Acorn Squash Soup

Well hello there friends. The holidays are here and it's time for soups. I love winter soups. I made this amazing acorn squash. I roast them in the oven first and mix them with all kinds of vegetables and grind it all up. This is the most amazing, silky and delicious soup. I know you're going to love it. I'm glad you're here. Remember, thumbs up if you like the video. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and don't forget to ring the bell. Stay tuned, we're doing it right now friends. Okay friends, those cones are delicious. It looks like an acorn, doesn't it? So that's why we call it an acorn. Now friends, those are, let me tell you, you need a jackhammer to break into those things. So, because we need to cut them in half. Because we're going to bake them in the oven. And it's not, it's difficult if you don't have the right knife. So be careful. You may have to go to the tool shed and get a saw in there. It'll probably work. An axle will work great. So look guys, I got a serrated bread knife. And I'm going to go slowly. You have to make sure it's really, really solid so it doesn't move. So find a place, it can't just be like this and you're holding it. Okay. You got to make sure it's solid. It's like, yeah, I'm telling you and I can't find the solid places. Let's say like this. All right. Now it's got to be nice and solid. Okay. And then you take your knife and you just be careful with your fingers and you just saw. See, just saw like this. It's not easy. Make sure your knife is straight. See like my knife is crooked. I'm telling you, make sure it's straight and mine is crooked. You see, because if you start crooked, you can't move. Look, see, I did a crooked. Don't do what I just did. Look at it. How do you like that for half? I'm telling you, it's still going to work. See, I demonstrate. I did those right there, over there. Fine. There was no camera. The minute I turned on the camera, I'm all messed up. What are you going to do? Let's remove the seeds, friends. It's still going to work, but that's to show you I was trying to do it right to impress you. And look at that. I didn't impress you very much, did I? Mamma mia. Look at these friends. Look, take the seeds out. You don't need them. They're no good for nothing. And now what we're going to do, we're going to salt and pepper them. All right. Salt and pepper them. And then we're going to put some olive oil. I'm using a garlic olive oil. Use whatever olive oil you want, my friends. Give it a good rubbing. Give it a good massage, right? And you take them, you put them upside down. See, upside down. Boom, boom, boom. I can't believe I messed that up in front of you. That's okay. I always do things like that. Look, friends, I got the oven going at 350. Okay. You know, they're kind of like a banana squash, like pumpkins. They're buttery. That's why I like them so much. They're buttery and nutty. Nutty, buttery squash. And I want to cook them for about 35 to 45 minutes until they're nice and soft. And then we're going to put them in the soup. I'm going to show you what to do. I'm going to wash my hands first. I'll see you in about 45 minutes when they're out of the oven. Okay, friends. Well, they took about 45 minutes. You want them super soft. I'm going to show you how to take them off. I got about a three quarter of a pound of bacon. Then it's sautéed. See right there? Gently, gently, gently. Remember, don't do it too fast. Otherwise, you end up burning, burning the lean part. I got, before the fat is melted. The reason why you do this is because you want the fat. I got two big onions. Look, look at that. Big onion. Okay. Big, big, big onion. Those things were like, mamma mia. They were even bigger than this. Big onion. So I got two of them in there and we're going to caramelize them. I'm going to scrape the bottom to make sure nothing sticks in the bottom. We're going to get the onion to caramelize. The squash, friends, I wish you could just pull on it, but you can't. You just got to, you just got to, let me show you. You got to grab them like this. You got me over there, Jack? You good? Yes? Oh, you're good. All right. Look, you see? We're going there. They're not exactly easy to pull, but I'll tell you what, it's a lot easier than trying to get them because they're still hot. You got to let them rest for a little while, but you see, it comes out. It comes out. It's not perfect, but look, look, you see? It comes out, right? So we're going to take them all out just like that, right? Because you don't want that, that's for sure. But you see, that was not difficult, right? Take it out. And you got the idea, right? Holy mamma mia. Okay. So you don't need to see me suffer for 20 minutes to do this. I'm going to do this, and then we're going to wait for the onion to caramelize, my friends. And let me tell you a little bit about the vegetables that I got, okay? Because that's really important when you do a soup like this, friends. Mise en place. Mise en place. That means don't