Butternut Squash Soup

This is the yummie recipe for the Butternut Squash soup, add in as much pepper and niutmeg as you like, I like loads, it's sweet yet savoury and full of so many good nutrients, vitamin A in the form of Beta Carotene which is great for your eyes and also an anti oxidant which helps to remove free radicals, preventing cancer and keeping us healthy!! it also contains potassium to keep your heart ticking nicely and it's really low in calories but full of flavour!!

Butternut Squash Soup
A real winter warmer and perfect after a long day!

1 large butternut squash1 large onion
1 large potato
Nutmeg
Pepper kernels
Vegetable stock
Tbspn olive oil

Peel butternut squash, deseed, peel and cube

Leave skin on potato, it preserves its dietary fibre, however wash thoroughly, chop and leave aside

Dice onion.

Heat olive oil and sweat the onion, don’t brown it.
Add in the chop potatoes and plenty of nutmeg and pepper kernels.

Boil some water and add in so as not t

o let the mix stick to the pan.

Simmer very gently.

Add in the cubed butternut squash and the vegetable stock and hot water.

Simmer the mixture gently for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes and squash are soft enough to blend.
Add more ground pepper and nutmeg to taste

Serve piping hot with some crusty brown soda bread.

Award Winning Soup!!!

The Healthy Eating competition was a lot of fun!! there was 9 contestants altogether, some of the recipes there were absolutely beautiful, my favourite was a Sweet potato curry with lentils and Quinoa, it won first place, obviously, mouth watering!!!

I won second place in The Starter category, very chuffed with the squash, although, I wasn't too pleased with the preparation, by the time we got there all the starters had been made and they just micro waved them in plastic jugs, I was not very impressed as I had been told they would prepare them fresh. But aside from that, the day was a lot of fun, there was pesto meatballs, lentil and chorizo stew, which Antonio is preparing above, Paella and a lot of gorgeous flavours, the cooks from The Cooks Academy were really friendly as well, I'm going to stick up a few photos of the afternoon, I was a tad worse for wear but very excited!!


Later on then, I showed Simon, my sister's boyfriend how to make some yummie vegetable soup. Simon's Soup, it was delicious for his first attempt, but a lot of pepper went in there!!















it was scrummy though, they bought all of their veggies on Sunday afternoon at The Farmer's Market in Dun Laoghaire, they were were so fresh and colourful, for the soup we used:

1 onion
3 cloves Garlic
6 Florets Brocolli
6 medium/small Carrots
1 Courgette
1 Leak
stock
pepper kernels
chili flakes

• Dice and simmer Onion, leave cloves of garlice whole, then add garlic with stock and pepper kernels and as much chili flakes as you want.
• Wash and chop up all the other veggies and add them in as you go, adding more water and another stock cube.
• Let all the ingredients simmer for 15 minutes and then blend up.
• The easiest thing to make and so very delicious,

We ate it with Red relish cheddar cheese melted on Wholemeal bread, it was a meal fit for a king!!