I am a big fan of soup.  Growing up, whenever my family made the 6-7 hour drive to visit my grandparents in Southern Utah, my grandma always had a pot of soup waiting for us when we arrived.  At the time I wondered if she had an inflated idea of how much my family liked soup.  But now I think I know why she made it so much - probably for the same reasons I make it two or three times a week.

1. 1. You can make it ahead
   

2. 2. It’s just as good leftover as it is fresh
   

3. 3.You can make many kinds with whatever you happen to have in the fridge/pantry
   

4. 4.It’s cheap
   

5. 5.It’s healthy
   

I have a couple of reasons that may not have been on her list:

6. 6.It’s an easy way to get meatless protein in your diet
   

7. 7.My toddler likes it.  For some reason he made up his mind that he likes soup, so he will now eat any kind of soup, no matter what’s in it.  So I can sneak whatever I want into the soup and it gets eaten.
   

One of my favorite soups is the recipe I’ll give below for Butternut Bisque.  I wanted to make this soup a few days ago but didn’t have any butternut squash.  I did, however have acorn squash, so I figured what’s the big difference?  I’ll just use acorn squash.  I now know why it’s Butternut Bisque, not Acorn Bisque. 

Acorn squash not only has a lovely overall acorn shape, but also hills and valleys all around it, which make it an enormous pain to peel.  I took me 5 times longer to whittle the peel of that damned acorn squash than it takes to peel a butternut squash.  And it only yielded about 1/4 the amount of flesh as with a butternut.  I had two and finished the first one out of a determination not to be weaker than a squash.  But I gave up after one and just added a can of pumpkin puree to make up the rest.

Butternut Bisque

2 medium carrots, sliced

1 celery ribs, chopped

2 medium leeks (white portion), sliced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (I only use half.  Tabasco sauce also works)

1/2 cup butter

2 lbs butternut squashed (6 cups) peeled, seeded, and cubed

2 cans (14 1/2 oz each) chicken broth

1/2 tsp powdered ginger

1/2 cup half and half

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted

Saute carrots, celery, leeks, and jalapeno for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add squash, broth, and ginger.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until squash is tender (about 25 minute).  Cool.  Puree squash mixture in batches in blender or food processor.  Return to pan and add cream, salt, and pepper.  Mix well.  Heat through, but don't boil.  Garnish with pecans.