When you make a soup like this it sort of takes a while. A lot of the time you feel like you are waiting around. So I figured what better way to wait around than write a Part 1 post.

First, I cut my squash into two pieces – I took out the seeds. I placed it in a baking dish and added water, so that the squash was sitting in 1/4 of an inch of liquid:

(for the record, I turned the squash around before putting them in the oven). I had pre-heated the oven to 375 degrees, I covered the baking dish with foil and put the squash in the oven. It was in there for half an hour.

Here’s what it looked like when I removed the squash from the oven:

Lovely!!

In the mean time, I had heated approxiately two tablespoons of unsalted butter and a tablespoon of olive oil in my Le Creuset. I started chopping onion, and then put it in the pot once the butter and oil was hot:

I chopped up some celery, carrot, garlic and ginger too:

Eventually it was all in the Le Crueset cooking away:

As the raw vegetables cooked, I cubed my squash:

and then added the squash into the pot to cook with the other vegetables:

I added two cups of chicken stock and two cups of water to the mixture and brought everything to a boil:

I seasoned the mixture with freshly ground black pepper, a pinch of coriander and cumin. I let things boil for a couple of minutes, then turned down the temperature to low, put the lid on and let it cook for 45 minutes…

Stay tuned for Butternut Squash Part II….