Golden Fall Harvest Soup
Description
This is a delicious fall soup, which includes wonderful vegetables from our garden. It would be a great soup to have as an appetizer for your Thanksgiving meal! This recipe makes a large stockpot full of soup. We usually freeze half of the soup and enjoy the other half when we make it.
At a Glance
Equipment
It is important to have a food processor and a blender to prepare this wonderful, Autumn soup.
Ingredients
3 pounds of Butternut Squash, cubed
5 Yellow Squashes, clean all of them. Peel, and chop 2 of them; leave the peel on the other 3 and chop them as well.
3 cups of carrots, shredded
3 Celery Stalks, chopped (or about 1-⅓ cups)
1 large Heirloom Tomato (either yellow or orange in color), peeled and chopped (or about 1-⅓ cups)
1 large White Onion, finely chopped (or about 2 cups)
1 Red Onion, finely chopped (or about 1 cup)
5 cloves of Garlic, minced
1 pound of mild Italian Sausage
5 tablespoons of Butter
3 tablespoons of Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
8-½ cups of Chicken Broth
1 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream
2 cups of Half and Half
1 tablespoon of McCormick® Grill Mates® Montreal Steak Seasoning
2 teaspoons of Salt
1 tablespoon of Italian Dry Seasoning
1 Tablespoon of dried Thyme
1 teaspoon of ground White Pepper
Optional Garnishes for the Soup:
Butternut squash sauce
Sour cream
Chives or red onions
Salad Croutons (and you can easily access that recipe by clicking on that recipe title)
Directions
Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine the olive oil and the butternut squash cubes and then sprinkle the McCormick® Grill Mates® Montreal Steak Seasoning over the squash. Using your hands, toss the butternut squash to make sure that the oil and seasoning are evenly distributed. Line two baking sheets with foil and place the butternut squash on the baking sheets. Put the butternut squash in the oven for about an hour; the butternut squash should caramelize a bit, which will add a nice flavor to the soup. After an hour remove the butternut squash from the oven and set it aside. In a large stockpot, melt the butter over a medium heat, and add the red and white onions as well as the garlic and cook for about 5-10 minutes until it is translucent. Add the carrots, the celery, the salt, the white pepper, the thyme, and the Italian seasoning, and continue cooking it for another 5-10 minutes. Add the yellow squash, the tomatoes, and the chicken broth and cook for it for 30 minutes on a medium heat -- stirring occasionally so that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. While the soup is cooking, cook the Italian sausage in a sauté pan over a medium heat until it is fully cooked. Once the sausage is cooked, cool it, put it in the food processor, and pulse it a few times to break the sausage down so that it looks like ground beef before it is set aside. After the soup has cooked for 30 minutes, add the butternut squash to the soup and continue cooking it for another 30-45 minutes on medium/low heat--stirring occasionally so that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. At this point, make sure that all the vegetables are soft. If they are not soft, continue cooking the soup until they become soft. Once the vegetables are all soft, remove the soup from the stove and let it cool. Once the soup has cooled, process it through your blender in batches to a nice smooth consistency. Pour the soup back into the stockpot, and add the cream and half and half to the soup, as well as the sausage and mix it in by hand with a spoon to integrate the cream and sausage into the soup. Heat the soup to the desired temperature (but do not boil) for serving. Then remove it and serve the soup with the garnishes of your choice.
Wine Pairings
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