Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

Happy Wednesday all! It snowed this morning and I ended up taking a snow day from work. It was great to have a day to get stuff done around the house after being away for the weekend. I can’t stand a messy house. Not that I’m a dirty, messy gal, but you know what I mean.

I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, watched a few of my favorite shows and did some cooking!

I baked a loaf of bread this morning and had that for breakfast with some coffee jelly. Yes, coffee jelly. Prepped the squash and sweet potato for this recipe and I even managed to get a tray of seitan made for something that I haven’t thought of for dinner yet later this week. Annnd, I drank lots and lots of coffee!

So, lettuce ;) move on to the star of the show. Squash and sweet potato soup with a lovely little garnish of sautéed onion and coconut bacon.

Ingredients for Soup

1 Acorn squash
1 Large sweet potato
3 C water
1/3 C non dairy half and half (sub any non dairy milk that you have)
1/4 C nutritional yeast
Salt, to taste
Corse black pepper, to taste

Directions

Pre heat oven to 400′

Cut the squash in half and place it onto a baking sheet. Cut the sweet potato into a few large chunks and place it on the baking sheet with the squash.

Bake for 30 minutes or until tender.

Once cooled, de seed the squash and spoon out the flesh into a large pot along with the potato. You can peel the skin off the potato, but personally, I love potato skins so I never peel them. Add the water and cover. Bring to a boil.

If you don’t have a hand held immersion blender, use any blender you have to puree the soup. You can leave it as chunky as you’d like. I pureed mine all the way until smooth.

Put the pot back on the stove and turn the heat to low. Add in the rest of the ingredients and let it simmer while you prep the toppings.

Ingredients for Coconut Bacon & Sautéed Onion

1 C dried, unsweetened coconut chips
1 T maple syrup
1 T liquid aminos
2 t liquid smoke
1 Large red onion
Smoked salt, to taste

Directions

With the oven still on, line a baking sheet with parchment.

Spread the coconut chips out on the baking sheet. Drizzle all the syrup, aminos and smoke over top. Use a fork to mix everything around. Try to coat the chips as much as possible.

Spread them out again and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

They will be sticky and much darker. Be sure to not let them burn.

For the sautéed onion, I just cut a large red onion into thin slices and sautéed until translucent in a hot skillet with a little smoked salt. This is optional, but tastes really good!