Butternut Squash Soup and Roasted Garlic with Cambozola

Butternut Squash Soup and Roasted Garlic with Cambozola

Bloggers, PREPARE! I will be trying my best to at least do ONE blog weekly, so you will have many choices of meals to make this fall. 

One of my favorite days out of the month is when the new Food Network magazine comes out, so when I saw a tomato soup with grilled cheese CROUTONS (that's right, Katie Schlossberg) on the cover of the new October 2012 issue, I knew I was in for some good fall soup recipes. I had recently bought a butternut squash, but it remained undetermined whether I was going to roast it or use it in a soup. Of course, my new magazine had a butternut squash soup recipe, and I haven't made soup in a while, so I decided to roll with it. I absolutely love love love butternut squash, but I don't particularly like butternut squash soup. It is usually a tad too sweet for me, so I decided I would make mine a little spicy as opposed to sweet. It was incredibly easy to make, so as long as you have a blender or a food processor, or even a hand mixer, you're good to go. A hand mixer may be a little ambitious, and it will be a little chunky, but it really comes down to your preference of texture.

ALSO, I had recently bought a lot of garlic, so I knew I wanted to do a roasted garlic and cheese bread appetizer. A true comfort meal. I have been doing my own rendition of Bepe and Gianni's (a delicious Italian restaurant in Eugene, Oregon) ever since college, and it goes a little sumpin' like this....

The simple, easiest recipe to roast garlic can be found here 

Ingredients:

6 ounces of Cambozola cheese (in the blue cheese family)
1 baguette
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 head of garlic

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Peel away the outer layers of the garlic bulb skin, leaving the skins of the individual cloves intact. Using a knife, cut off 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of the top of cloves, exposing the individual cloves of garlic
3. Place the garlic heads in a baking pan; muffin pans work well for this purpose. Drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over each head, using your fingers to make sure the garlic head is well coated. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed (which could be up to an hour). Meanwhile, put the cheese in a ramekin or oven safe small bowl, and let the cheese melt slightly in the oven next to the garlic
4. Allow the garlic to cool enough so you can touch it without burning yourself. Use a small small knife cut the skin slightly around each clove. Use a cocktail fork or your fingers to pull or squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins

Butternut Squash Soup with Chicken Apple Sausage

Ingredients:

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
12 ounces cooked chicken apple sausage, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (about 4 links)
4 cups cubed peeled butternut squash
3 medium carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 1/2 cups water
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

The original recipe has 1/2 cup fresh sage, for a garnish to fry later, but I omitted this because that would add more sweetness

Directions:

1. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl using a spoon and set aside

2. Add the squash, carrots, celery, onion, chicken broth, 2 1/2 cups water and 3/4 teaspoon to the pot. Cover and bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and continue simmering until the vegetables are tender, about 15 more minutes

3. Puree the soup in a blender (or processor) in batches, then return to the pot along with the sausage. Season with salt and pepper and you're done!!!!

Congratulations! You just made a yummy soup in less than an hour! WOOHOO!