In a large stock pot, heat the olive oil on medium heat and saute the onions and garlic. Meanwhile chop the carrots and celery and add them in as you go.
Once the onions are soft, add the water and bouillon and crank the heat up to high. You can use 4 cups of chicken broth if you wish, but bouillon is so much less expensive that it’s won me over.
Peel and chop the butternut squash and sweet potato and add them into the stock pot. Add all the seasoning and bring the soup to a boil. Once it’s boiling, scale the heat back to medium high and set a timer for 10 minutes. Stir the soup occasionally.
By the ten minute mark, the potatoes and squash should be soft. If they’re not, continue to boil them until they are fork tender. Once they’re soft, fish out the four pieces of bay leaf (and discard them) and transfer the soup into a blender.
BLEND! You may have to blend the first half and then add the second half and continue blending in order for there to be room for it all. This recipe makes about 9 cups, so plan accordingly if your blender doesn’t hold that much.
The resulting soup should come out silky smooth. You can serve this with some coconut milk or heavy cream, but I usually don’t because I can’t bring myself to open a whole can/carton for just a drizzle. (I’m a cheap-o.)
Freezer instructions: option 1
Make the soup as directed above.
There is too much of this soup to fit in a single gallon sized ziplock bag, so I would recommend portioning it out into multiple smaller, pint sized bags and storing them that way. Make sure to remove all the air you can when you seal up the bag and leave a little room in the top for the soup to expand as it freezes.
Make sure you label the bags and write instructions on them:
1. Thaw under cool water
2. heat through in a sauce pan
Label with an expiration date of 3 months out.
Lay them flat on a cookie sheet in your freezer and freeze overnight. Once they’re frozen through, you can remove them from the cookie sheet and store them anywhere in your freezer without fear of spills.
Freezer instructions: option 2
Label a gallon sized bag as “Butternut Squash Soup” and add the date, then write these instructions:
1. bring 4 cups of water to a boil
2. dump in contents of bag
3. simmer for 20-30 minutes (until potatoes and squash are soft)
4 remove bay leaves and blend
Chop up all of the vegetables and add them all into the previously labeled gallon sized bag.
In a separate smaller baggie, combine the bouillion, thyme, sage, bay leaves, salt, pepper, and curry powder, seal it up and toss it into the large freezer bag with the veggies.
when it comes time to make the soup, simply dump everything into 4 cups of boiling water and simmer for a half hour, blend, and serve.
