Butternut Squash Soup

Everyone thinks they have a great recipe for butternut squash soup, and various versions adorn winter menus everywhere.  The recipe I'm about to give you is the best one.  I tried this butternut squash soup for the first time almost ten years ago now, when my best friend's stepfather made it for Thanksgiving dinner in upstate New York.  I've been told it was an adaptation from a New York Times cookbook, but I've never found this precise recipe there.

It's something delicious and special, and it's actually pretty easy to make.  You'll never try another recipe.

I mentioned that this soup often makes me think of a wintry Thanksgiving I spent many years back.  While the holiday food season is over, its music doesn't need to be.  Here's Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing "Autumn in New York."

Ingredients:
--1 large butternut squash
--1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
--2 carrots, peeled and chopped
--1 clove garlic
--2-3 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
--1 tbsp. salt + a little extra to taste
--1-2 tsp. pepper
--2 tsp. ground nutmeg
--about 48 oz. chicken stock, or 1 1/2 cartons (you can substitute veggie stock if you're making this a vegetarian recipe)
--2 c. half and half, or heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Slice butternut squash in half and scoop out seeds and filling.  Using a pastry brush or your hands, coat the flesh with extra virgin olive oil.  Fill the seed "holes" in the squash with the chopped carrots, onions, and lone garlic clove.  It's okay if they overflow a little bit.  Lightly salt the flesh of the squash, and place in the oven on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Roast for about one hour, or until the squash and the veggies inside are quite soft.

Scoop the veggies into a large stock pot and add the chicken stock.  Simmer on low.  Now scoop out the squash--the skin should peel back very easily, and you should be able to remove almost all of the "meat."  Place it in the stockpot.

Sprinkle salt, pepper, and nutmeg into the pot.  Using an immersion blender, emulsify those ingredients.  Add the half and half or cream, and blend just a bit more.  Serve warm with a sprig or two of fresh thyme.