Warming winter butternut soup

The other day I roasted some butternut - one of my favourite ways to enjoy butternut.  You can either cut it in half, scoop  out the seed area, drizzle with sea salt and olive oil and just roast for 30-40 mins, or chop into wedges and do the same.  I used to peel it but I don't bother anymore as the skin actually goes quite nice and crispy in the oven.  On this particular occasion I also drizzled over a spot of runny honey and added some black pepper before roasting. Think I did it on about 200C Fan.

Anyway, we only needed about half the butternut for that meal so the next day I decided to make a soup out of what was left.

This recipe is SO easy it's ridiculous.

Just roast up some butternut as above...you can play around with flavour combinations by maybe sprinkling over some cinnamon, cumin adding garlic, using honey or not, chilli flakes etc. But always use salt (sea salt if poss), olive oil and black pepper.

When the squash is nice and sticky and starting to brown around the edges, add it to a pan with some chicken stock...use enough to cook the squash in to begin with then you can add more depending on the consistency you like later.  Add a tspoon dried sage, tsp cumin, and some cinnamon - again vary to taste according to your own preferences.

I was going to add onion and all sorts but decided not to bother in the end and I'm glad I didn't as the resulting really rich, deep taste of butternut was delicious as it was.  Don't worry about the skin, having been roasted and then simmered away in the stock for a while it mushes up nicely and adds to the flavour and consistency.

I left it to simmer for about 20-30 minutes and then used a hand blender to whizz it up into a nice creamy consistency.  At this point you can add more water to get just the right consistency for you.

Finally, and this is totally optional but really adds to the flavour, once it was in bowls I drizzled over some truffle oil and added a few parmesan shavings as well as some more cracked black pepper.  You can get teeny little bottles of truffle oil in M&S which is what I use...sparingly!

There you have it, lovely, easy, healthy arming winter soup...and not a turkey in sight!

Butternutty about squash

One of my favourite foods that I haven't actually written much about yet is butternut squash. 

This yummy squashy veg of wonder is fab in so many different ways.  You can roast it, mash it, make it savoury or sweet (delish wth cinnamon and low fat cream cheese), chuck it in a smoothie, slop it in a soup, pop it in a salad, curry it (super yum) or stuff it as I did the other day.

I used to get really fed up with peeling the bnut since it's a wonky shape and is quite a tricky little beggar, but then I decided it didn't really need peeling and life has never quite been the same ever since.  If you're roasting, leave the skin on and then either just eat the skin or peel off later, same for mashing, roast it in the skin, then scoop out the flesh.  Only time it needs peeling first really is for a soup if the bnut is going straight into the pot and not being roasted first.

The version I made the other night was super simple and took advantage of a load of random bits left over from other meals.

All I did was cut the squash in half and hollow out the tiny little seed area bit.  I drizzled it with olive oil, salt and pepper and rubbed a garlic clove all over it...it's yummy roasted with garlic and red onion too by the way but I was too lazy for that on this occasion. 

I roasted it for about 30 mins first at 200 degrees to make sure it was really nice and gooey and browned.

Meanwhile I made the stuffing from:

left over roast chicken

left over cooked quinoa / frekeh / lentils

crumbled feta

A dollop of left over humus and another of edamame and mint dip

I mixed all the ingredients together, piled them into the bnut's little hole and then popped it back into the oven for another 10 mins or so just to heat it all through.

It was YUMMY.

Admittedly nobody else in the world is likely to ever have the same mix of leftovers as I had on that occasion but that's not the point.  The point is a stuffed butternut squash is a really easy supper and as long as you have a squash and a few other random little bits, you're away.

Butternut's are full off minerals and vitamins.  They're full of dietary fibre so nice and filling and satisfying without being full of calories and as you can see by their lovely orange colour, they're also full of beta-carotene amongst lots of other good stuff.  

In fact, they're all round pretty amazing and if they're not already on your shopping list, they should be.