Squash Soup

This is a wonderful soup. It will tates better the following day, so it's okay to make it ahead of time. The variant I list is a more unattended cooking method for the squash. It takes longer, but I'm so bad and slow at cutting up veggies, that I'm willing to do it to avoid the hassle of cubing 2 large squash.

Ingredients

• 6 cups (about 2 large squash) seeded 2-inch wide chunks butternut squash
• melted butter for brushing
• 1 Tbsp. salt, plus 1 tsp
• 1 tsp ground white pepper
• 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 4 Tbsp. honey
• 1 tsp minced ginger, or 1/4 tsp ground (powdered) ginger
• 4 ounces heavy cream
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Brush the flesh of the squash with a little butter and season with 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper.
3. On a sheet pan lay the squash flesh side up.
4. Roast until the flesh is nice and soft. (Anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes.)
5. Place the squash flesh into food processor and process until smooth.
6. In a large pot, combine the squash puree, stock, honey, and ginger.
7. Bring the mixture to a simmer and add the heavy cream.
8. Return to a low simmer and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
9. If the soup is lumpy, use a blender to smooth out the texture.

Variants

Instead of cubing the flesh of the squash:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place the seeded squash halves in two 13 by 9-inch baking dishes, cut side up.
3. Place 2 to 3 pats of butter on the squash flesh.
4. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the flesh is very soft when poked with a knife. (This has taken up to 2 hours for me.)
5. Scoop the flesh from the skin and process, continuing in step 5 above.