lazy butternut stock

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I had a fine butternut sitting on my kitchen desk for some days & decided to try an approach for a soup w/ lots of vegetables. I had some carrots, some frozen peas & some spring onions. What else? There was some bacon in my fridge & I thought it might be a fine add-on concerning the flavour.

… & of course I had some of this dark green, intensive pumpkin seed oil for the finish.

 

At the moment I’m busy w/ quick & easy recipes – especially lunch recipes – because my better half is at home – you call it home office. My better half works in the communications department, is fully equipped w/ digital gadgets & used to working online. On-and-off-again there was a home office day in the past, however, now all employees who can work from home are asked to do just this.

Well, that’s not new – or? We are fighting Corona … better: stopping the spread of Corona.

Home office: My better half starts working as usual about 8 am w/ writing minutes & posts, working on E-mail requests, looking into subjects, telephoning, managing the ongoing projects, discussing progress in web meetings … until about 5 pm. (The lunch break is only w/ me of course – as well as any coffee breaks …)

I’m somewhat surprised when reading, especially in social media, that „home office“ is strongly associated w/ „holidays“. People seem to think about what to do at home like „What I always wanted to do, but never found the time for …“ or simply how to kill time all day long.

For me (& my better half) „home office“ is like working in the office. The workload doesn’t vanish miraculously when sitting at your desk at home instead at your workplace. We should be happy w/ the option of „home office“ & appreciate that people at home work also hard to keep everything running.

 

So, enough … coming back to our recipe!

This is my nice butternut of about 1 kg. (I’m sure I published lots of photos about butternuts or hokkaidos during the last years, who always seem to look the same, however, that’s the life of a pumpkin.)

1st step: preheating the oven to 175° C w/ fan.

 

We cut off the top & cut in half the rest. Scraping out the pits & the fibre mess is quite easy. Afterwards we brush some olive oil over the surface. Then the butternut sitting on a baking tray lined w/ baking parchment marches into the preheated oven for about 45 min.

 

 

In the meantime we prepare the vegetables:

  • we peel & cut some carrots
  • we chop some spring onions
  • we fetch some frozen peas from the freezer …

… & we chop some bacon.

 

 

All is fried for about 15 min in olive oil – softly. Add some water if it’s too sticky … (I’m pretty sure you’ll do this!).

… & we finally get:

 

 

When the butternut is ready we carefully scrape out the soft butternut mess. We mash it & then we heat it up in a pot & add some cream & some milk. (The butternut mess is rather stiff … we need some liquid.) Work w/ your handheld immersion blender to create a soft texture of the butternut mess.

For the flavour explosion we add ras el hanout, a spice mix from North Africa. It’s mainly a mix of cinnamon, cardamom, chili, ginger, cumin, allspice, cloves … depending on the region & the manufacturer. It’s hot & spicy, but not too hot. I had 1/2 tsp of the mix – if you like you may add some more!

Ras el hanout works outstandingly good with the butternut mess …

… & we add salt & pepper to taste – and maybe some sugar or molasses.

 

 

Ready.

We created a simple butternut stock, creamy & lazy. If you like you may serve just this type of stock as a soup for food purists.

However, we can also carry on w/ soup making.

 

 

We start w/ an empty plate & fill in some of our hot vegetable mess. We add very hot butternut stock …

 

 

… & for the finish: some of this dark green, very intensive pumpkin seed oil!

 

 

Enjoy!

 

lazy butternut stock
Prep Time40 minutes
Cook Time45 minutes
Servings: 4
ingredients:
for the butternut stock:
  • 1 butternut (about 1 kg)
  • some olive oil
  • 100 ml cream
  • 100 ml milk
  • ½ tsp ras el hanout
  • 1 tbsp sugar or molasses (optional)
  • pepper & salt (to taste)
for the soup's hardware:
  • 75 g South Tyrolean bacon
  • 4 spring onions
  • 2 carrots
  • 100 g frozen peas
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • some water
for serving:
  • some pumpkin seed oil
equipment:
  • electric handheld immersion blender
how to:
  • Preheat the oven to 175° C w/ fan.
  • Line a baking tray w/ baking parchment.
  • Trim the butternut, cut it in halves, scrape out the pumpkin seeds & oil the surface slighly.
  • Put the halves on the baking tray & bake for about 45 min. The butternut should be very soft then.
  • Scrape out the butternut pulp, mash it & add the cream, the milk & the spices.
  • Bring it to a boil (be careful: it splashes!) & blend w/ your electric handheld immersion blender until soft.
  • Set aside, but keep it hot.
  • When the butternut is in the oven: chop roughly the bacon, the carrots & the spring onions.
  • Put everything in a pan w/ some olive oil & add the frozen peas.
  • Let it fry resp. simmer for about 15 min. Add some water if too dry.
  • Set aside, but keep hot.
  • Distribute the vegetables on a plate. Pour some butternut mash around & add some dark pumpkin seed oil.
  • Serve at once.
Notes
You may store everything in your fridge. Just reheat in the microwave before serving.

 

(information on equipment)

 

Was this before or after the soup?

 

 

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keep it simple & be flexible. always.