Beet Soup in Roasted Acorn Squash Bowls

It felt like fall this weekend. Completely and thoroughly like fall. The air was crisp, the sky was bright, and the rustle of leaves that accompanied the wind was unmistakable. Yes, yes, fall has found us in Upstate NY. So while I was digging through the fridge and taking inventory of what our CSA share had brought us last week, I decided that a soup of some sort was in order. After taking stock of the available ingredients, I did a wee bit of consulting with my BFF (aka Google) and stumbled upon a recipe for beet soup in roasted acorn squash. What? I get to use up a whole bunch of yummy veggies and put little acorn squashes to work as adorable little bowls? Sign me up!

The recipe is pretty simple. You dice up a large red onion and get it to work in your pot. Once it’s soft, toss in an apple that has been peeled and cut into approximately 1″ chunks and a couple pound of beets that have been cut to roughly the same size. Dice up or grate in 2 – 3 cloves of garlic, let it all soften up some more, then add 4 cups of veggie stock, a few cups of water and let simmer for 40 minutes or until the beets are nice and soft. In the meantime, you’ll have cut the tops off your squash, hollowed them out, took a thin slice off the bottom so they sit stable, and lightly brushed them with olive oil. I made sure to sprinkle mine with fresh cracked black pepper and some sea salt for good measure. Roast the squash while you’re putting together the soup. Once the beats are soft, you’ll need to puree the entire beet mixture. I’m thinking you’d be best with a food processor or an immersion blender, but a standard blender will do the trick, too. Then the soup goes back in the pot to reheat and season to taste with a pinch of salt, a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and I opted to omit the brown sugar the recipe called for and add in a nice sized dash of cinnamon and a little sprinkle of ginger.

Once the soup was done, I served it up in the acorn squash bowls and put a little dollup of sour cream on top. It’s really hearty, yummy and the prettiest bright red violet color. I decided to let the soup be the star of the show and served it was a simple salad of fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomato from the local farmer’s market, fresh basil and a tiny drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar over mizuna. Delicious! Mike and I ate dinner at the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on the floor and it was the perfect first official foray into fall cooking. Better yet, the acorn squash, beets, garlic and mizuna were all from our CSA share this past week. Nothing says “yum” like organic veggies!