Butternut Squash Soup

There has been many a soup made this winter, need there be reasons? Let’s see, comfort, warmth, yumminess (is that a word?) and frugality all come to my mind. Many of the soups I make are potato based and I will get into those more another time, the soup I want to focus on today is butternut soup. I was introduced to Butternut Soup by a coworker. I was enchanted by the color, warmth and delightfulness of this soup. I had to make it!

Butternut soup is an amazing soup. This soup defies expectations, all of us expected the overwhelming taste of butternut squash but that isn't the case at all. This soup has a gentle flavor and you owe it to yourself to try it. Oddly enough and apparently I am alone in this thought but the soup to me has this essence I can't put my finger on. My first guess was some type of seafood, a touch, just a touch of seafood. Alas there is no seafood of any kind in this soup, just my imagination apparently!
All you need is butternut squash, gluten free chicken broth, bulb fennel and a shallot.

If you can find the butternut squash already peeled and cubed, save yourself the trouble of doing it yourself and buy it! (I MEAN IT, peeling and cubing is a pain, butternut is a very HARD squash) At some grocery stores there are little bags of ready to use cubed butternut squash, I won’t buy it though. Ha! I know I just told you that it is a pain to peel and cube a butternut squash but for some reason doing as much as possible as cheaply as possible is ingrained in me. It appears I will continue to use a whole squash but you feel free to buy it ready to go. There is another alternative and that is baking the squash, scraping out the flesh and using it in the soup. I would think it would still need to be pureed though but it seems this baking might give the squash even more flavor. Hmmm, sounds like I need to test butternut squash one more time.
May I suggest you start small until you know if you like it or not as a huge pot of soup you don't like is a major bummer. All I was able to find in stores were fairly small squash so that is what I used, although what I am accustomed to isn’t small squash. It seems a city vs. country thing, when I lived in the country large squash was all the rage (honestly you know what I mean!).

1 butternut squash either pre-baked or peeled, seeded and cubed (yes I saved the seeds)
2 shallots, diced
1/2 bulb fennel, diced, set aside a couple of TBSP for later use in the recipe
butter
gluten free chicken broth
water

Start by sautéing the shallots and fennel in butter. You’re not looking for the shallot to brown much, just to soften a bit. Stir in cubed butternut squash and sauté for a few minutes; pour in about 2 cups broth and 1 cup water. The idea isn’t to have a lot of liquid but just enough to cover the squash, if 3 cups total isn’t enough then put more in but don’t go heavy on the liquid or you will end up needing to thicken the soup. Put the lid on your soup pan and simmer on low for 30 to 40 minutes or until the squash is fork tender.

If you are using roasted squash then you get to skip the 30 to 40 minutes of cooking, instead cooking for about 15 minutes to allow the flavors to blend together. When the squash is tender, remove the pan from the heat, take the lid off and let it cool a bit. Blending hot soup can blow the lid off of your blender, its best to err on the side of caution when it comes to this. I have blended hot soup before and had the lid come flying off, and yes this was in my younger days. If you are comfortable with blending the boiling hot soup by holding the lid on with a towel then go right ahead.Puree your soup until smooth, pour it back into the pan and heat on low. Adjust the seasoning to your liking, personally for me fresh cracked pepper is where it’s at. While your soup is heating it’s time to do something with that little bit of diced fennel you set aside; fry it in some butter until browned and a bit crispy, stir into the soup before serving. Enjoy!