the vegetables in a combination of olive oil and butter, as I normally do. And I had thawed 6 cups of chicken broth and only needed 2 for the turkey tetrazinni so used a bit more broth here.

1 pat of butter (about 1/2 a tablespoon)
1 dollop of olive oil (about 1/2 a tablespoon)
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 green apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped
4 cups chicken broth
dash each cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper
sour cream as garnish

Heat the oil and butter, then saute the onion, carrot, and celery about 5 minutes, until softened. Add the squash, apple, chicken broth, and spices and simmer until the squash is soft. I had large chunks so this took about 30 minutes but I wasn't in a hurry. It may have been done sooner and I just didn't check.

Puree the soup. I love my hand immersion blender for stuff like this. Serve with a dollop of sour cream in each bowl. Follow the link above for a picture--it's a much nicer one than I would have managed!

I served this again as leftovers last night, with some barbecued pork tenderloin and sauteed apples. It is really quite good!