With the chilly fall weather I'm pushing even more to stretch our dollar and save money for the coming Christmas season. Our garden is basically done, so I'm also mourning the loss of free fresh vegetable shopping from the back yard. I've put up a lot of our produce on the pantry shelves or freezer which does help.
We're still harvesting some of our fall crops. Butternut squash, apples, carrots, beets, and pumpkin to name a few. Due to our off-grid greenhouse, I've also got tomatoes still ripening. I love our green house, like totally swoon every time I come home and see it snuggled up in the back yard. Sigh. Okay, enough gushing.
Back to the frugal foodie goodies. Beings I had butternut squash sitting on our back deck, I decided to try out a new soup recipe. This is my first fall with a Blendtec and I was flat out itching to try some hot blended soups. I used it a ton this summer with fresh smoothies, salsa prepping, guacamole, and fermented hummus. But fall means soup time, can I get a high five?
These are 7 fall frugal recipes every real food kitchen should be making!
1. Roasted Butternut Bisque Soup
First off, I decided the easiest way to cook the butternut squash for this recipe was to roast it. I chopped it in half length ways, scooped out the seeds with a spoon, and put it face down in about an inch of water. I baked it at 375 degrees for about forty minutes.
No peeling or chopping. For this busy mamma who had a full canner load of salsa going, that was a plus. A girl can only do so many kitchen things at once, am I right?
While the butternut squash is cooling, saute the garlic and onions in olive oil until transparent.
Scoop half of the roasted butternut squash into the blender. Add a 1/4 cup cream and using the hot soup setting, turned it on. For all the awesome power of the Blendtec blender it is not a quiet machine. I love that the blade is not sharp, ie. I won't cut myself while washing it out as I've been known to be a bit clumsy a time or two.. or three.
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Roasted Butternut Bisque Soup
Ingredients
- 1 large butternut squash
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 5 to 6 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Chop butternut squash in half lengthwise and dig out the seeds. Place in a roasting pan face down with an inch of water and bake at 375 degrees until soft enough to scoop out, ab out 30 minutes. While squash is cooling, heat olive oil in cast iron skillet. Saute garlic and onions. In two batches, scoop cooked squash into Blendtec blender and add half of the cream. Puree. In second batch, add garlic and onion. Salt and pepper to taste.
On the second go round, add the sauteed garlic and onions. You can add a bit of sage if you have any. I remembered I had a bunch growing in our herb garden after the final blend… Need a dairy free option? Use chicken stock or broth in place of the cream.
Now, we grew our own onions, garlic, and butternut squash, so this soup cost me about $1.00 for the organic cream I used in it. It made about 8 cups of soup making this extremely frugal and stretching a squash into two meals for my husband and I. This roasted butternut bisque soup has an incredible rich and creamy texture with the savory notes of the garlic and onion balancing divinely with the sweet notes of the butternut squash. Plain talk, you just plain have to make this soup, okay?
Soups are one of the best ways to stretch your grocery budget. They're extremely frugal and easy to slip in other vegetables. Plus, on those cold days, nothing warms a body up like a hot bowl of homemade soup love.
Here's some other fave fall frugal recipes and soups every real food kitchen should be whipping out in the weeks and months to come.
2. Caramelized Apple Onion Soup from SkinnyTaste.com Seriously, caramelized onions with apples with a tantalizing bit of garlic and cream to bring it together. Yeah, you're drooling to aren't ya? Click here for the recipe.
3. Orange Mashed Cauliflower from RestoredRoots.com This uses carrots and cauliflower for a gorgeous and healthy mashed puree. Think move on over mashed potatoes because this duo has you beat. Click here for the recipe.
4. Pumpkin Pie Smoothie and Hot Chocolate from Homesteadlady.com Yes, chocolate and pumpkin, together, 'nuff said. Click here for the recipe.
5. Superfood Pumpkin Pie Smoothie from This House of Joy.com I'm kind of lovin that this one has pecans and maca powder all blended into a healthy drink it up pumpkin pie. Click here for the recipe.
6. Roasted Acorn Squash and Sweet Potato Soup from BloggingOverThyme.com I adore acorn squash and roasting it sweet potatoes and adding in some ginger. This just went into my meal plan for this weekend and maybe even on the holiday menu. Click here for the recipe.
7. Winter White Velvet Soup by TheCafesucrefarine.com Seriously, this soup has parsnips (I love parsnips), cauliflower, leeks, and shallots, and it's blended into one of the prettiest and stylish soups I've ever seen. Yes, I used the word stylish to describe a soup. Click here for the recipe.
Yay! Hurrah for autumn (since I’m in England, it’s autumn!). I love butternut soup 🙂 For all those who don’t have a Blendtec to hand and are feeling bereft, I use my stick blender right in the pan of butternut to get it all to a yummy smoothness. It works well. x x
What a great roundup! Thanks for sharing our post. I’m going to need to make some of those others…