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Creamy Squash Soup with Sausage

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My family all liked this soup.  Two of the kids picked out the meat, but the rest of us liked it in there.  The “sausage” recipe follows below separately from the soup recipe.  The only thing that would make this soup better for me is if somebody else cooked it and cleaned the kitchen when done!

Soup 6:  Creamy Squash Soup with Sausage

1 medium-sized butternut squash (buttercup is also spectacular here!  or even pumpkin!–and sometimes I mix them together)
1 onion, diced
2 cloves pressed garlic
1/2″ peeled, minced fresh ginger (about 1 rounded teaspoonful) (ground, dried would be substitutable)
4 tablespoonsful of olive oil
2 quarts of chicken broth (more or less to desired consistency, sometimes it seems like I only need 1 quart and others the full 2 quarts!)
1/2 teaspoonful coriander
pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoonful ground cloves
1 teaspoonful cinnamon
1/2 teaspoonful nutmeg
1-2 teaspoonsful salt
Browned (cooked) crumbled sausage, amount as desired (I use about a 1/4 pound), recipe follows
Coconut milk to taste or consistency, added in at the end

1.  Choose your method of preparation to cook squash (oven, boil, or steam).  I chose to cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds and pulp.  I then steamed the squash in my steaming pot until it was fork tender.  Then, when it was cool enough, I cut/scooped the soft flesh off of the shell and cut into chunks.  Set aside until ready to combine ingredients in the soup pot.

2.  While squash is cooking, saute onion, ginger, and garlic in olive oil in a heavy bottomed soup pot until soft and aromatic.  Add the coriander, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.  Continue sautéing until mixed through.

3.  Add the chicken broth (starting with 1 quart) and squash to the soup pot.  Stir together and heat through.  Use immersion blender or blender to blend soup very smooth.  You may want to add more chicken broth if you like your soup thinner.  Don’t forget that coconut milk may be added if you desire at the end– so don’t make it too thin if you’re going to be adding that.

4.  Add the browned “sausage” to the soup.  Heat through and serve.

5.  Add coconut milk as a garnish and to add a creamy texture and flavor.  Add as much as you want, but we save it for the end because we LOVE the flair it gives the presentation of the soup!

Family “gustar” report:  5/5 loved the soup.  I didn’t get the kids’ votes, though, until I handed them the coconut milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and pepper and allowed them to “juice” it up the way they wanted.  When handed their bowls, they looked at me like I was crazy.  “I don’t like it.”  And they hadn’t even tried it.  So I gave them a pep talk about how “I make the basic soup, but it’s YOU who has to make it your own!  Add a little of this and that.  Make it YOUR soup.”  That made it fun,  and they had seconds.  They definitely wanted the coconut milk in there.  I left it out.  If your eater is really fussy, and you can let them have a little honey or maple syrup in it, the sweetness is delicious.

Sausage

I really like spices a lot.  So I add a lot to my sausage.  Pick and choose what you think you’d like, but I think the salt, sage, cumin, pepper, and cinnamon are my favorites.  The rest are because I’m having fun in the kitchen.  I love to add a little of this and a little of that.

1 pound ground beef (we also have ground goat, and it makes great sausage!)
1/4 onion, diced
1/2-1 teaspoonful cumin
1/2-1 teaspoonful salt
1 teaspoonful sage  ( I really like sage in my sausage, so I usually add extra–more like a heaping tablespoonful for me!)
1/4 teaspoonful cinnamon
1/4 teaspoonful nutmeg
1/2 teaspoonful pepper
1/2 teaspoonful oregano
1/2 teaspoonful basil

Mix all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl until mixed thoroughly.  Make into patties and use immediately or freeze for later.  Or brown it and use it in soups or omelets.

Chunky Squash Chicken Soup

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Chunky squash chicken soupI have one daughter who, as soon as she gets to do something, is always asking when she can do the next thing. She’s in dance and tae kwan do and likes both a lot but–“When can I play basketball?” We hosted a fun, hopping cookie exchange for Christmas, and I had picked out several kinds of treats to make–but “I want to make my own kind of cookies.” O-kaaaeey. So she did. Then, after the party, “When can I have my own cookie exchange and ask who I want to invite?”–mind you, ALL of her friends and families were invited! “When can I sit in the front seat of the car?” “When can I get my ears pierced?” “When can I wear leggings without a dress over them?” “When can I cut with that knife?” Her shared bedroom is packed full with beds and dressers that really only can fit in one way, but “When can I arrange my room the way I want?” And this week, “I wish I could have my own blog…no?…can I write on your blog?”

So I asked my husband, when is this girl going to be happy with what she has?
I try very hard to allow my kids independence! I’m a Montessori mom, for crying out loud: “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed” (Dr. Maria Montessori). My husband’s sage answer rings in my ears: “When she is in control.” Alrighty then. Give her more control. So she got handed the computer and told to find a soup recipe for me. She chose “Sweet potato chicken soup”  (click link for original copy) by Caitlin Weeks from http://www.grassfedgirl.com. We had to substitute squash for sweet potato–which probably would have given it a bit more thick, starchy texture than the squash.

