Roasted butternut squash and poblano soup

Summer is over, leaves have changed, temperatures have dropped. It must be soup time!

While the weather has turned nasty, we’re still on the trailing edge of harvest season up here in the great white north and there were still a whole bunch of poblano peppers dangling from the bushes in my front yard. And in my world, soup and poblano peppers go together like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – magic! 

Roasted butternut squash soup is also the poster child for Thanksgiving soups so as we’re between Canadian and U.S. Thanksgiving, now’s the time to bust it out. 

I wanted to put the two together. I did. It was delicious.

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

1 medium butternut squash, roasted
1 large or 2 small poblano peppers
1 onion, sliced
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
3 cups homemade chicken stock
4 fresh sprigs of thyme
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper

To roast the butternut squash peel, remove the seeds and then cut it into three inch cubes. Salt them and drizzle a bit of oil over them then spread onto a cookie tray covered in foil and bake in the oven at 425F for about 45 minutes. Flip them over at least once during cooking and remove when they’ve got a bit of crispy golden bits on the outside.

While the butternut squash is roasting, you can roast the poblano peppers. If you have a bbq or gas stove, char the skin over the flame. If you have an electric stove, put it under the broiler for 10-15 minutes turning it so all sides get charred. (Get your little garlic clove into this action as well to roast and sweeten it up).

Put the hot peppers in a bowl, cover them with a tea towel, and let them sit/steam for 10 minutes or more. The skin should now come off easily when you rub it. Remove as much of the skin as you can then cut out the stem and seed. Rinse the peppers to get all the black stuff off and remove the final few stubborn seeds. Slice them.

In a medium pot, heat the olive oil and melt the butter. Sautee the onions until lightly browned, about five minutes. Add the chopped garlic and sautee for another minute. Pour in the chicken stock and bring it to the boil. Add the sliced peppers, butternut squash, thyme, salt and pepper. Turn the heat down and simmer for half an hour.

Remove from heat and blend until smooth. Taste for seasonings and serve.

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen