Tastes Like Food

Tasty soup that’s great for cool fall days, this soup is made with Ambercup squash. Ambercups look like small dark red-orange, smooth pumpkins.

Ingredients:

• 2 ambercup squash (or other winter squash, should yield about 3 cups cooked squash)
• 1 strip bacon small dice
• 2 carrots chopped
• 2 stalks celery chopped
• 1 medium onion diced
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 medium tomatoes skinned (slice in half, scoop out and keep insides; discard skins)
• 1/2 cup rinsed lentils
• 1 tbsp vegetable bouillon (or 2 cups vegetable broth)
• 6 cups water (or 4 cups if using broth)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus maybe more to taste
• 5 leaves loosely chopped kale (optional)

Directions:

1. Place whole squash directly on rack in 400° oven. Bake for 60 minutes, or until you can easily pierce skin with a fork.
2. Meanwhile, brown bacon in bottom of pressure cooker for about 3 minutes.
3. After bacon is partially cooked, toss in carrots, celery, onions, garlic and saute for about 5 minutes.
4. Add vegetable bouillon or broth. Add water, lentils, tomatoes, and pepper.
5. Seal pressure cooker, bring to pressure and keep cooking at pressure for 60 minutes. Leave sealed to maintain pressure and cool until you add the cooked squash.
6. After the squash is soft (skin can be easily pierced with fork), remove from oven and cut in half. Scoop out and discard seeds. Scoop squash from shell and place chunks in the pressure cooker. Lightly mash squash with fork, leaving some small chunks is fine. Salt to taste. Optional: If desired, add kale to pressure cooker.
7. Seal pressure cooker, bring to pressure and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve with savory crackers or hearty bread. 4-6 servings. Very tasty the next day too.

Notes:
* You can use other winter squash such as acorn or butternut if you can’t find ambercup. More about squash, including pictures.
* You could use a regular pot for this soup, but you’ll probably need to double the overall cook time in the pot.
* I use silicon oven mitts to handle the cooked squash. This way I don’t need to wait for the squash to cool or worry about getting cloth oven mitts sticky with squash. I just toss the silicon gloves in the sink with the other dishes if they have squash on them.