Married Life & Soup

Married life has entailed much of nothing too new. One of the biggest changes is definitely the loneliness of not having my old friends, and most of all, my family around. Moving over 500 miles away from home makes bringing things like that hard to pack. But no worries, there is nothing hearty, hot, homemade soup can't temporarily cure. Thanks to Kathy from work for sharing this recipe. I'll just call it my "Butternut Squash - Potato - Turkey - Onion Pearl - Thyme" Soup. "BSP-TOT" for short.

My husband's friend gave us a butternut squash from his wife's garden about a week ago, and we knew we wanted to eat it, but we just didn't know how. I initially wanted to make an Indian dish with the squash from a cookbook we had loaned from the library, but I hadn't been able to scrounge all the proper ingredients yet. A few days later, my co-worker gave me a copy of a recipe for the basis of this soup from a magazine she had and even gave me some fresh thyme that was left over from her batch.

Everything worked out perfectly because my husband (unfortunately) got sick, and the Indian dish would have been way too strong for his stomach and senses, and, I got an easy and yummy recipe to use for our butternut squash!

Here's MY take of the recipe below (I ended up tweaking it just a bit):

4 cups chicken/vegetable stock
3 cups cubed butternut squash
2 cups cubed red potatoes (I peeled mine only because the hubby was sick)
2 cups pearl onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, minced
1 teaspoon chicken bullion
1 teaspoon (or enough for flavor) freshly ground pepper
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups, cooked, cubed turkey breast

I peeled and chopped up the potatoes and squash into about 1 inch cubes. I then put the stock in a separate pot to boil. I then sauteed the onions and garlic in a pan (my wok, which I also made the soup in, actually), and let them cook for about 5 minutes over medium heat. I then added my squash and potato and sauteed them as well for about 10 minutes over medium to medium-high heat, just to get them flavored and cooked sooner. I then threw in my freshly minced thyme and let the flavor soak into the vegetables. I also threw in some of my black pepper and cooked and stirred for about 5 more minutes. After that, I put my hot stock into my pan (wok) and let it roll to a soft boil. I didn't throw in my turkey until after the veggies had begun to soften a bit, just because my turkey was already cooked. I let it shimmer for about 10 minutes while I baked our baguette in the oven, and then let it cool down a bit before serving with freshly baked, hot bread.

I cheated a bit because I bought a pre-roasted turkey breast from my local grocers. While the veggies shimmered, I just cut up my meat and waited to throw them in. I would have to say the hardest and most tedious part of the whole process was preparing the pearl onions, but they were definitely worth it, because they were my favorite part of the soup! I omitted salt only because the chicken stock I used, despite it being organic and fat free, had 550 mg of salt per serving already (ie, per cup), and I only added a touch of bullion for added flavor.

Needless to say, the hubby was happy, and I was happy. Bon apetit--and let me know how it goes, as well as any twists added to make it your special "BSP-TOT" soup!