Monday 2 March 2015

Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Soup

I use a meal planner, it has different meals for four weeks and we use it for a few months.  I'm getting bored of our current one and so am trying to think of some different meals.  I have a slow cooker which I only really use for stew at the moment and want to start using it more as our schedule in the evenings is quite hectic with different clubs.

I've decided to try the whole family on sweet potato and butternut squash soup (although I may not be able to call it that as R didn't like the sweet potato when C put it in our curry on Saturday, so if anyone has any ideas of a name, that would be fab!)  I had already bought the sweet potatoes and frozen butternut squash as I was going to make it for my lunch, but I thought with some nice crunchy bread it might work as a dinner.

I looked on the web for recipes and found this one by Nigella Lawson, L is a big fan of Nigella, so if I tell her it's a Nigella recipe she'll at least try it!  This is her recipe

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/butternut-and-sweet-potato-soup-66

As you can see, this only serves two, and so I've had to tweak it slightly so that it'll feed six.  Here's what I've done.

Ingredients:

                  4 sweet potatoes, peeled and chunked

                  500g (1 bag) of frozen, chunked butternut squash

                  2 red onions, sliced however you like

                  2300ml of stock (either vegetable or chicken, I used chicken as it was that or beef and I wasn't sure that would work lol)

Method:

             Chuck it all in the slow cooker on high for about an hour, then on low until you are ready to eat it.



             Use a hand held blender to blitz it so it's smooth (my lot won't eat chunky soup, that's not quite true C and hubby would, but the other three won't)

             If you think it is too thin once blitzed, like I just did, you can mix up a paste using cornflower and water, I used about 1/4 cup and stirred it in, then turned up the heat on the slow cooker to high again to make sure it's cooked in, I also added a regular potato grated up into the soup, as potato is a natural thickener (maybe less liquid or more vegetables next time I make it.)

             I've put mine in about 9.45am and we'll eat about 5pm with those part baked baguettes, I've got a gluten free one in the freezer for R and me.

            I have got some cream to stir through it once it's cooked but I doubt I'll make the swirls (sorry Nigella!)

Fingers crossed they will all like it, I'll report back on it's success or failure later on!



I informed the little two that we were having soup for dinner as we got blown home from school and L was happy, but R informed me he hated soup, all soup. I told him that I expected him to try it as it was a lovely winter soup and he hadn't tried it before.  I added a splash of cream into each bowl as I dished up and gave then their bowl of soup and sliced baguette (GF for R and me) and...they all liked it :-) I'm so happy and will be putting it on the four weekly planner. 

For pudding we had meringues, strawberries, blueberries and cream, delicious. 

Lupin Girl x



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