Nourishing Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

It’s my favorite time of year and butternut squash is in season. My favorite way to enjoy this autumn vegetable is in a nourishing roasted butternut squash soup.  If you haven’t had butternut squash before, it’s a cross between sweet potato and pumpkin. It can be used in sweet or savory dishes. Roasting butternut squash adds depth of flavor so I recommend this extra step instead of peeling and boiling. Roasting does require you to do this early enough to let the squash cool off to handle so keep that in mind. This is a really a simple dish, but with homemade bone broth, raw cream, fresh ginger, it’s nourishing and warming and filling if you top it off like I do with extra crispy pork belly, a dollop of sour cream and ginger butter. I used pork belly but you can use favorite bacon but I recommend more of a country slab bacon, in other words, really thick slices. This is too good not to try!  Bon appetite!

Ingredients

1. 3 small butternut squashes
2. olive oil
3. 1 medium onion, chopped
4. 1 garlic clove, minced
5. 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
6. 2 tbsp on real butter
7. 1 quart of chicken bone broth
8. 1 cup raw cream
9. Pork belly or bacon, cooked and chopped
10. 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
11. 2 tbsp on real butter
12. Real salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut the butternut squashes in half and remove seeds.
3. Arrange them cut side up on a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil and season generously with real salt and pepper.
4. Bake them for about 45 minutes. They should be knife tender.
5. In a medium pot, melt 2 tbsp butter.
6. Saute chopped onions, minced garlic and ginger until onions are soft. Season with real salt.
7. Set this aside until the squash has cooled to be able to handle.
8. Scoop out the squash flesh into the pot.
9. Add in the bone broth and bring to medium high heat to boil.
10. Break up any large pieces and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.
11. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth. (Alternately, you could use a blender to puree small batches.
12. Season to taste with real salt and pepper.
13. Turn heat off and add raw cream and stir.
14. Melt 2 tbsp real butter and add 1 tbsp grated ginger and cook until brown.
15. Serve up your bowls.
16. Add a heaping dollop of sour cream.
17. Add generous portion of chopped pork belly or bacon.
18. Drizzle ginger butter on top.