The Twitchin Kitchen

This is a fragrant, creamy and delicately flavored soup.
I made this a few times now this winter and I am absolutely hooked on it. It's much better than those 'fancy' soups Campbell's recently put out too.

Butternut Squash Bisque

10 servings

Calories (without potatoes) = 76 per cup (8oz)

ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp butter or margarine
  
• 2 small onions - minced
  
• 3 cups peeled, seeded and cubed butternut squash
  
• 1 1/4 quarts chicken stock
  
• 1 1/2 cups peeled potatoes - cubed - optional. I don't use th potatoes
  
• 1 tsp paprika
  
• 1/2 cup whipping cream (OPTIONAL)
  
• 1 1/2 Tbsp snipped fresh chives plus a few whole chives to garnish
  
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
  

Melt the butter or margarine in a large saucepan.
Add the onions and cook for about 5 minutes or until soft.
Add the squash, stock potatoes and paprika and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to low and cover the pan. Simmer for about 35 minutes until all the vegetables are soft.
Pour the soup, in small batches - into a food processor or blender and process until very smooth.
Return the soup to the pot and stir in the cream, if using. Season with salt and pepper and reheat SLOWLY. You don't want to let this boil hard as it will lose it's thickness if it does.
Stir in the chopped chives just before serving.
Garnish with a few whole chives.

I'll try for a photo next time I make this.

Edit - 2/11/10: This soup can be frozen and re-heated nicely. Just freeze it and pop the frozen bit into a pan and heat SLOWLY over a "keep warm" flame and it's a beautiful thing all over again!

Edit - 8/4/10: Added a photo of my soup. I made a big batch of this today.

[attachment=168]

I made another big batch of this on Sunday and I changed one thing.

I let the onions almost carmelize before adding the rest of the soup ingredients. It gave a more hearty flavor to the soup.

This sounds Yum! I will give this a try soon.

I'm gonna have to try to remember to photograph a bowl of this stuff on the next warmup. I think we're going to be eating this for another couple days I made so much!

What's really nice is it's healthy too, not full of fat if you omit the heavy cream and tons of healthy fiber.

I just found out you can freeze this soup! Even if you use the cream.

I tested a cup's worth overnight and had some for lunch a few minutes ago and it thawed and heated beautifully!

So, since I made so much of it and we're not snarfing it down as fast as we expected to be ... I froze a whole mess of it!

Just reheat slowly over a "keep warm" flame and it's beautiful.

I'm going to update the first post so people know this and it's printed out for them too.

I made a huge pot of this over the weekend. I also roasted the squash instead of boiling it.

Cut squash in half
Take out seeds
spray a glass baking dish with PAM
Place face down in pan and poke skin with holes
Bake at 375º until you can easily poke a fork through the thickest areas of flesh - skin should be 'bubbly' by now.

Take out and peel off skin and put flesh into a food processor
Add chicken stock as it's processing until it is creamy smooth, but not watery
Turn into a pot - keep repeating until you use all the flesh
Season with a good pinch of nutmeg and a little salt
Heat through adding about a cup of heavy cream - give or take - It's a personal preference
Add chicken stock to loosen if needed but you want to keep this thick.

Careful cooking! It's very messy as it is very thick and tends to "blub" all over the place. A screen lid is ideal. Use a regular lid for reheating. Reheat over low flame.