start cooking until everything is ready to go, okay? So I'm going to tell you the ingredient, the amount of ingredient I put in, but you don't have to follow. You can do whatever you want. The idea is if you can get those vegetables, actually, that's great. By the way, I forgot to tell you, but I got about five and a half, six pounds of the squash. Because I'm going to make a big pot. You see, I believed when I make the soup at Thanksgiving or the holidays, wherever it is, to make a lot because it freezes for 17 years. No, no, really. It's freezing for a long time, my friends. So make a big batch, get yourself some 32-ounce container, pop them in the freezer. And they last a long time, I'll tell you. I love it. And they're winter squash. So during the whole winter, you got squash in there. Soup, it's wonderful. So I highly recommend one day you get one of those, a 20-quart pot. They're not that expensive. All you want to do is get one that's got a thick bottom. That's the secret of a pot like this, a thick bottom. You buy those cheap ones that have a very thin bottom and everything burns. Thick bottom, you don't have to worry about, nothing's going to burn. Okay. I was like, you got to mix it once in a while, though. All right. I got two sweet potatoes. They're cut in little pieces. It really doesn't matter. Okay. I got three Fuji apples. I put them in the lemon water. It doesn't matter if you don't put them in lemon water. I got a full leeks and only the white and the light green part of the leek. Okay. You don't want to get the dark part of the leek. That's very bitter. Okay. And we don't want anything bitter. Okay. So the green part of it, you save it when you make a stock, like a beef stock, you're going to cook for 24 hours. You know, I get them at Trader Joe's. They got those things already cut. All I got is only the white part of it. I don't know what they do with the green part. A ham hock, if you got it, you know, I would know about it. Two celery hearts, about that big, the rest of it, I don't, it didn't come with it. So when I buy them at Publix, I just buy the celery heart because that's my favorite part. Use whatever you want, about two of them. Carrots, I didn't count how many carrots I had, but this will give you an idea. It's a full bowl. There's about four or five cups of carrots. Not that you need to measure, I'm telling you. Don't measure, put whatever you want. You know, soup is, one day you make it one way, where the other day you put a little more carrots and normally, who cares? Don't follow a recipe when you make soup, please. Just an idea. It's an idea. I got fresh thyme. I got two tablespoons of fresh thyme. I didn't measure it, but it looks like two tablespoons. Two tablespoons of fresh sage. Garlic. I got 14 cloves of garlic. I didn't count them. Cut up, chop. You remember when you put a garlic, you got to chop it, right? Chop it up. That's how you get the fragrance, the flavor. I got a little piece of ginger. It was about that big, that big, that big. So you like that for measurement. Ginger, it's going to be in the background. You're hardly going to know it's in there. It's cut smaller so it'll make it easier. What else do I got? Let me check on my onion. Onions are doing good. And then I got, I'm going to put some cinnamon, very little cinnamon. People say, think I don't like cinnamon. I like cinnamon. I like it in the back. I like it where it's almost, you don't know it's there. You know what I mean? It's like in the background. Not like you eat your soup and go, oh, it's very nice soup. You got cinnamon in there. You eat the soup and you go, what's that? You don't really know. That's when you did a good job. You don't really know. It's in the background. All right. And then I got red chili flakes. One, one, one tablespoon, two, two teaspoon. I don't know. Two teaspoon of red chili flakes to get a little spiciness in there. And then we're going to put some nutmeg. All right. So friends, let's check this out. Let's see where we are. The onion is starting to caramelize. You see pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, really, really pretty. That's what it counts right there. The onions are perfect. They're looking really good. You see. All right. So now we're going to get the fragrance out of the ingredients. Oh, oh, one more thing. We're going to put some cider, apple cider. I have the apples. I'm going to put apple cider. I'm putting this one right here. It's a sparkling. No reason to put a sparkling. I just drink. It's like apple juice with bubbles. Apple juice with bubbles. How do you like that for an ingredient? And, and, and, and then we got chicken stock. All right. So we are ready now to put the, the fragrance in, in it. So the garlic is going to go in. Okay. We're going to put the garlic, the garlic until we smell it. And then when we smell it, we're going to put something wet on it. So we don't burn it. Really that simple. That's why you don't put onion and garlic together. But you guys know that my