Food Friday: Butternut, Bacon, and Pear Soup

Are butternut squash immortal? Serious question. Do they EVER go bad!?! I mean, if you told me butternut squash have been found—perfectly preserved, of course—alongside honey in the newly-excavated tombs of pharaohs, I’d probably believe you right about now!

We harvested a bunch, a bumper crop of butternuts two summers ago and I still had had one left. I didn’t make any efforts to keep it a particular way, just tossed into a corner of my kitchen and almost forgot about it, but after our soup plan came to be I could not, in good conscious, let it set sadly any longer. It looked perfectly fine from the outside, but I doubted its insides would still be edible. Wrong. Apart from the seeds, which did look like they’d seen slightly happier days, the squash seemed fine. One little problem remained: Dave deeply dislikes (dare I say despises?) butternut squash and we agreed to do this soup adventure together. As a compromise, I searched for butternut squash and BACON recipes and found one even better. Butternut squash, bacon and pear…an intriguing combination. Two of my husband’s favorites to soften the taste of one of his least liked? It was worth a shot…

By the way, something I love about this soup, aside from taste and ease of preparation, is all the gorgeous fall colors to admire during prep and cooking stages. Use Bartlett pears (green), red onions (purple), Butternut squash (orange), and rich cream and you’ve got one of my all-time favorite color combinations. I even used the Butternut, Bacon, and Pear Soup color scheme at our wedding (although at the time I didn’t know it went by such a delicious name :))! As if this soup’s flavor isn’t reward enough, you get to feast your eyes on a fantastic array of gorgeous colors all throughout the cooking process. It’s good to be the cook!

This concoction of orange-y goodness was inspired by two recipes (here and here). I combined them (and I think I combined them well :)) for ultimate flavor! I also added a bit of white wine because, well, it just seemed like a good idea…

This recipe is easy, delicious, and just a tad off the beaten path. Oh, and it was a big hit with my husband despite its butternut squash base… Score! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

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The Ingredients:

• 1 pack of bacon, cut into strips
• 2 medium red onions, diced
• 1 butternut squash, peeled, de-seeded, and chopped into 1″ pieces
• 1 pear, peeled, de-seeded, and chopped.
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• 4 cups chicken broth (simple recipe for homemade broth here)
• 1 tsp sage
• sea salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 cup cream (for garnishing)

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The Drill:

1. In a large soup pot, fry bacon until brown and crispy. Remove bacon and set aside. Add diced onion to the bacon grease and cook until translucent.

2. To the onions, add squash, pear, broth, white wine, and sage. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook, covered for 30 minutes.

3. With an emersion blender, blend mixture until creamy. (This is the best way. You can also use a regular blender (what I had to do!) and blend the soup in batches. Return blended soup to the pot on the stove.)

4. Add bacon. Reserve a few tablespoons for garnish.

5. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

6. Ladle into bowls. Garnish with bacon and a swirl of cream.

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Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions for souping up this recipe? Let me know what you think! Enjoy!