Tuesday Tasties No.6

Wow, the temperature dropped quickly eh?

Aside from investing in a new longer length coat, digging out the body butter and slathering on some nourishing conditioner to cope with the cooler climes, I've also started bringing out the big guns and cooking large batches of soup (enough for dinner and lunch the next day as I'm thrifty that way).

Butternut Squash & Ginger Soup

This soup was just what the Dr ordered this evening when I got home. Quick and easy to do, (especially if you cheat like me and buy some pre-prepared butternut squash) this is also easy to adjust to your own tastes. Ad likes to add cumin and chilli flakes for a bit of a kick, but you could also add some mirin or honey for a sweeter hit.

You'll need:

• 2 tablespoons of sesame oil
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 2 celery sticks, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon of minced ginger
• Lots of coriander
• 500g of butternut squash (or as close as you can get), peeled and chopped
• 1 litre of stock, I've used chicken, beef and vegetable and all work pretty well
• Sesame seeds

First, heat your oil in pan and add the carrot, celery, onions and cook until slightly softened. Then add in the garlic, a handful of the coriander and the ginger.

Cook this for 10 minutes before adding your squash, if you've NOT CHEATED like me and bought pre-prepared stuff then cook for a further 5-10 minutes until it's beginning to soften. Then add your stock.

Season to taste before simmering this for 20 minutes until the squash is completely cooked through.

Once the squash is cooked, proceed to pop your soup into a blender. If like me, your blender isn't quite big enough to fit everything in, then add all of the solid stuff and a few ladles of the stock to help it blitz.

Put the mixture back into the pan to combine any left over stock.

This point is a good opportunity to adjust the seasoning to suit your own tastes. Once it's ready, it's time to serve up, I did ours with some sesame seeds (to compliment the sesame oil) and another handful of chopped coriander.

Hope you have fun!  Let me know how you get on with this Winter Warmer!!!

This recipe has been slightly adapted from something similar from James Duigans Clean & Lean Cookbook.