Orange is the new black in your kitchen this fall
This soup combines butternut squash, sweet potatoes and carrots
With the brightly colored leaves falling quickly, and shorter dark dreary days ahead we can take comfort in all of the orange vegetables bringing us plenty of sunshine. Carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkins and winter squash, varieties like the Royal Acorn, Hercules, Delicata, Hubbard and Butternut.
These brightly colored orange vegetables are at their peak for harvesting giving us the best flavors for cooking with while delivering healthy doses of zeaxanthin, flavonoids, lycopene, potassium, vitamin C and betacarotene, which we convert into Vitamin A. All the things our bodies and souls are craving at this time of year.
This recipe for Orange is the New Black Soup is perfect for getting cozy with after a day outdoors or for simply taking the chill off. It’s easy to make and looks like a big bowl of liquid sunshine that is rich and hearty with a creamy texture even though it doesn’t contain any dairy. Personally I like to serve it with a bit of heavy cream swirled into it with a healthy gob of butter and bread to sop it up.
Orange is the New Black Soup
Ingredients:
• 3 Tbsp. cooking oil
• 2 cups coarsely chopped cooking onions
• 2 cups coarsely chopped butternut squash, peeled
• 1 ½ cups coarsely chopped carrots, peeled
• 3 cups coarsely chopped sweet potatoes, peeled
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp. minced ginger • 1 tbsp. Curry Powder
• 1 tsp. Smoked paprika
• 4-6 cups vegetable or chicken stock
• ½ cinnamon stick
• ¼ cup minced green onion
• ¼ cup minced red onion
• ¼ cup bacon bits
• Salt and Pepper to taste
Method: Sauté the onions in the oil over medium heat in a large soup pot until they become soft and translucent. Add the squash, carrots and sweet potatoes, and continue to stir the mixture for about 10 -15 minutes until the vegetables begin to soften and brown up a bit before adding the minced garlic, ginger, curry powder and paprika. Continue to cook and stir for 2-3 until it becomes very aromatic.
Add the stock and cinnamon stick. Reduce heat to mediumlow and let the soup simmer for 60-90 minutes, until all of the vegetables are tender. Remove soup from heat, fish out the cinnamon stick and discard. Puree soup with an immersion blender until smooth. You may need to add some extra liquid depending on what your desired consistency for soup is and this can be done using water, more stock, white wine, milk or what have. Taste the soup and adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper.
Serve soup hot with lots of crusty bread and the minced onions and bacon for garnishing.
With Halloween soon to be crashing in on our doorsteps you may even want to serve this soup, once pureed, with whole cooked black beans to give it a bit of a Halloween-esque look to it.