Warm Winter With Soup
By:Roseanne Cantisani

Winter is here and soup is on! I love to make soup all year around but when the cold weather sets in the soup seems to be my favorite meal. Growing up we had various soups such as chicken, turkey, escarole with tiny meatballs, lentil, string bean & potato. Soup always seems to make me feel great. The vitamins in soup are like no other.

I look forward to the fall to try out new and old recipes. Last year I adventured to buy a sweet squash that looks like a large acorn squash. Since I had never cooked it before I decided to bake it and scoop out the flesh so that I could see the consistency and taste the flavor. I found it to be similar in flavor to a yam. So I dressed with butter and whipped it like mashed potato. It was good, this season I will know try it a soup or even twice baked with brown sugar and maple syrup.

Butternut squash soup is one of my favorites for fall. I first learned the recipe from my grandmother. Her method is to chop the squash and potatoes raw. This isn't always easy and by the time your done your fingers will be orange. I found that cutting the squash in half and baking it with water on a cookie sheet in the oven works much better. While the squash cooks you are free to do other stuff and once its ready the skin peels right off. You can either use it right away or you can keep it for another time.

My latest experiment was with the seasoning of the soup. I cooked the butternut squash in the oven early in the day and then combined it with chopped potatoes when I was ready to make the soup. Then in a sauté pan I melted about two tablespoon of butter and half of a large sweet onion finely chopped. As it was cooking I added a ¼ cup of sweet wine and a teaspoon of brown sugar. Once the onion was translucent I added it all to the soup. After about 10 minutes of boiling the soup was ready to serve. In each plate the hot soup was topped with crumbled Gorgonzola cheese. It was great! The combination of sweet and salty was so satisfying.

Ingredients to make Butternut squash soup with Gorgonzola cheese garnish

Chop the potatoes into cube size pieces and add them to the boiling water. Chop up the butternut squash and add to the potatoes, add salt. Cook for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender and squash has melted into the water. Prepare onion as explained above, garish with Gorgonzola and serve.

©2000 - Roseanne Cantisani

About the author: Roseanne Cantisani is a freelance writer and
editor of Dateable.com's Simply Delicious, a web site dedicated to
simple, healthy cooking. You can find articles, recipes, kitchen
and cooking products, and a forum for any cooking or entertaining
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