Butternut Squash & Lentil Soup

Thursday was my birthday. Thursday was also yet another cold, rainy, dreary day in Atlanta, which was perfect for soup lunch. One of my favorite soup places in Atlanta is the lovely Souper Jenny on East Andrews Drive. I think it may be the only good reason to ever be on East Andrews Drive because everything else over there is a waste of time.  Anyway, my delicious birthday lunch selection was some pumpkin & butternut squash soup and a lentil salad. Sadly, it was so wonderful that I ate it too quickly and couldn't enjoy the two hour long lunch I had planned. Happily, it inspired this week's butternut squash and lentil soup.

First of, I recognize that most people will find this recipe nauseating. I'm okay with that, because it was not my best. If you decide to embrace this soup and give it a try, you'll need: one butternut squash, a few cloves of garlic, two shallots, some ginger, lentils, broth of your choosing, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, ground nutmeg, cumin, coriander and cinnamon.

Start with chopping your veggies, mince 2-3 cloves of garlic,

and two shallots. Set these aside in a small bowl together.

Then, peel and mince about 1 inch of fresh ginger. You can use about 2 teaspoons of ground ginger instead if you can't find fresh, but fresh is better. Set this aside in a bowl by itself.

Now, peel the butternut squash.  The squash peel is really quite thick. I had to go over the squash three times with my peeler to get down to the squash itself.

Next, dice the squash into medium-sized cubes. I cut mine into rounds and cut out the seeds once I got to them. Put all the squash in a large bowl and set aside.

Then I mixed my spices together. I normally don't do this, instead just adding them directly to the soup. But since I put so many spices in this one, I thought this was a good idea. Into a cute little stainless prep cup, 2 teaspoons of ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander, and a little bit of freshly ground nutmeg.  Feel free to play with this spice mix. I bet this would be good with more cinnamon or maybe even pumpkin pie spice.

For the last of the prep steps, sift through a cup of lentils, making sure that you remove any rocks or other non-food pieces.

Now, get everything cooking. Into an enameled cast iron dutch oven over medium heat, throw in a bit of olive oil and the garlic and shallots.  Cook for 3-5 minutes until you start to smell the garlic.

Then add the ginger and cook for 2-4 minutes until you smell the ginger.

Add the spices and stir to mix.

Add the squash and lentils, stir to mix and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add about 6 cups of broth and bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer.  Cook this for about 50 minutes, stirring occaisionally.

Meanwhile in my kitchen, Harley-face woke up from his much needed nap after a weekend boarded at day care, to the lovely smell of Brian dicing up some beef for dinner. That puppy is so nosy and stands so well on his back paws!

After an hour or so, the squash and lentils will be cooked and the soup should look something like this

I added some fresh lemon juice then mashed the soup with my potato masher. In retrospect, I should have stopped after mashing, you'll see why in a second.

Since I don't know when to quit, I blended this soup with my stick blender. Which resulted in a soup that looked an awful lot like baby food or possibly baby poo depending on your perspective.

Regardless of this soup's semi-unappetizing appearance, it does taste good and it looks lovely in the fantastic soup and sandwich plates (thanks Amy!).

This soup was not my best. I will admit that. If I were to make it again I wouldn't blend it. I would also use less cumin because cumin smells a bit like dirty feet (which makes people look at me really strangely when I heat this up at work). However, this is a nice hearty soup. I was feeling quite sick at work today, complete with what I thought was a fever and was very lightheaded, but after my lunch serving of this soup, I felt like a million bucks. Pretty food, it is not. Comfort food, it may be.