Roasted Hubbard Squash with Goat Cheese

Hi, this is Bianca's Mom. At the very last Farmers Market of the season, I bought two very large Hubbard Squash and then stored them in my garage and forgot about them.  As some of you may know, we lost Doug last year but his 61st birthday would have been today and I wanted to have some friends over to help me celebrate. He loved a good hearty soup, especially French Onion Soup so I went ahead and make a big pot of that (see previous post) but then thought I would need another large pot of soup to feed everyone and that got me thinking about those Hubbard Squash. So, I grabbed the big one and tried cutting it, which didn't work well at all. Then I remembered a friend from work who told me that he just drops his Hubbard Squash on pavement to break it apart so I walked out the front door with my squash and slammed it on the sidewalk and it split into 4 pieces. They were just the right size to roast in my oven.  Let's just say it was one big squash. Bianca laughed since I accurately guessed that it weighed about 12 pounds. This required me to double this recipe which was fine. This recipe called for Hazelnuts which believe it or not, I had in stock but we added the goat cheese for some extra bang.  This was an absolutely hardy and delicious soup and we will be buying many more Hubbard Squash next year!

Ingredients:

3 tbls. extra-virgin olive oil
1 large garlic cloves, peeled (Utah Farms CSA)
1 tbl. coriander seeds
1-1/2 tsp. fennel seeds
1-1/2 tsp. dried sage (our own herb garden)
1 small (5.5-6 pound) Hubbard Squash, split open (Wheeler Farm Market)
2 tbl. unsalted butter (Winder Dairy)
1 large leek, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into small dice (East Farms)
5 cups chicken or vegetable broth (homemade)
1 bay leaf
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup roasted hazelnuts, skinned and chopped
goat cheese

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.  Use large pyrex baking dish.
2. Grind the oil, garlic, sage, coriander and fennels seeds in a mortar and pestle to a coarse paste. Rub the mixture onto the flesh of the squash pieces. Set them cut side down on the baking dish and roast about one hour, or until the flesh is tender. Let cool, cut side up. Scrape the flesh away from the rind. You'll need about 5 cups of the mashed squash. You can freeze any remainder.
3. Melt butter in a 5-6 quart Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the leek, carrots, and big pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the leek is soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add the squash, broth, bay leaf and 1 tsp. salt. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to a slow simmer, cover and cook for 30 minutes.
4. Remove the bay leaf and allow soup to cool slightly. Puree in batches or better yet, get yourself a very inexpensive immersion mixture and puree the soup right in Dutch Oven. In fact, I think we need to add Immersion Mixture to the list of necessary pantry items! Add the lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with hazelnuts and one tbl. of goat cheese per bowl.
Serves 8-10 or 16-20 if you have a 12 pound squash!
adapted from Fine Cooking
--make extra and store in the freezer for up to 2 months
--season with chives or cayenne pepper
Calories: 240