Recipe: Acorn Squash Soup

Now I'm definitely not claiming this recipe as my own, but it was so tasty, I had to share it. I found it over at Half Assed Kitchen. Plus, this recipe includes roasted garlic ~ my new favourite accompaniment to anything! I learned how to roast garlic over at the Pioneer Woman Cooks, so, while basically the same as what's in the soup recipe, I'll give you those methods instead. Ready?

Acorn Squash Soup

Ingredients

1 acorn squash
1 head of garlic
2 cups of chicken broth
olive oil
salt
pepper
thyme

Methods

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Let's start by roasting the garlic. The soup recipe advises to start this after, but according to the cooking time from PW, I'd reccommend starting it first. Besides, I started both at the same time, cooked the garlic for 15 minutes longer and it was still under-roasted.
Start by cutting off the top of the garlic. You just want to expose the actual garlic clove without losing too much garlic. You don't want to peel off any of the skin either, since we don't want the garlic drying out.

Cover the bottom of a pie pan with about 2 tablespoons of oil. I like olive oil, but your favourite will do. Place the heads cut side up in the pan. I'm roasting 3 (it was a package deal at the grocery store) so that I can have leftovers for garlic toast.
Drizzle each head with olive oil. Don't be shy.
Season with salt and pepper. Cover with foil and roast for at least 45 min. It will smell delicious!

3. Now on to the squash. Depending on the size of your squash, it will take between 30-60 min. Mine was small, so it was ready in 30. I would recommend getting a good sized squash, since my soup turned out a little brothy (though still delicious).
Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place cut side down in a shallow pan of water. Bake (also at 350F) until soft.

4. Meanwhile, heat up your broth. I'm sure you can use vegetable broth if you don't want to use chicken.

5. Once the squash and garlic has cooled a bit, get out your blender! Pour in the broth, scoop out the meat of the squash and squeeze out the roasted (and soft) garlic cloves. This is the messiest part of roasted garlic, but the most fun. The cloves will pretty much just squeeze right out of the husk.

(Sorry. I know I took pictures, but my camera's memory card died, so I'm missing pictures of the roasted garlic.)

Season with salt, pepper and thyme. Blend (I have a soup setting on my blender).
Enjoy!