October Soup

Oh hello again, blog. It's been a while. A very long while. Anybody still out there?

A lot's happened since last we spoke. I've moved from California to Philadelphia and spent two years in rabbinical school. I'm on year 3 of 6 now. I've been busy. Really busy. I've made time for cooking but not for blogging about it.

The other day, though, I had this thought: what if I took blogging back up and talked a bit about cooking and Judaism? We'll see if it takes. Mostly, it's Thursday afternoon, it's been a long week, and I'm eager to decompress a bit.

This afternoon I made soup. I needed to. I had a butternut squash that was sitting on the corner of my pantry shelf looking mighty lonely.

As I started cooking, I threw in a bunch of other October ingredients. The result was quite scrumptious. There are no pictures of the cooking process, because I didn't think about blogging until after the fact. Hopefully you'll enjoy anyway.




Ingredients

• 1 medium butternut squash
• 2 TBS butter or oil (soup is vegan if using oil)
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 1 large apple, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup dried red lentils
• 2 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• approximately 5 cups stock or broth
• 1 cup apple cider or juice
• salt to taste

Procedure

• pre-heat oven to 375°F. Slice butternut (carefully!) in half lengthwise, oil a baking sheet, place cut side down and cook for approximately 30 minutes. Squash should be soft at the edges but still a bit firm in the middle
• when squash is cool enough to handle, melt the butter or heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and cook for approximately 5 minutes. Add the apple, lentils, and sage and cook for several minutes more. If lentils look like they're going to burn, add a little stock. 
• scoop as much of the squash pulp as you can into the pot (this may take a minute or two), stir in, and add the rest of the stock. Raise heat to high until the soup comes to a boil, then turn to low and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the squash is falling apart. 
• use an immersion blender to puree the soup (or blend batches in a blender). Stir in cinnamon and cider. Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes more, or until the soup is thickened to your liking. Stir in salt to taste. Serve and be merry.