Summer Squash Soup with Cardamom

 Bitterer than they look!

I recently signed up for Full Belly Farm CSA. I'm enjoying the CSA program. It's a cheap way to get really fresh produce and since I never know what I'm going to get it provides a great opportunity to improvise in the kitchen (which I love, as discussed in my first post) with seasonal ingredients. For three weeks in a row I have received summer squash and I've been trying different things every week without success (until now!). The squash taste very bitter to me. Several different people have told me summer squash shouldn't taste bitter, but there you have it. They look so much like zucchini, which I love, that I have been trying to cook them like zucchini. One friend even suggested I try making zucchini bread with squash substituted. This was a train wreck, the whole thing ended up in the garbage. This week I saw a recipe for squash soup and decided to try it, but with my own twist of course!
The squash, potato, stock, and milk are the bones of this recipe. The original recipe also called for onion, but I really dislike onion so clearly that was out. These past couple weeks I had been trying to cut the bitterness of the squash with maple syrup (I grew up in upstate New York so real maple syrup is one of my true loves) so that was definitely in. I also decided to use some cardamom, and ginger was a last minute addition. The recipe follows:

1 lb summer squash

1/2 lb potato
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons real maple syrup
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup sour cream

I peeled and cut up both the squash and the potato, then melted the butter with the cardamom (this is incredibly fragrant, as a cardamom fan I was drooling!). I sauteed the squash and potato in the butter until it had softened a bit, which took five or ten minutes. Then I added the stock, milk, syrup, and ginger, covered the pan, and started on my next project. As usual I didn't time how long it cooked, but I decided it was done when the potatoes were tender. Then the whole thing went in the blender with the sour cream until it was smooth.

Yum!

Both my husband and I really liked this. This is a very sweet soup to serve as an entree, but both my husband and I love sweet entrees. I might cut back on the maple syrup a bit if I were serving this to someone with less of a sweet tooth. I served it chilled with ham, which made it perfect for the incredibly hot summer day that I spent in the kitchen, and since it's good cold it makes a super easy left over. The salty richness of the ham balanced the soup very well. Adding extra potato might make it a bit heartier.


I felt this was a great success. I'm really glad I finally found something to do with these squash!