Butternut Squash Soup with Carmelized Onions - My Mind

After perusing a few websites that had various recipes (both vegan and non-vegan) with butternut squash as the main ingredient, I decided I would try my hand at inventing an original VEGAN recipe. I am slowly building my kitchen confidence and intuition - breaking out of my "strictly-follow-the-recipe" mentality is challenging and fun.

This recipe yielded 2 large bowls.

1 butternut squash
1/2 onion, sliced
1/2 c. cashews
3/4 to 1 c. plain soy milk
1 tsp. Better than Boullion
1/2 c. water
1/4 tsp. sage (from the spice rack, next time I'll try fresh!)
squirt of maple syrup
black and cayenne pepper to taste
parsley for garnish
_____________________________________
1) Preheat oven to 350. Place butternut squash into a baking dish and bake for 1 hour. Let the squash cool to the point that it can be (man) handled. Peel skin then gut and toss the seeds. Slice the butternut in half; cut one half into small chunks. Reserve other half for another exciting vegan recipe. [I wrapped the other 1/2 in plastic wrap and will store in the fridge until I can think of something to do with it...any vegan-friendly suggestions?]
2) Thinly slice and caramelize onion in a bit of olive oil.
3) Blend until creamy the cashews and soy milk. Add in Better than Boullion, water, sage, and a medium squirt (how precise!) of maple syrup.
4) Add the squash cubes and blend, blend, blend! until creamy.
5) Transfer soup into a pot, toss in the caramelized onions, season with the peppers, and heat through. Garnish, if wanted, and serve immediately!

Some thoughts:

The soup was pretty good. The blended cashews lent the soup a thick, creamy texture. In the event that you wanted soupier soup, you could always add in more water until desired thinness is achieved. But I liked the viscosity of the recipe - its just a matter of personal preference, all!

I rushed the caramelization process, so my onions were not as tender or as sweet as they could have been. Next time, I won't rush the process - if I remember correctly, Martha (Stewart, of course) suggests that the process should take at least 1/2 hour. Since it was late at night, I rushed the process, and let the onion slices cook for a scant 10 minutes or so...Next time, I'll try to improve on this aspect of the recipe.

RA suggested the combination of butternut squash and sage. She is a proponent of fresh herbs - I used what I had around the kitchen at the time, which is the powdered sage from a spice rack. Next time, I'd try fresh sage.

What's Better Than Bouillon, you ask? Basically, it is a concentrated veggie paste that you add to water to make veggie broth. Alternatively, using real (homemade or store-bought) veggie broth would be an acceptable substitution.

At Raymonds, I once ordered their Chipolte Butternut Squash Soup and thought it was good, but a tad spicy. In comparison, my soup was extremely mild. Adding more black and/or cayenne and/or other type of pepper is another variation that I might play around with on a rainy day.

When heating the soup, the soup kept splattering out of the pot! Next time, I might use a lower heat for a longer length of time as to avoid the mess left on the stove.

I am excited to see if and how the flavors meld after 24 hours.

Decent soup!