Our Veggie Kitchen

I went into the kitchen today with a plan to roast some squash. I decided I'd roast the squash and aromatics and decide from there what flavors were talking to me. The blended squash had a sweet and roasty flavor and was screaming for mustard. I sizzled some mustard and ginger in oil and blended in the last batch. This is an easy soup to make and the sweet squash with subtle hints of ginger and curry powder are perfect for a rainy fall day.



Roasted Squash Curry Soup
Roasted Veggies:
3 tbs vegetable oil
1 large butternut squash (about 3 lbs), cubed
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
1 stalk celery, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic
Other:
15 oz can chickpeas, drained
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp amchur (dried green mango) or 1/2 small lemon, juiced
Tarka*:
1 tbs vegetable oil
1 tbs brown mustard seed (yellow is fine too)
1 tbs ginger, roughly chopped
1 tsp curry powder

Roasted Veggies:
Add the vegetables and squash to one or two 9x13 casseroles and drizzle with vegetable oil.  Cook in an oven preheated to 400 degrees.  Bake until the the veggies begin to carmelize in places.  Remove from the oven and add the can of chickpeas to the veggies.  Blend in batches with enough water to keep the blender going.  Pour into a soup pot.

Tarka*:
Heat 1 tbs of vegetable oil in a small frying pan.  Add the mustard seed until it sizzles, then add the ginger.  Fry just until the ginger becomes aromatic.  Remove from heat and stir in the curry powder.  Add to the blender with some of the pureed soup.  Pour some water into the fry pan and swirl to get the last bits of spice.  Pour into the blender.  Blend thoroughly.

Add the salt and amchur or lemon juice to taste.  Heat to a boil, remove from heat and serve.

8 Servings:  337 cal (9g fat, 67g carbs, 8g protein)

Note:  a tarka is a cooking method used to flavor Indian dals.  At the end of cooking, spices are fried in oil, then folded into the dal.  This worked great for this recipe.  You can adjust the flavors by adding bits of the last blended batch at a time until you get the flavor you want.