regulars, uh, subscriber, you guys know that you already know that. And, uh, and you know, I noticed, I see guys cooking on YouTube and they're starting to get it too. They don't put onion and garlic together anymore. You see, you notice that, right? A few of them, a little ginger, right? The herbs, we can put them down. It doesn't really matter. They're not going to interfere with the fragrance of the garlic coming out. I promise you. If you don't have the fresh herbs, you can put the dry herbs, but put half, half. Okay. Dry herbs are much more, uh, uh, uh, uh, powerful on fragrance, contrary to what people believe. So now look, I can smell the garlic. I don't know if you can smell it. I can smell it. So you know what we do? We save it. By putting a little apple cider. All right. You put the whole thing in there, a whole bottle in there. It's only foam. Look at this. I didn't know I was buying foam. Hello. I think we're going to give it a second. I think I shook it all too much, but apple cider. So now you know what? I can relax now, friends, because my, um, my garlic is not going to burn. I hate to burn garlic. I hate burning garlic. I don't mind roasted garlic. I just don't like burn garlic. The leeks boom going out. Now it doesn't matter what order we put what really doesn't matter. Okay. Carrots doesn't matter. And you know what we're going to do? We're going to grind it all up. Grind it all up. Uh, celery, sweet potatoes, boom apples. Oh, I don't want to put that, uh, that lemon water in there. My friends, I don't want to put the lemon water. So you know what I'll do? I'll do this. I mean, not that it's going to hurt it, but there's no reason to put it in. Right? So boom. And I don't care. I'm going to puree everything. Trust me. After this soup, this is going to cook for a good, uh, a good hour after it's cooked. This is, uh, apples are going to be all mushy. So let's put the chili flakes. Don't have to just give you a nice little cake. Cinnamon. If you like a little more cinnamon, you can put more mine. I promise you. You're not going to recognize it right away. Little nutmeg, fresh nutmeg, please. Don't use that nutmeg. Your grandmother gave you 20 years ago. You still, you think it's still tastes like nutmeg. If you don't have one of those, you smell it. Oh, mama mia. Fresh nutmeg is completely different. Oh, that's it. I got that nut gone. Now it's kind of interesting to see what you do. You do with this thing. Let me show you. You find them online. You see, I'll show you. Hopefully I can show you. I have a nut. Yeah, I got nuts. Look, you find a nut. Try to find a big one, right? You take it. Boom. You put it in there and you got one of them little hook in here. You put it in here like this and then you see, look, see, look, look. I don't know if you can see. It's coming out. See what happened is that that thing grabs it and then it comes out. See, look. Fresh nutmeg. Big difference, friends. Fresh nutmeg versus the one that is grated already. Don't buy grated nutmeg. You buy one of those. You find them online. They're cool. It gets some nuts and you got it. All right. Now, friends, I'm going to continue doing this. I don't want to bore you to death. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to pull them like this. You see, look, look at this. You see? So I'm just going to do this. It doesn't matter. I'm going to put all this in and then my friends, the very important, how much stock do we put in? I'm going to show you. This is very important. You know what? Let me move this out of the way. Let me get it right there so Jack can have the camera going at the right place. How much stock do we put in? It's always the question that people ask me. How much do I put in? The secret of having a soup that has beautiful texture is to just cover the vegetables. All right. Just cover the vegetables. I don't measure because it doesn't matter. Okay. It doesn't matter how much. I'll give you an idea in a minute. I'm going to give you an idea. Okay. This is chicken stock. You can use the vegetable stock for those of you who are not cooking for the vegan people. God bless them. Okay. If you're cooking for somebody who can't have any animal products, then you use the beautiful vegetable stock. You know, I have a beautiful recipe online on the vegetable stock. You can use that. So basically what we're doing, because you see what happened is the vegetables are going to release a lot of water already, right? So you want to barely cover the vegetables. You can, how many did I put in? Was it three that I just put in? Do you remember how many I put in? Four or three? Three. Okay. So right now I have 36 ounces of stock right now. Okay. It might be that it's enough. It might be that I need to put more, but you look, you see, I got to do all this and put them in there. Also the squash. Okay. I don't want to make you suffer to see me do them all, but I'm going to put them all in there. Oh, the ham hock. Don't put a ham. Boom. Put a ham hock over there. My mom would