Nosh on my Squash!

Every Saturday morning, I make my way to Wooster Square Market without a plan. I do, however, always leave with one. Planning menus while shopping at the market is what makes the market so fun! Several meal ideas can spring up when vendors offer me some of their homemade jam or a new variety of tomatoes.

On this particular day, I was drawn to squash. At first I was going to get a few butternut squash to bake, which isn’t too out of the ordinary. However, when a giant blue walnut shaped squash caught my eye, I knew I had to have it. But what was it? I don’t know much about squash and the vendor only advised to bake it as I do the butternut.

The first thing I did when I came home was Google it, right after I devoured my SoNo bakery goodies. Okay, the SECOND thing I did was Google the squash. It was a blue Hubbard squash, perfect for eating this time of year. I decided to make a creamy soup with it. The best part was it would make enough to distribute between my sister, my boyfriend, and myself.

The process was simple, but time consuming. I cleaned and quartered the squash (I mixed in one butternut squash for extra flavor.) After baking the squash (it filled my whole oven!), I pureed it. I then chopped up ginger, celery, leeks, and onions. After I browned them in butter with salt and pepper in the pot, I scraped the squash out of its skin and added it to the pot. About 10 minutes later I added a couple of cartons of organic chicken broth (I recommend Swanson’s Vegetable Broth for vegetarians.) Another 30 minutes later, I added a cup of heavy cream, stirring and reducing the heat. The whole house smelled divine. I remember looking at the pot thinking it could be dumped on an Iron Chef winner like Gatorade on a coach at a basketball game. In other words, it was a lot of soup!

Shown here with cracked pepper

along with sausages, a salad, and

slices of Midnight Moon cheese