12.15.2008

Squash Soup from the Fridge


Last weekend was a busy one with not a whole lot of time to cook. On Sunday night I decided to skip my usual elaborate meal and use up some ingredients that had been hanging around the fridge for a while in a quick squash soup.

I used the neck of the curvy squash in the picture above. We had roasted the body of it during the week for a quick dinner. The neck didn't fit in the roasting pan so we put it away in the fridge for later use.



Here it is in the pan. I roasted it in olive oil with a few small turnips that needed to be used up.



The vegetables roasted perfectly! You really have to use a hot oven to get beautiful results like this - 425 or hotter.



I loosely chopped the squash and turnips and combined them with a leftover half can of diced tomatoes that had been sitting in the fridge waiting to be used, a cup or so of lentils, and a few cups of water. I would much rather have used broth than water, but there was none in the house. I picked some sage from the garden and made a bouquet garni to add flavor.



While this was cooking, I cubed a half loaf of leftover homemade pumpernickel bread. It had been sitting around for a few weeks and was way to stale to eat in slices. I melted some butter, tossed it with the bread cubes and a little salt, and put it in the oven. I turned the oven down to about 375 and cooked them for about 15 minutes, stirring them every so often.



After about 45 minutes the lentils were cooked. I had some leftover buttermilk from my last batch of butter so I threw that in with a tiny bit of milk that was about to expire. I flavored the soup with salt, cayenne, and a tiny bit of nutmeg, and then pureed it all lightly with my hand blender.



Delicious! It's really amazing what you can do from seemingly disjointed leftovers!
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