Butternut Squash Soup

One of the vendors at the local Farmer's market had some nice butternut squash last week, so I made the following soup. I elected to not use a recipe that roasts the squash because I wanted to avoid the resulting carmelization which leads to sweeter squash soup.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced celery
1/4 cup diced carrot
Nutmeg, salt and freshly ground black pepper
About 4 cups chicken stock
One butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed (1-inch chunks)

Heat olive oil in large pot, add onion, celery and carrot and cook until onion is translucent. Add squash and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook until squash is tender. Use a blender and puree the soup in batches until it is completely smooth. Return blended soup to pot. Stir and season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Serve as is, or get fancy and stir in some mascarpone cheese or crème fraîche as a garnish.

The hardest part about this recipe is peeling the raw squash (hmmm, maybe that's why people roast it). The chicken stock, was made from a Thomas Keller recipe and used chicken feet. which I'm sure made a big difference (it sure made a difference in time)!

Of course, as soon as this was done, Indian Summer arrived here in San Francisco, and barbecuing while drinking chilled rosé wine seemed top of mind instead of eating winter squash soup, but things will get back to normal soon enough.