Have you been seeing new kinds of squash in the supermarket lately? I have and I’m really enjoying them! I don’t know if they’re new varieties or they just started carrying them in the stores here, but I have had and enjoyed honeynut squash in several recipes (besides the salad with the parmesan and pine nuts, I roasted it with cauliflower as a side to jerk chicken recently and it was delicious), and I’m seeing a lot of other ones too. I’m sure you could make this with regular old acorn squash and it would be fine, but I used Golden Acorn Squash, another variety I don’t ever remember seeing before, and I really hope you can find it, because it both tasted and looked really good! This would be a great Thanksgiving starter – the golden squash gave it a lovely fall look!
Golden Acorn Squash Soup – serves 4 for dinner or more as an appetizer
To prepare squash:
2 golden acorn squash
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 teaspoons parsley
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
For soup:
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 stalks celery
2 carrots
1/2 onion
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt
Ground pepper
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Halve squash and clean out the seeds and “strings” in the middle.
- Pour oil into the center of each squash half and sprinkle with parsley, thyme, salt and pepper (the amounts shown are for a total of four squash halves – in other words, each half gets approximately a quarter tablespoon of oil, etc.)
- Roast squash for 1 hour or until it starts to soften.
- Let cool for about 15 minutes. Peel squash (it’s easier to peel if it’s still warm) and cut into rough chunks.
- Dice celery, carrots and onion.
- Heat 2 tablespoons oil in soup pot over medium heat. Saute celery, carrots, and onion until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Add chicken stock and squash. Turn heat to medium-high and let mixture come to a boil.
- Turn heat to medium-low, cover pot, and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Let soup cool slightly (about 5 minutes) and blend, in batches, until creamy.
- Put soup back in pot, add salt and a good grind of black pepper and warm up over medium heat for 5-10 minutes.
Enjoy! And let me know if you’ve been noticing new squash varieties lately and what you’ve done with them!