Soup 2:  Butternut Squash Chicken Soup

Ingredients:

3 tablespoonsful of olive oil
4 cloves of chopped garlic
1 onion, diced
2 stalks of celery, largely diced
2 carrots sliced into circles
1/2 of a butternut squash cut into 1/4 inch squares
2 cups of chicken
4 cups of chicken broth (much tastier with homemade)
2 teaspoonsful of smoked paprika (or plain paprika, but the smoked gives it a–smoked flavor!)
2 teaspoonsful of thyme
2 tablespoonsful of fresh parsley
2 teaspoonsful of salt
pepper to taste

1.  Heat olive oil in heavy-bottom soup pot over medium-heat.
2.  Add celery, onion, carrots, and garlic and saute until soft.
3.  Add chicken broth, cut squash, and spices.
4.  Simmer until the squash is very, very soft.
5.  Use immersion blender or a regular blender (don’t do what I do–please wait for the soup to cool or add an ice cube or something to your blender to cool the soup before starting blender!!!)  to blend up about 1/4th of the soup to give it a thicker consistency.
6.  Add fresh parsley when serving.

Family “gustar” rating:
5 people (all of us) liked the soup, but nobody asked for seconds or more later in the day or next day.  So, a solid recipe, but not one that “wows”.  But chicken soup without noodles and flour to thicken it just doesn’t “wow” my family, I’m finding.  That’s okay!  Every soup can’t be “the favorite.”

More soups to follow, listed in no particular order:  chili, white chicken chili, broccoli, creamy squash soup with sausage, ?others

What I had to look up to write this post:
1.  Is it “crying out loud” or “crying aloud”?  Apparently interchangable.

Pease Porridge Hot

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Since the Christmas-time feasting, we have been restoring eating sanity in our house with some good old-fashioned SOUP.  Much more nutritious than breakfast cereal, toast, or even coconut flour pancakes–we’ve been eating it for breakfast and leftovers for supper or lunch!  Crazy, eh!?  After a few days of it at breakfast time, my kids stopped fussing and just ate it.  I mean, really, why can’t vegetables or casseroles be eaten for breakfast?  Waffles for supper?  Why not?!  Why do socks have to match?   Does your bed really have to be made?  Why do females wear such high heels?  Why do you have to color your gray hair?  Huh?  Why do ya’?  Ya’ don’t.  My take is this: soup for breakfast teaches my kids to think outside the box.  To expand horizons.  To challenge status quos.  Break paradigms.  Yep.  That’s what I think–I mean–over think about serving soup for breakfast.

Soup 1:  Pease Porridge in the Pot  (aka, Pea Soup)
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Ingredients:

  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 4 large cloves of garlic, minced
  •  2-3 tablespoonsful of olive oil
  • 1/4-1/2 inch nub of peeled, fresh ginger, chopped (I erred on lesser side as one daughter doesn’t like ginger much)
  •  1 to 1 and 1/2 teaspoonsful ground cumin
  • 1/2-1 teaspoonful of ground coriander
  •  1-2 teaspoonsful of salt
  •  1/2-1 teaspoonful of ground black pepper
  • 1 cup of tomato sauce or juice (mine was homemade “juicy sauce”-ha!)
  • 1 and 1/2 to 2 quarts of broth (I used homemade chicken broth)
  • 5 cups of frozen peas
  • Optional:  coconut milk

1.  Saute onion and garlic together in olive oil until soft and lightly browned.
2.  Add salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, and ginger to onion/garlic mixture and saute a bit longer (maybe 3-5 minutes or so).
3.  Here, I transferred the mixture to a soup pot (because I sauteed in a frying pan, but you probably planned ahead and used a Dutch oven or soup pot).  Add 2 cups of broth, the 1 cup of tomato sauce, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer and allow to simmer 10-15 minutes for flavors to meld.
4.  Add rest of broth and frozen peas.  Allow to simmer another 10-15 minutes for peas to cook and soften.
5.  Use immersion blender to blend soup smooth.
6.  You could mix in a bit of coconut milk if you please.  I thought the taste was great just the way it was!

Family “gustar” report:

  • 3 people:  “I like it.  Give me seconds.”
  • 2 people:  “I like it.”  And they ate their first bowls without a complaint.
    I thought the soup was great.  I like mine a bit more peppery so I added crushed pepper.  The soup was smooth and creamy yet the peels of the peas gave it a great contrasting texture.

Things I had to look up to write this post:
1.  What needs capitalized in “Dutch oven”? http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/dictnotes/caps.htm but  http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/when-do-you-capitalize-geographic-terms.html and http://www.readablewriter.com/Capitalization.pdf
2.  What’s the capitalization rule following a colon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_(punctuation)
3.  Regarding “teaspoonsful” and “tablespoonsful”–in pharmacy school this was exactly how it had to be typed (and yes, we still had to use a typewriter) or the teacher counted points off.  She strongly felt that “teaspoonfuls” and “tablespoonfuls” was WRONG.  I looked that up, too.  It can be either.  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/teaspoonful

So, again I ask, why do ya’?

Soups to come, not necessarily in this particular order:  white bean chili, one-pot chili,  butternut squash chicken soup, broccoli soup, squash soup.