Fall Squash Soup

It's fall again and that means that your garden may be full of these wonderful babies!  The problem is, what do you do with so many gourds???  I make an awesome soup!!

Here's how we do it.  First we start with two different types of gourds.  I do this to add some variety in the soup.  You can mix and match and create whatever you want with whatever you have available.  

Step 1 is to half the gourds.  This may be difficult - you notice the hammer off to the right.  Let's just say I find using tools to be more efficient.  

Once they are cut in half you have to remove the "guts" or "innards" or whatever you call them.  A spoon should work okay.  Keep the seeds if you wish to plan them for next year.

The next step is not required, but I like to do because it makes things easier later on.  I peel the gourds.  It doesn't make much difference in terms of anything except that when they are cooked I don't have to pull the piping hot "meat" out of the gourd.

I send out my adorable little daughter to pick me some green peppers.  I use two per each gourd.

These were grown in our driveway in a nice little planter that I made from a galvanized steel farm bucket.

The gourd is peeled, cleaned and ready to go:

I cut the tops off of the peppers and pull out the seeds and tops (they can be discarded.)

I place the gourds on a baking sheet together and cover them with oil to keep them from drying out while they are cooking.

The gourds are placed on the sheet with the peppers and one clove of garlic for each pepper.

Turn the oven on to 350.  Place the baking pan in the oven for between and hour and an hour and a half.

The garlic and peppers roast and the gourds cook.  Having them upside down allows the moisture to cook the insides very well and make them very mushy.

Once done you only need 4 more things.  Milk (you could also use a broth if you preferred), Salt, Pepper and a Blender (be careful, our powerful Black & Decker blender burned out while I was making this soup.  Depending on the size of the blender, you will likely need to make 4 batches with this amount of ingredients.

Put one pepper and 1 clove of garlic in the blender with some milk (maybe a cup). Blend this up and you get what you see below:

Take HALF of each of the halves below and slowly add bits of gourd and add milk to be sure that you keep the consistency consistent so you don't burn out the blender.  You should come up with a soup that is just a little thicker than tomato soup and just thinner than applesauce.  Add salt to taste.  Add a little black (or white) pepper to taste as well (not much here.)

You can add other ingredients to help season the soup as well.  Canned spinach does really well and creating a half and half soup of your gourd soup and tomato soup is also excellent.  Experiment with what you want.

Let me know if you have questions!