Cream of Curried Butternut Squash Soup

I took cooking class first quarter in school. We were trying to focus on seasonal foods and as a result many of our dishes were based around butternut squash. The original had too much curry for me so I reduced that a bit and also added the chestnuts which give it a nice rich sweeter taste but otherwise this is pretty much the same.

1 medium butternut squash

1 carrot

1 tart apple

handful of chestnuts.

1/2 onion

1 stalk of celery

1 teaspoon curry powder

6 tablespoons butter

1 quart of broth or water

salt 

pepper

1/4 cup cream or 1/2 cup whole milk

Cut the squash in half, bake at 400 degrees until soft. After it has cooled, scrape off the skin.

Saute the onion in the butter until soft. Add the chopped carrot, apple and celery. Saute those as well until soft - 10 minutes or so.

Add the squash, curry powder, broth, salt and pepper. Also peel a handful of chestnuts and put those in as well. Mix it up good and simmer for 30 minutes.

Blend it with a soup blender until smooth and then add cream or milk.

A nice salad goes well with this.