Roasted Curry Butternut Squash Soup Recipe

Roasted curry butternut squash soup

Lately I’ve been into cooking with warm spices….wait a minute, I’m always in the mood for warm spices. Curry happens to be one of my favorites. Last weekend we went to Willcox for their pumpkin patch pickings, and stumbled on more squash varieties than I could handle. I ended up with a white and gray pumpkin, a carnival and acorn squash, a couple of sugar pumpkins, a large carving pumpkin and at last, behold the infamously delicious butternut squash.

So now I’m making my squash rounds and finding excuses to cook them all. A creamy soup was the first thing that popped into my head. I normally use an abundance of garlic with my butternut squash adventures, but have yet to tamper with curry. I only had one teaspoon of curry powder left in my spice shelf, so I used the next best thing, cumin. You see, cumin is just one of the many spices used in a curry, since curry is a hodge-podge of spices, like turmeric, and, well, cumin, along with other spices that I cannot think of off the top of my head. I think some day, in the near future, it would be rather nice to make my own spices fresh from a grinder. I hear it’s simply amazing and the flavors can’t be beat when compared to a store bought spice bottle.

If any of you make your own spices or curries, I would love to hear your favorite spice combinations and techniques.

This picture was taken in Willcox, where they had rows and rows of tall sunflowers.

Curry and cumin, like two peas in a pod.

Skin, de-seed and slice butternut squash into strips. Brush on curry butter sauce and sprinkle minced garlic.

Drizzle a little olive oil over squash and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 butternut squash (roughly two pounds), skinned, deseeded and cut into 1 inch thick strips (see picture above)
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 cups of organic chicken broth (vegetarians and vegans alike – you can use vegetable broth for this ingredient)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, add curry, cumin, salt and butter. Microwave for 15 seconds until butter is melted. Swirl together and then brush/drizzle curry butter sauce onto squash. Next, sprinkle minced garlic over squash. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Toss baked squash into a blender with one cup of chicken broth. Blend until smooth and creamy. Pour into a soup pot over a medium-high heat and add remaining two cups of chicken broth (Also remember to scrape all the leftover goodness from your baking sheet, we don’t want to lose any flavor!). Whisk together and heat up just before it begins to boil (about 2-3 minutes). Serve hot, with a small dollop of plain Greek yogurt.