Spicy Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Soup

Each week, we have a routine of going through our paper bag filled with community garden tomatoes in various stages of ripening, as well as through our winter squash "stash" to pull out anything that needs to be eaten. After getting an "inventory" as to the ingredients we have at home to work with, I can then plan our weekly menu. This week, on top of all those tomatoes you saw in the Weekly Local Booty Update, we also had a butternut (from our community garden) and a delicata squash (from the farmer's market) to work with. The delicata is reserved for a meal later in the week. The butternut was featured in this week's installment of "soup and bread" night, also informally known as Saturday night. :-)

After last week's thick soup, I decided another thick, hearty soup was in order seeing that it has gotten a lot more seasonal (aka cold) this week. This was a very easy soup to make - which was a good thing, I spent all of Saturday doing gardening work, baking, and doing some dishes. Poor Brett was inundated with homework. Sunday, when I should have been cleaning the apartment, I watched football instead. Brett worked on more homework, and watched a full game and part of the evening game with me. I hope everyone had as lovely of a weekend as I did.

Now, enough of the small talk, on to the pictures and recipe!















The local booty legend:
no asterisk = grocery store
+ = The Root Cellar
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden
**** = the non-profit buying club, Blue Planet or Purcell Mountain Farms

Spicy Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Soup

1 medium butternut squash, halved, seeds and "innards" removed, peeled and cubed ***
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed *
1 red onion, quartered +
4 cloves of garlic, peeled +
3 dried cayenne peppers, stems removed and seeded ***
4 cups of water
ground cumin
ground coriander
pepper
salt

Combine butternut, sweet potato, onion, garlic, peppers, and water in a large pot.

Simmer for 30-35 minutes, or until veggies are very soft.

Let cool for a few minutes.

Transfer to a food processor and add cumin and coriander.

Blend until very smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This went really well with some crusty bread. I love how sweet, spicy and creamy this soup turned out. So yummy!

'Til next time.