just put this in and save it for herself. Oh, this is no good. We don't eat that. She would eat it all. So look guys, right now I got enough vegetables, enough stock. I may put more later on. We'll see. Basically, if you put too much, then your soup is going to be too liquid. The secret of a good squash soup, a winter soup, is the thickness of it. Remember, it's all about the mouthfeel. It's all about the texture. If I give you a soup too thin, it goes right through the test, but nothing. If I give you a soup too thick, you feel like you have to chew on it. That's no good either. It has to have the right texture. And I'm going to show you what the right texture is. All right, my friends, we're going to bring this to boil. The second it comes to boil, you reduce it down very, very slowly. So you have a bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop. And you're going to cook this for, I would say an hour, an hour and 15 minutes. When you check all your vegetables are nice and soft, an hour and a half, maybe. You know, we want the carrots. Your carrots are going to be the last one I'm going to cook. So when your carrots are nice and soft, you know, you're good to go. And we're going to make it a smooth silk. All right, friends, I'll be back. However long it's going to take, I'm going to keep track of it for you. And I'll let you know. All right. See you in a minute. Of course, I forgot salt and pepper. I always got to forget something, right? So we're going to put salt right now. We're going to put a little bit of salt. My stock has no salt in it. Now, your stock may have sodium and already salt. So be careful on the salt. You may want to wait till the end to put it in. All right, my friends. And the pepper, I'm not going to put any black pepper because I got the chili flakes and that may be enough for me. All right. See you in a minute. Okay, friends. A good hour, hour and a half, hour and a half. Depends how fast you got it. I don't know if you noticed. I don't know if you noticed. You just got. Did you see all that water in there, friends? I didn't add any more. Remember when I put the stock, I was barely covered. A lot of water, a lot of water. So a lot of water. I mean, a lot of liquid because all of the vegetables released a lot of liquid and the apples are full of water and everything. So at this point, we're going to puree everything. I mean, I could take this and do it. It just takes a little bit longer. So I like better to take the boat motor. You know, I got it. I got the boat motor that I take on Sunday and I put the boat motor in there, friends. This is pretty cool. It's got the seven speed. We're going to puree everything. We're going to make a smooth silk. It's all about texture. Remember, friends, the texture, the conductor of flavor. So I got a little more stock in case I need it. At the beginning, it doesn't look so good. Oh, you know, quick lesson. You know, I tell you always the texture is a conductor of flavor, right? It's a good lesson. And so look at this. If I were to give you this now, friends, I hope the camera can just catch this spoon right there. Oh, all of this texture like this. It'll be delicious, but it's not what we're looking for. That is not what we're looking for, friends. We're looking for smoother silk. That's like a rough as could be. So we're going to continue. Now, I know I'm going to add a little bit of cream, so I'm going to do it now because that's going to help me. You don't have to add cream. You don't have to add butter in food either, but I do. So a little bit of cream, OK? I would say, I don't know, three quarter of a cup. And now it's very important that we take our time. You'll see in a minute. Now, also, I like to put a little bourbon whiskey in there. I hope you can hear me. Again, you don't have to, but I like it. If you're cooking for kids, up to you. A little bit of bourbon whiskey. The one I'm using is Cooper's Mark Maple. Yeah, it's maple. It's delicious. It makes the soup delicious. And then also, you can put a little bit of sherry in there. Again, you don't have to. A little bit of sherry. Jack, you've been drinking the sherry, Jack. Yeah. Oh, you know what I forgot to take out? It's going to be a comedy show. I forgot to take out the... I'm telling you, my friends. Hold on one second. Don't go anywhere. Oh, I got an extra plate. I'm going to do it. He got to take it out before, not after. But leave it up to me. I take it out after. I don't think it would have went through anyway. Yeah, no kidding. No, it would not have went through at all. All right. So what do you do with this? Well, my mom used to say, oh, it's no good. And then she would eat it all. So it's up to you, my friends. Okay. Let me just take this out of the way. Up to you what you want to do with it. But it's delicious. You can break it down and eat it. Let me put this back on in there. Come on. What happened? Did I burn the fuse? Oh, no. Here we go. All right. I want to continue. So, you know, I told you I like my soup to be a little more cream, huh? I like my soup to be nice and thick, winter soup. It's up to you how you want it. I think I got some on me. Now, let's look. That's a nice. It's a little too thick. We stop again. It's a comedy show. Friends, I'd rather be too thick than too thin. If it's too thin, you got to bring it up with cold starch or arrowroot or tapioca powder or some thickener. If it's too thick like this, all you got to do is put a little stock. See? It's easy. Let me turn it on. You see 17 button on this thing. I never know which one to use. So, here we go. Little stock. Not too much. