Love butternut squash soup? Looking for that amazing recipe that everyone on earth seems to have? Look no further! Follow the instructions below for soup so delicious it’ll change the way you look at fall!
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Step 1. Buy one or two mid-sized organic butternut squash from your local farmer’s market. Look for ones that are free of bruises, punctures (which can let in bacteria and cause mold) and brown frostbite scars, which can affect the texture and longevity of the squash.
Ideally you’re going to want to buy them out of rustic-looking wooden crates.
Step 2. Leave the squash on the counter for few days. As the squash ages, make an easy batch of homemade chicken stock. This soup is going to be so great, guys! Stay with me!
Store the stock in cute mason jars with adorable homemade labels because otherwise what’s the f**king point?
Step 3. Get distracted by things for a number of weeks. Unpaid Bills. Children’s illnesses or problems at school. Work. Relationship hassles. Episodes of “The Walking Dead.” Occasionally look over at the squash and say, “Oh yeah, I have to make that soup.”
I’m sure you’ll get to it.
Step 4. Wait for over a month. Throw away the now-rotten squash.
Quick Tip!
You’ll know it’s ready to throw away when your fingernail glides easily through its rotting, mold-covered flesh.
Step 5. Don’t be discouraged! Buy two new butternut squash– ideally organic ones from your local farmer’s market.
Do you feel earthy and in touch with the land yet?
Give it a few more minutes.
Step 6. Place new squash on counter top. Wait several weeks before throwing these squash away as well.
Step 7. At some point also throw the chicken stock away since it is several weeks old and possibly smells like a pile of fermenting skunk corpses. Take one of the frozen containers of chicken stock from the freezer and put it in the fridge to defrost. This way it will be ready in a day or two.
The stock tastes best in hand-labeled glass jars but if there is a rustic, gratuitous-looking piece of string tied around the jar it will taste, if it can be believed, EVEN BETTER.
Step 8. Buy two new organic butternut squash.
Enjoy the farmer’s market! While you’re there ask that guy with the beard and the Carhartt jacket if the chickens on his farm are mistreated and if he says ‘no’ can he give you proof?
Step 9. Allow the squash to sit for two weeks. Discard.
Step 10. Ok, you’re really going to do this, aren’t you? Stay with me. Buy two additional butternut squash but they don’t have to be organic this time– those are getting expensive, I know. Just normal ones from your supermarket will work fine.
The produce is probably from Argentina or whatever but WHO CARES at this point, right?
Step 11. Obviously you will wait several weeks and then throw these away. You knew that, didn’t you? I am sensing that maybe you have made this soup before.
Step 10. There may be a part of you that is getting frustrated. A part of you that is going, “Maybe this soup is just more trouble than it’s worth.” FIGHT IT. Are you seriously saying that you don’t have time to make a simple butternut squash soup recipe? You’ve already invested so much time and money it would be ridiculous to give up now, wouldn’t it?
Step 11. Obviously at this point the chicken stock has gone bad. Discard the chicken stock and take another one down from the freezer.
Step 12: Take a few weeks off from the soup. The recipe is tiring. I know.
Step 13. Purchase– now here is the key– pre cut up pieces of butternut squash. You can get these at your supermarket. They are not that expensive and they will save you the hassle of peeling, seeding, and cutting up a regular butternut squash.
In a perfect world, it would just grow like this.
Step 14. Take the pre-cut up butternut squash out of the fridge. Look at you! You are really doing it! Briefly sautee (5-10 minutes) and then roast the pieces of squash for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Now add the chicken stock to the saucepan with the roasted squash except that JUST KIDDING obviously the chicken stock has gone bad again.
Step 15. Purchase a can/box of chicken stock at a bodega and another package of butternut squash pieces.
If it makes you feel better to pour it into little glass mason jars before using it, do it!
Step 16. Watch more episodes of The Walking Dead since watching people having their heads bashed in is less stressful than dealing with your ongoing feelings of inadequacy.
Step 17 . Re-evaluate why it was so important to make butternut squash soup from scratch. You’re saying that “pre-packaged soups have so much sodium” but you also just ate an entire bag of potato chips so how big is the sodium issue for you, really?
Now is a good time to make the “chip on your shoulder” joke.
Step 18. Allow the boxed chicken stock and new butternut squash pieces to expire. Purchase a pre-made butternut squash soup from someplace like Trader Joes or call a restaurant that makes butternut squash soup and order a whole bunch of it.
Step 19. Pour into overpriced soup bowls that you bought at Crate & Barrel on a whim but never really get to use.
So cute, right? If you don’t have cute bowls and a good digital camera, don’t even bother making the soup.
Step 20. Enjoy!
Congratulations on a job well done! Once you enjoy your soup you can commence decorating your house with autumn leaves and gourds that appear to be riddled with venereal disease. Try not to get too overwhelmed by the magic of fall!!
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