Roasted Acorn Squash Soup with Bacon

Greetings from the Land of Vikings-
Fall is all about warm comfort food, preparing us for the winter to come. This fall the Chan sisters will feature a variety of pumpkin and squash recipes ranging from soup, main course, to desserts. We hope y'all will enjoy.
I usually make my acorn squash by just roasting them in butter and brown sugar and serves as a side dish. However, this time I decided to do something different by making a soup dish. This dish will definitely open your taste pallet!

Serves 5

Ingredients:

• 5 strips of bacon (any kind on sale)
• 3-3.5lb acorn squash
• 1 onion, chopped
• olive oil
• 4-5 cloves of garlic (skin on)
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 golden delicious apple (or any on sale), cored and roughly chopped
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk
• 1T curry powder
• 2T brown sugar (for roasting), another 2T for mixing into soup
• a big pinch of cayenne
• a big pinch of cumin
• salt and pepper to taste
• Scallion for garnish

Direction:

- fry bacon strips in pan (w/o oil) in medium heat until crispy, then set aside on a paper towel

Roasting of Squash
- Preheat oven to 425F
- Halve squash and brush both sides with a mixture of olive oil, a little salt, and brown sugar
- Place squash cup side down and roast for 50 min
- Let squash cool until can be handled by hands
- Remove charred squash skin
- Roughly chop squash into pieces

Making into the soup part

- In a medium pot, sautee onion, celery, and apple until tender
- Then add curry powder, cayenne, cumin, salt and pepper 
- Add squash into the pot and stir thoroughly
- Transfer squash mixture into blender and puree it
- In the same medium pot, heat 1 cup of chicken broth
- Transfer the squash puree back into the warm broth and mix
- Just before boiling, add evaporated milk (boiling of soup will curdle the milk)
- Serve immediately with crumbled crispy bacon and chopped scallions

Viol la!

Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup

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Greetings from the Land of Vikings-

Fall is finally here in MN!! The trees have all turned colors, the temperature has lowered as well...which means 6 months of winter is coming our way soon. Anyhow, I thought about making tomato soup. I love tomato soup, but often find it over priced in restaurants. Therefore, I decided to take the challenge to make this sophisticated and yet so simple to make soup when I saw the tomatoes on sale (probably the last batch from summer). I used recipes from various websites and came up with my own combination.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

• 2.5-3 lb of roma tomatoes (or any on sale), quartered
• 2 red bell peppers, cored and quartered
• a handful of fresh basil
• olive oil
• salt
• sugar
• 2 pinches of dried thyme
• 1 cup of chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
• 1/4 cup of evaporated milk
• 5 cloves of garlic skin on

Direction
Preheat oven to 425F

Arrange tomatoes, red peppers (cup side down, skin side up), and garlic on a baking sheet and drizzle olive oil and season it with liberal amount of salt and a pinch of sugar and thyme

Roast for 50-60 min until the skins are charred

Let cool for 10' or until they can be handled by hand. Peel of the charred skins of the peppers and tomatoes. squeeze garlic our of skin and throw everything into a blender together with the basil and puree them.

Heat a medium sauce pan and heat up a cup of chicken broth, add in the pureed tomato mixture and stir.

Add in evaporated milk before the soup boils, and stir (boiling will curdle the milk).

Serve soup immediately with warm crusty bread. Top soup with more basil (optional).