Hello everybody! While I’m seriously hoping Spring is getting closer, I’m still making some delicious Winter soups (because it isn’t even March yet). This one’s title says it all! This took more time to prep than it did to make the actual soup. I started out by choosing my white beans. As you can see in the photo, I opted for Navy, Northern, and Cannellini. I started soaking these a day and a half in advance. The night before this cook, while I was prepping the veggies, I simmered them for a bit to soften them up.
The veggies in this soup were quite simple. Butternut squash, onion (I opted for one sweet onion and one yellow onion- I’m not sure what the differences are in some onions such as these. Perhaps that will be a future informative post!), baby spinach, carrots and celery, leeks, garlic, and diced tomatoes. You will also need vegetable stock (which was made by my friend Jen for me-shoutout to Jen who shared this delicious soup with me!)
The night before, I sliced and diced all the veggies. This made it easy the next day to just put everything in a pot and let it cook. Special note: make sure you peel the squash before you dice it. It becomes quite tricky to get the skin off once it’s in little cubes. I learned this lesson the hard way. I also steamed the squash a bit before adding it to the soup. It softened it up quite nicely.
Another thing to note is that leeks are part of the onion family and they most definitely will make your eyes water. I shed a lot of tears in the prep of this soup. Onions always get me. This was a first for the leeks.
On cook day, I added the carrots, garlic, leeks, onions, and squash to a pot with vegetable stock.
Once the base veggies start to soften, I added the diced tomatoes.
Lastly, I added the spinach. I love the beautiful colors in this soup!
This was a tasty soup and produced a lot! I gave some to Jen to take home and froze some for later and still had enough for leftovers for the week!
Enjoy!