Soup of the Week – New and Improved Butternut Squash Edition

Butternut squash soup has made an appearance on this blog more than once.

It’s a family favorite. Can’t help it.

This week’s Soup of the Week is a slight variation and/or improvement on our standard butternut squash soup, though. This one is a creamy butternut squash soup. And it has some of my homemade garbage soup in it. And it has cheese tortellini in it.

What’s not to love?

Found the recipe via Pinterest (where else?) and thought we’d give it a try. The recipe comes from KitchenNostalgia.com. I followed it pretty much to the letter except for just a couple of substitutions. I used my homemade vegetable broth instead of chicken broth, flaxseed oil instead of sunflower oil, and light cream instead of heavy cream.

While we thought it might be something outrageously different, it really wasn’t. But we really liked the creaminess of this soup and the tortellini was a very nice addition. It was just different enough from the version I usually make to be something new.

Kidzilla and I topped ours off with a little bit of Greek yogurt and some paprika; the Fab Hub had some shredded parmesan cheese and a little paprika. I feel like something green would have been nice on top – some scallions or even just some fresh parsley or sage. Served with a nice salad on the side, this made a terrific fall meal.

And it was a great way to use up the butternut squash that have been taking up space on my counter. We had a very reasonably-sized one from our CSA delivery as well as a monster-sized one that Kidzilla picked up on our trip to the Pumpkin Patch a few weeks ago. All together, those babies produced six cups of cubed butternut squash – three times the amount the recipe called for! We ended up with six mason jars of this particular soup. One served us dinner, the rest stand ready and awaiting active duty.

We will be sharing the wealth. As much as we loved this one, you can only eat the same soup so many times in a row. While I’m certain that it would probably “freeze beautifully” (Steel Magnolias…always appropriate!), I am usually hesitant to freeze creamy soups and sauces.

If you’re in the mood for a great fall squash soup, give this one or my usual a try. You could easily substitute pumpkin in either of these, too, I think.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go pack up my soup jars for delivery!

Have a great week, everyone!