Butternut Squash Ginger Carrot Soup

I found a recipe for a carrot ginger soup, which sounded phenomenal to me, but I also had this big butternut squash lurking around my kitchen, begging to be used before it went bad.  I decided to try incorporating it into this soup by halving the amount of carrots and replacing it with butternut squash.  Since butternut squash doesn't have a very distinct flavor on it's own, you definitely just taste the carrot.  Or in my case, because I doubled the amount of ginger, you just taste ginger.  A mouthful of exploding ginger.

Chop, chop, chop.

Two cups carrots, two cups butternut squash.

Home made vegetable stock.

The recipe calls for vegetable stock, which I had previously never made before because I had no idea how remarkably easy it is.  You can follow these directions here, but basically: buy a bunch of random vegetables (I used celery, carrots, spinach, broccoli, onions and mushrooms) and simmer them in a pot of water for an hour.  Salvage the broth.  YOU'RE DONE.  There's really no need to buy veggie stock from the store.

The recipe also called for fresh ginger, fresh squeezed orange juice, and rolled oats.

If you're wondering if a tablespoon of ginger is enough: IT IS.  I used two tablespoons and my mouth was on fire with ginger.

Once all the ingredients had simmered on the stove for awhile, I poured it all into a food processor.

And the result is a creamy, smooth carrot-ginger soup!

I do like the soup, but I really did use too much ginger, so it was kind of overwhelming for my taste buds. :)