Roasted Butternut Squash Curry Soup

Without a clear vision of what to do with a 4lb butternut squash...I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, drizzled on a generous dose of olive oil, sprinkled on coarse sea salt, ground on black peppercorn and slid it into the oven at 425 degrees F for an hour. Now I have an hour to figure out what to do with it. Initially, I bought it to make a roasted butternut squash lasagna I'd been eyeing all week from a food magazine. After I bought the squash, I read the recipe more carefully and found out it would take at least 4 hours. Ok. That isn't going to work for me tonight. After searching through several recipes, Ina Garten came to the rescue. I was inspired by her Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Curry Condiments Recipe. Here is my rendition!

Yield: 8ish servings (6oz per side dish serving)

Total Time: 90 minutes

Ingredients: 

• 4lb butternut squash, halved and seeds scooped out
• 2 medium yellow onions (I used one and a  half large vidalias), chopped in chunks
• 2 apples, peeled, cored, in chunks
• olive oil
• coarse salt
• ground pepper
• 4 to 6 cups of vegetable stock (depending on desired thickness)
• 2 heaping teaspoons curry powder

Condiments: 

Scallions, trimmed and sliced diagonally

Unsweetened coconut, shredded, lightly toasted

Banana chips

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Place butternut squash on parchment paper-lined baking tray with rim (I didn't line mine so had to do a little more soaking in the clean-up phase...I'll probably use my huge ceramic baking dish next time), douse cut side with olive oil, sprinkle on salt, ground on fresh peppercorn. Flip over and roast in oven on top rack for an hour.

Meanwhile, with another rimmed baking tray lined with parchment paper, place onions and apples. Drizzle olive oil, mix around with your fingers. Slide into oven on bottom rack at about 30 minutes to go.

When roasting process is done, let veggies cool. When squash is cool enough to touch, peel off skin, it should come off pretty easily. Beware of hot-finger-burning-steam! In batches, puree the roasted veggies with stock in a food processor or blender (I don't have a food processor so I use the latter). As you finish with batches, pour them into a large stock pot. Add the curry powder and 1 teaspoon salt. Taste to make sure all flavors come through. If soup is too thick, stir in additional stock. Reheat and serve with condiments. Serve immediately or freeze this soup and pull it out on those weeknights you don't know what to make!