Soups On.

Fall is just about here. It is my favorite season, even though I get horrible hayfever. I just love putting on sweatshirts, being comfortable in jeans again, sleeping under the covers and the smell of people turning on their furnaces. I also love soup. You can't eat soup in the summer, too hot. But fall, mmm. Butternut squash soup would have be the quintessential fall soup, you know, pumpkins, harvest, halloween.

I have indeed eaten pumpkin soup before, but I have never made it. And my experience with the vegetable is pretty limited to experiments this week and a butternut squash and risotto dish I made a couple years ago. I adapted this recipe from this amazing food blog and a Gourmet magazine recipe. (The Gourmet recipe called for either Turkish or Californian bay leaves. What? Who are these people.)

There's something intensely gratifying about chopping vegetables into tiny pieces. I do not feel the same about chopping acorn squash. The skin is thick. It would have been easier to open it with a hammer. And I did have to roast the squash for a while to soften it. I don't think I would have had the same problems using butternut squash, but seriously, I'm lucking I didn't cut my fingers off.

Also, and this is important. My mom is looking for a good soup cookbook. Leave recommendations in the comments section thanks.

Butternut (Acorn) Squash Soup:

2 small potatoes chopped

1 celery stalk chopped 1 carrot chopped

2 pounds butternut squash chopped

3 cremini mushrooms diced and sauteed

1/2 medium onion chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 cups chicken stock

Sautee onions with salt and pepper in olive oil until tender in large pot. Add potatoes, celery, carrot, squash and stock and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Turn heat off and let sit for 10 minutes. Transfer soup to food processor and puree, bit by bit if necessary. Add sauteed mushrooms and serve. Salt and pepper to taste.