I must have mentioned about a zillion times that I love soup but I’ll say it again, I love soup! It is the most comforting meal for me. Creamy soups are my favorite, but anything warm and full of flavor works too. Plus it’s fall, so that means festive herbs and spices and lots of different types of squash. I think my very first recipe on this site was a butternut squash recipe. When it’s in season I include it in my meals at least a couple times a week. I pick up the pre-cut bags of butternut squash from Trader Joe’s and keep them in the fridge.
In my kitchen butternut squash gets pureed, chopped, steamed, roasted, and just plain cooked a lot. Most of the time I like to steam it and add olive oil and a little Parmesan cheese or I’ll pour a pasta sauce over it with chicken on the side. Butternut squash is filling which is nice, however doesn’t make you feel like you’re having a heavy meal. The only thing is that I’m the only one in the house that will eat butternut squash any which way. My girls and my husband prefer it oven roasted with lots of garlic. Not that I can blame them!
Last week the hubby was traveling which meant I didn’t have to worry about making something he would want to eat. I know that sounds horrible, but I’m sure some of you can empathize! Anyhow, I wanted soup so I made soup. There needed to be some protein in there and it was veggie Monday, so that’s where the lentils came in. The soup still looked a little bare with just the butternut squash and lentils so in went the spinach. After the garlic and herbs and spices were added in, it was delicious! All of the fabulous flavors of fall!
*Makes about 4 servings
Ingredients
1 cup water
1 15oz bag butternut squash, cut into pieces
1/4 cup lentils
2 cups chopped spinach
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
1/2 cup almond milk
salt and pepper to taste
Method
The bags of cut butternut squash are great, but the pieces are pretty big so sometimes I cut them into smaller pieces. For this soup I cut each chunk into 2 or 3 pieces because I wanted them to be small enough to get picked up in a spoon. It cooks a lot quicker this way too!
After you’ve cut the butternut squash and rinsed your lentils add 1 cup water, butternut squash, lentils, spinach, thyme, and oregano to a medium sized pot and bring to a boil on high heat. Once it starts to boil, turn the stove down to medium/low heat and let the ingredients simmer until the squash and lentils are cooked. This takes about 20 minutes.
Stir in the almond milk salt and pepper. Leave the lid off the pot and let it simmer another 5 minutes to let it soak up the almond milk. Scoop into a nice big soup bowl and eat away!