Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

For mother's day this year, my sister and I made butternut squash and sweet potato soup as an appetizer for a surprise meal for my mom. There are plenty of recipes out there, all pretty much the same, but we made up our own. A lot of them have you peeling the butternut squash first and chopping it up into small pieces before roasting, but that seemed like a lot of work so we roasted it whole! As we enter December and the weather is supposed to be colder, soup felt like a good thing to make so I re-created the recipe to the best of my ability, since we obviously didn't write it down last time. Enjoy!

Serves 5-6

Ingredients:

1 medium or large butternut squash 

1 large sweet potato

1 medium spanish onion

4 cloves of garlic

6 fresh sage leaves 

1 tbs dry thyme

Olive oil 

1 tbs butter

2 cups chicken stock 

2 tbs goat cheese (plus more for topping) 

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

s & p 

Preheat oven to 375. Spray large baking tray with oil (or drizzle with a little olive oil and rub with a piece of paper towel). 

Cut butternut squash in half length wise. Remove seeds. Drizzle insides with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme. In each "hole" (where the seeds were) put a sage leaf. Place face down on baking sheet. 

Cut sweet potato in half length wise. Drizzle inside with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme. Place face down on baking sheet with a sage leaf under each half. 

Cut onion in half and remove skin. Separate into a few pieces. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme. Add sage leaf underneath or between pieces of onion. 

Add 4 garlic cloves (skin on) to the baking sheet. Drizzle with a little olive oil. Bake everything for 30 minutes or until the butternut squash is tender. Remove everything from the oven and set aside. 

In a large pot on medium heat, add butter. Using a spoon, scoop the inside of the butternut squash and sweet potato without getting the skin. Add to the pot. Remove skin from garlic and add roasted garlic to pot. Add onions and sage leaves to the pot. Add 1 cup of chicken stock. Using an immersion blender, start blending the soup. After its starts to break down, add the remaining chicken stock. Continue to blend until smooth. Add goat cheese, nutmeg and cinnamon. Mix together and allow the goat cheese to melt. Salt & pepper to taste. 

Top with extra goat cheese & parsley if desired!