Last night, I post about my little adventure with potato and sweetcorn soup. It was cheap, the cost of the soup was only 3 dollars and I made enough to feed myself for a week and more. I think as a student living alone overseas, you really need to be frugal at times. (I have to admit though, frugality is not my strong point).

Anyway, few days ago, I was walking in the market and I came across these lovely butternut squash for just AU 90C each! Unbelievable price :D Naturally, feeling that I had stumbled upon a good bargain, I bought the squash without really thinking what I am going to do with it. Pie, custard, panna cotta, soup or as a side dish. So much possibilities.

Anyway, soup we shall make from the lovely squash (courge in French) and here I offer two vesion of it. :D

Soupe de Courge a la Vanille
(Butternut squash and Vanilla Soup)
note: this was taken from the lovely chocolate and zucchini foodblog and modded

2 white onion, sliced it
200g or 2 medium potatoes (choose a floury kind, like Russet)
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract (or if you got a rich pantry, 1 vanilla bean, scrapped)
1.2kg butternut squash
120ml liquid cream
1.5 litre chicken stock or water
salt and pepper
100g butter, room temp and diced

Peel and cut butternut squash into pieces or alternatively, after you have scraped out the seeds and membranes, steam it whole until soft and just scrape out the flesh from the skin afterwards.

Peel and cut potatoes into pieces.

Saute the onion but do not caramelised it until soft. If you don't want it to have any oils at all, don't saute the onion but just boil it together with the squash and potatoes.

Now, bring to boil in a stockpot, the liquid, squash, potatoes and onion. Once boiled, reduce to a simmer and cook til both the potatoes and squash are soft.

Pulse the soup with a handheld mixer until fine. Add more liquid and bring to boil if its too thick. Stir in the vanilla and butter cubes and pulse. The butter is to give the soup that shiny and smooth texture and also makes the soup more sweet, believe it or not.

Stir in cream. Season to taste. Voila!


Pumpkin Soup with Sage Pesto

1kg butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 medium sized floury potatoes, cut into pieces
2 large onion, chopped
1.5 litre chicken stock or water (depends on how skrimpy you are :D)
125 ml cream
few knobs of butter
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper

In a stock pot, bring to boil butternut, potatoes and onion together with the stock. Once boiled, bring to low heat and simmer til vegetables are soft.
Pulse soup til smooth with a handheld mixer.
Season with salt and pepper and nutmeg.
Throw in the few knobs of butter and pulse the soup to incorporate it.
Stir in cream.

SAGE PESTO

8g fresh sage
20g flat leaf parsley
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon toasted pinenuts
30g toasted walnuts (optional)
4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt or fleur de sel
25g grated parmesan

In a food processor, process the sage, parsley, garlic, nuts, oil and salt until smooth.
Transfer to a small bowl and stir in parmesan. Season to taste.

Serve the pumpkin soup with a dollop of the pesto.

Serving suggestions: To accompany the two butternut recipe, you can have some savoury muffins as a side dish. Here is a recipe for caramelised onion muffins.

CARAMELISED ONION MUFFINS
the recipe yields 12 muffins (approx 125ml size each)

50g butter
3 red onions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
250g self raising flour
Note: if you do not have self raising flour, use the same amount of plain flour and add in 1/2 tsp baking powder with 1/4 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp chopped fresh basil
90g grated cheddar
1 egg (about 55g) lightly beaten
1 tbsp olive oil
315 ml milk

Preheat oven 190C/375F.
Lightly grease 12 muffin holes with softened butter or if you are using muffin cups, then you do not need to grease the muffin moulds.
Melt butter over low heat, add onion, cook stirring until very soft.
Add the sugar, and cook, stirring continously for 2 minutes. Let cool.
Sift flour into a large bowl, stir in basil and cheese and season to taste.
Combine egg, milk and oil. Mix finely. Make a well in the flour, and pour in the milk mixture.
Add in 3/4 of the onion mixture.
Fold gently until just combined. The batter should be lumpy.
Spoon mixture into the prepared moulds and top with the remaining onions.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until risen and golden and when a skewer is inserted, comes out clean.

Labels: cheap eats, recipe, soup