I spent the weeked at a workshop with a group of friends that I meet with a couple of times a year. We bring food for our meals that we share as potlucks, and the meals are often feasts for the senses. One of the dishes I brought was this easy squash soup, the recipe for which I will share here. This soup is a golden yellow orange warm and spicy soup perfect for after a rainy morning spent outdoors on the west coast.

I became aquainted with this easy squash soup from our community lunches, where a hot lunch is served at the community center on the days the food bank food is given out in my community. It started out as an extention of the food bank and quickly became very popular, even supporting the food bank as people other than food bank recipiants went to it and pay for their lunch by making a donation to the foodbank. It aslo removed the standing out in a crowd stigma for people who were getting the food bank to have a large group of all walks of life going to the community center on that particular day. There is often three types of soup to choose from, and this squash soup is my own personal interpretation of what is sometimes the vegan choice. Not that I am vegan, but this soup is good even made in a base of water.

Here is how to make it.

You chop a squash in half, clean out the seeds and stringy guts. Save the seeds for roasting or replanting your squash vines. I used a sweet dumpling, but have also made this soup with sugar pumpkin or acorn squash or even mature 8 ball squash.

Then you steam the squash until soft.

When it cools, scrape out the squash flesh and put in a pot of either water or a mild flavored bone stock, perferably chicken or turkey.  Heat up the water

Add 1/2 teaspoon of  Thai red curry paste, and 1/2 teaspoon tumeric.

Next you add a can of coconut milk

Here I added some sweet potato chopped into cubes because I felt like the squash might not be enough.

Cook until the sweet potato is soft.

Add fresh grated ginger root and a tablespoon of miso at the end.

The miso adds saltiness and is pro biotic, making this soup even more healthy and satifying than it already is.

If you do not use chicken or turkey stock, then the soup is suitable for vegans and vegitarians as well.

You simmer the soup until it is soft, and it is best served the next day after the flavours have melded together.