Celebrating the End of Gardening Season: Butternut Squash Soup

This is a won­der­ful soup that uses two of our area’s best local prod­ucts, apples and maple syrup. Enjoy!

Heat your oven to 375 degrees. Peel 3 lbs. of but­ter­nut squash and cut into 1” cubes. (You could also try sweet pota­toes or pump­kin for a dif­fer­ent ver­sion of this soup.) Bake until the cubes are soft­ened, about 45 minutes.

Anne Don­nel­ly shared her ​“easy-peasy” method for cook­ing squash: cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and place the halves cut-side down in a bak­ing pan in a 350-degree oven. Cook until soft and then cool. Use the squash in this recipe or store any extra in plas­tic bags for anoth­er meal or anoth­er recipe. If you pre­fer less knife work, you may favor this alternative.

In a large pot or Dutch oven, sauté:

• 1 table­spoon olive oil
• 1 sweet onion, diced
• 1 stalk cel­ery, diced
• 1 apple, diced

When the veg­eta­bles are soft­ened, add the squash to the pot. Then add:

• 6 cups of water (you can sub­sti­tute chick­en or veg­etable broth for some or all of the water, if you like)
• 1 tea­spoon salt
• ½ tea­spoon pepper
• ½ to 1 tea­spoon cin­na­mon, to taste
• 1 table­spoon real maple syrup

Sim­mer for 20 min­utes. Purée in a blender or food proces­sor. If you have an immer­sion blender, you can com­plete this last step right in the pot and be on your way to the table with less clean-up afterwards.