Adapted from Ruth Reichl’s My Kitchen Year (2015). Ruth describes this soup as “the most luxurious vegan dish I know.” On that first dreary and cold day of fall, this soup is comforting and so good.
When we went to visit my brother Steve in November, he gave us a box of butternut squashes from his garden. We used them to make this delicious soup again and again. A large butternut squash is about 2 pounds, so you can double this recipe if you want more of the wonderful soup.
1 onion
1 rib celery
2 carrots
Olive oil
about 1 pound of butternut squash
½ pound potatoes
Salt
Begin by coarsely chopping an onion, a rib of celery and 2 carrots; you don’t have to be fussy about this since you’re going to end up pureeing everything. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the bottom of a casserole or Dutch oven. Add onion, celery, and carrots and cook for about ten minutes, until they are tender.
Peel a butternut squash and cut it into ¾ inch or so cubes, or buy butternut or acorn squash already peeled and cut up at the grocery store. Peel the half pound of waxy potatoes (Yukon Golds are good), and cut the potatoes into chunks of the same size. Stir squash and potatoes into the vegetables in the casserole. Add a couple teaspoons of sea salt and 2 ½ cups of boiling water. Cover and simmer until everything is very soft, about half an hour.
Use an immersion blender to purée the soup (or a regular blender, if you are very careful about not overfilling it with hot soup).
Taste for seasoning and serve drizzled with a few drops of olive oil and/or good balsamic vinegar. A crisp dice of apples on top makes this look lovely and adds a very pleasing note of sweetness.