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. That's my song. Just a little bit. Take it easy. You watch. In a minute, the texture is going to be amazing. Let's look. Still too thick. That's a wonderful problem to have. Almost there, friends. Leave it in there too long. Longer is better. It's very noisy, isn't it? That's perfection. Okay. Oh, mamma mia. Let me see what I got. Let me see what I got. See how nice? Now, this is a winter soup. You see? Look at this. Look at this, my friend. Look how beautiful that is. Look at this. Now, it's up to you now. If you like it that way, if you like it thinner, then you make it thinner. I got to test it for salt. Be careful. It's hot. Needs more salt. So, at this point, you put more salt. You adjust it to your liking. Oh, it's nice. Very nice. I'm going to put just one more. One more. So, you see, you adjust it. If you got 10 more minutes, leave it in there. I promise you, it's not going to hurt. Now, you notice I got corn here. I love putting corn in my soup. They're laughing over there. All my soup, I got corn. Mamma mia. Friends, let me take it out of there. I got to put it back in the boat. Look at it. This is gorgeous. You remember what it looked like a little while ago? What I was proving, friends. I didn't change the ingredient, right? Look. Look at this. I didn't change the ingredient. All I changed was the texture. By changing the texture, you change the flavor. The texture is a conductor of flavor. Think about it. Think about it. It's hot. Little corn in there. You don't have to put the corn. Put the frozen corn in. Don't worry. Put the frozen corn in there. There's nothing wrong with it. By the time you put it in there two minutes, it's not going to be frozen no more. Okay. So, put in a nice yellow baby corn. Okay. And look at this. This is going to be so delicious. Look at this. I could put more corn. I'm telling you. You could put more corn in there. I could have put the whole thing of corn. All right, friends. Now, let's say we want to be elegant. Let's say it's Thanksgiving special and we want to be elegant. How do we elegant? How do we become elegant? How do we make a soup elegant? I got this. I made a little creme fraiche. You can make creme fraiche. You can use sour cream. Whatever makes you happy. And I mix it with a little sriracha, salt, and pepper. All right. I got it right in there in a squeeze bottle. A little creme fraiche. A little sour cream. Mix it up with a little cream so it's a little liquid. I put it in there. I like to put this in my soups. I think it's delicious. All right. Make a big bowl. Make a small bowl. Make whatever bowl you want. I like to serve it, you know, elegant in a nice big plate like this. Beautiful. Look. Look at this. It looks good, right? Just like this. Very simple, my friend. See? Look. You take that sour cream mixer that you got right there and then you go like this. You just put it on. Nice little dots. Nothing really fancy. Take a minute. A squeeze bottle. See? And then you put one in the middle. And then you take a little leaf of fried sage. I write it down on the recipe how to fry the sage leaves so it looks nice. Not gonna stay. It don't stay. It was supposed to stay. You, come back over here. It's not gonna stay. Let me try another one. It's supposed to stay. There you go. Voila. That's it. My friends, I'm gonna get a spoon. I had one right here a minute ago. And look at this. Also, you make a little elegant soup. And it's not that complicated. You got enough for 17 years in here. You got plenty. Look how beautiful. You know what I like to do is when I take it, I take a little dot of the creme fraiche. Oh, it's good. But it's hot. My friends, I hope you make it. It was not complicated. You have to admit. You can do this. Everybody can do that. If you're gonna make it for Thanksgiving or for the holiday, make it ahead. Tomorrow go buy the squash. Do the soup. Put it in the freezer. It'll last you a long time. Put enough for next year so you don't have to do it again next year. My friends, if you like the video, don't forget to give us a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and don't forget to ring the bell. Thanks for watching. Wow. That was something, this thing. It is, oh, you know, spicy. That, I tell you, that chili pepper that I put in, that whole tablespoon of it. It is so good. That reminds me so much of Thanksgiving. I love my life. Oh, my God.