I realize I spilled a little when I took this picture. So what if it's not perfect? If it was, it would be very unlike myself anyways.
....What an elaborate blog post title. Sorry. So you may or may not remember this from one of my very very early posts, but my friends and I LOVE being all cute and fancy and having a "Family Dinner" where we all (or most of us) cook and bring something for dinner at someone's house. This family dinner edition was for our Secret Santa exchange, and my task for dinner was to make some sort of appetizer. I think. Actually, I'm pretty sure I just volunteered myself to make a Butternut Squash and Apple soup because a) it's my absolute favorite soup in the dining hall at school and b) I've been dying to make it myself for the past 3 months. Taking the opportunity, I slaved over a hot stove (totally exaggerating) for a couple of hours and actually came out with a successful soup! I'm pretty proud of it, considering it was my first time and I sort of winged the recipe, in the sense that I combined 3 or 4 different recipes and sort of came up with my own. Either way, the soup was a total success and everyone was apart of the Clean Plate Club. I was thoroughly pleased. Hit the jump for the recipe and more pictures of our lovely Family Dinner, Secret Santa Edition.
1 medium Butternut Squash (peeled, seeded, and cut into relatively thick pieces)
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2 Apples (I used Fuji...any apples that are pretty sweet will work)
1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon
3 cups Chicken/Vegetable broth or stock
1 cup Water
1/4 Tsp. Nutmeg
1 Carrot (peeled and chopped)
3 Celery Stalks (or as much as you want to use for the base of the soup)
1/2 Large Onion or 1 Medium Onion
Sage (for seasoning and flavor)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1. In a large pot, warm up the oil.
2. Caramelize onion until it is a bit clear, and then add the carrots and celery. Let cook until relatively tender.
3. Drop a few sage leaves into the vegetable mixture, along with the cinnamon and nutmeg and let the mixture cook for about 8 minutes.
4. Add the butternut squash and apples to the mixture and let cook for about 4-5 minutes.
5. Pour in the broth or stock and water and bring everything to a boil.
6. After boiling for about a minute, reduce to a simmer and let it sit for 25-20 minutes.
7. Pour the mixture into a blender in batches, puree it, and put it back in another pot (that's what I did and it worked perfectly. Also, if you want a more apple-y flavor, feel free to add some applesauce to the blender with the batches of veggie mixture. I used 365 Organic Cinnamon flavored Apple Sauce.)
8. Once all of the pureed soup is back on the stove, let it simmer for a bit longer, maybe 3 or so minutes. You can even drop in a few apple pieces in the soup for texture if you want. That's how they serve it at school so clearly I did the same.
9. Soup's ready to serve!
It really is that easy. To be honest, the hardest part was peeling and chopping and prepping everything. Once everything is ready, it's mostly just letting it sit and simmer. While I was working on my soup, my friend Alex was next to me working on his meatballs (which were ridiculously amazing). Keep scrolling for pictures of the rest of his meatballs and the rest of our family dinner!
Alex and I thought it would be a great idea to make a cheese sauce for the meatballs like they do at the Meatball Shop.
This was the finished product. We did not have cheese sauce with our meatballs.
Caprese Salad brought by the lovely Christina.
Foie gras and crackers from France! Well...the crackers were from Winn-Dixie.
Foie gras from France!
A little food and a little wine makes for a good family dinner. As for the food, how did everything turn out you ask? Well, just ask Kristen:
Happy Holidays from me and my amazing dysfunctional family! :)
Posted on iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment