Welcome!

Welcome to Romeo's Food Lady! This blog contains recipes for delicious vegetarian food. Most of these are not recipes authored by me. Rather, this is just a compilation of great veggie food I've found from all over the place, usually tweaked just a little. It's intended to be a reference FOR ME so I don't lose great food I've found nor the changes I've made to suit my tastes, but I'm happy for you to use it, too. After more than 25 years of being a vegetarian, I know what tastes good.
Romeo's Food Lady is named after my friend and cat, Romeo. Romeo is not a vegetarian, but his Food Lady is!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Roasted Winter Squash Soup

Few things put me in the mood to cook seasonally more than the new chill in autumn air, and today definitely took me there. Here are my modifications to Roasted Pumpkin Soup from the Oct 2009 Martha Stewart Living. And feel free to make your own modifications, too! This soup is savory, but it definitely has a special sweet undertone from the squash.
I feel so autumny!


 
Ingredients:
2 and 3/4 lbs. butternut squash, peeled, halved, and seeded (Martha's recipe said you could alternatively use the same amount of sugar pumpkins. I haven't tried that.)

1 large onion, peeled and quartered
1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms (note that Martha's recipe was for 2 shiitake mushrooms and 2 more cups of water...I haven't tried that way, but you can if you don't have or want to get dried porcinis.)
2 cups boiling water
1 garlic clove, peeled
1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
1.5 t. salt
freshly ground black pepper
3 cups vegetable stock (I used 2 cups vegetable stock plus 1 cup of frozen tomato water I'd saved from another time when I'd reconstituted sun-dried tomatoes.)


Method:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cut the squash into 2-inch pieces. Put the olive oil and salt in a rimmed baking sheet, and toss the squash, onion, and garlic in it. (Martha's recipe had the 2 fresh mushrooms mentioned above included in the toss.) Spread the coated vegetables into a single layer, and roast them 15 minutes in the oven. (I noticed that the olive oil started bubbling and boiling.) Remove from the oven, toss the vegetables, and roast another 15 minutes or until the squash can be pierced with a fork.

While the vegetables are roasting, reconstitute the mushrooms in 2 cups boiling water. This can be cooling while the vegetables are roasting.

Working in batches, put vegetables in a blender with the stock, mushrooms, and mushroom water. Purée, and move the soup to a soup pot. Warm through, and serve with freshly ground black pepper.