This is a comforting and delicious soup recipe that includes some wonderful autumn veggies, but is fantastic any time of year. Perfect for busy teachers who want to prep the soup ahead and enjoy an easy dinner after teaching all day. Let it simmer on the stovetop and fill your home with its comforting aroma while you’re working on lesson plans or teaching afternoon piano lessons.
Hi there, friend! You probably weren’t expecting a piano teacher blogger to share recipes, right? Exactly. Me neither. But here we are!
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- First of all, I want to emphasize the fact that I am NOT a food blogger, I just love to cook and prepare healthy and tasty meals and wanted to share some of them with you.
- Second, these recipes are off-takes of other recipes that I’ve used in the past, with my own twists and substitutions, so that the foods I eat won’t trigger my food sensitivities.
- Third, some of them are healthy, some of them are fast, and some of them are just so yummy that I can’t resist adding them to this fun recipe collection!
- Fourth, I love to cook, but I generally don’t measure how much of each ingredient I use. Ballpark is good enough for me! But for you, I’m going to measure my ingredients more specifically so you’ll get the results that are closest to mine.
- And finally, as I’m adding these recipes to this collection, I’m thinking of you and hoping to make your day just a little easier, even if you teach piano lessons until late in the evening and need to prep dinner earlier in the day, like I do.
Ready for the recipe? I’m excited to share!
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This soup is really easy to prepare early in the day, before you start teaching piano lessons, or even over the weekend. As you’re preparing it, the comforting aroma will permeate your home and make it feel like a warm and beautiful autumn day! This soup will keep in the refrigerator for a few days, and the flavors get better and better over time, just like in many soups and stews, because of roasting the veggies – especially the onions.
*BUT….. if you want a super-shortcut recipe, you can always throw everything into the slow cooker in the morning and it will be ready by dinnertime. You just won’t get the amazing caramelization you’d get if you roast the veggies in the oven first. I haven’t tried the slow cooker version, so I can’t guarantee that it will be as yummy as the original! 😊
Ingredients, Dishes, & other tools:
- 1-2 10-oz. bags of frozen butternut squash cubes
- 1-2 10-oz. bags of frozen sweet potato cubes
- 1 12-oz. bag of baby carrots
- 1/2 cup of diced frozen onions
- Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) (I prefer organic)
- Salt to taste (about 1 teaspoon) (I prefer Himalayan pink salt)
- Pepper to taste (about 1 teaspoon)
- Garlic to taste (at least 1 teaspoon)
- Cinnamon to taste (about 1/2 teaspoon)
- Nutmeg to taste (about 1/4 teaspoon
- Milk (about 1 cup) (optional)
- Low sodium organic chicken stock (about 2 cups), or any stock that you prefer
- Non-stick cooking spray
- Baking dishes or baking sheets
- Large soup pot
- Potato masher or immersion blender
Directions:
- Spray a baking sheet or in a large baking dish or two with non-stick cooking spray. I usually need two because I LOVE this soup so much! 😋
- Place frozen veggies (butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots, and onions) into your baking dishes.
- Drizzle EVOO all over the veggies.
- Generously sprinkle salt, pepper, garlic, cinnamon, and nutmeg onto the veggies.
- Roast (bake) at about 350 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour or longer, or until your house smells so good you can hardly stand it, and the veggies are slightly browned and the onions are caramelized on the edges. That’s the trick to making this soup SO delicious – those yummy roasted onions!!!
- Remove the veggies from the oven and put them in the soup pot.
- Mash them into creamy little bits and pieces with the potato masher, or if you have an immersion blender, you could use that after adding the chicken stock in the next step.
- Add the chicken stock, 1 cup at a time, and stir until the consistency begins to look like a thick soup.
- Add the milk and continue stirring. (Milk is totally optional. If you’re dairy-free like me, add more stock until it is the consistency you like.)
- Simmer over medium-low heat for a few minutes to heat the milk and stock.
- Taste occasionally and add more seasoning to suit your taste. For me, the more cinnamon and garlic, the better!
- If you want, you could leave this on VERY low on your stovetop during an hour or two of lessons so it will be ready to eat when you’re finished teaching for the day. If you teach longer hours or don’t have a break to check on it, you’ll probably want to put it in the fridge and heat it back up at dinner time.
- Serve with a sprinkle of cheese and parsley, or with bread, or with the pesto zucchini noodles you’ll see below, or with all of the above!
Optional Side Dish: Pesto Zucchini Noodles
Ingredients:
- 4-5 small to medium-sized zucchini, organic if possible. Organic veggies are healthier and they always taste better to me than non-organic.
- 1 container of basil pesto of your choice (Buitoni Pesto with Basil is my favorite but our grocery stopped carrying it and I am crushed! Off to find a new favorite…)
- Spiralizer (I have this one, and the Spiralizer makes it super easy to make zucchini noodles!)
Directions:
- Spiralize the raw zucchini into tasty veggie noodles
- Add the container of pesto
- Stir and enjoy!
- This dish is so delicious when it’s fresh, but it doesn’t keep well for more than a day. You’ll probably want to serve it the same day you make it.
- Have fun trying these new recipes!
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