Butternut Squash Soup

This was a very time-consuming recipe, and unfortunately I'm not so sure it was worth it. Again, maybe I didn't follow it exactly (I left out some of the optional ingredients, particularly marscapone and half and half). My biggest failure was just not reading the whole recipe. If I had read it closely, I would have seen that you are supposed to toast the coriander seeds and then grind them. I just added them to the roast and wound up with broken coriander shells in the soup -- serious disappointment -- but I ran it through a strainer. It's okay now.


Thursday night I roasted the squash in the oven. I got a huge butternut squash and wrestled off the rind, scooped the seeds, and cubed it. I melted butter and seasoned it with molasses, sugar, and balsamic vinegar. I seasoned it with red and black pepper, coriander seeds, sage, cinnamon, and salt. I let this all roast for an hour and it was smelling good and looking promising.


I let it cool slightly, ran it through the food processor, and popped the batch in the fridge for later. I actually have enough of this puree to make a second batch of the soup, so I have half of it in the freezer now, coriander pellets and all.

Yesterday, which turned out to be the warmest day of the month, I made the rest of the soup with celery, onion, and carrot; a cinnamon stick; and broth. This part of cooking it went pretty quickly and finished with a quick run through the blender.

The recipe I found says to add half and half or marscapone, but I left mine without the dairy (although I did use real butter in the roasting). This was pretty good, but it didn't wow me after all the effort I put into it. I think I'll look for another recipe to try if I want to make this kind of soup again. Any suggestions?