Sweet Potato & Butternut Squash Soup

One of the difficulties with wanting to help people learn about cooking or food, is simply the inspiration of where to start. I considered doing this over a year ago when I saw pancake mix as an convenience product. As it would have worked out to be three times the price of making pancakes using the ingredients of Egg, Flour and Milk, it really made me wonder why this was happening. As it was not going to save time, so what had changed so that people had lost the skill to cook?

While I fully understand that peoples lives have become so full that time pressures can make it difficult for people to cook meals from scratch everyday, I found it shocking that many people actually did not know how to cook. From talking to people, I discovered many people, men and women who have such a basic range of cooking skills that they can barely cook potatoes. While talking to other villagers in this former mining village, I discovered a woman who could not cook rice, so would buy rice from a take away when she would have needed to cook it. It took me ten minutes to show her and help her save money.

However, I realise that if I make these films to basic, I may well put off many people that already have the basic skills. So I hope that folks will bare with me and take the time to give feedback so that I can see if I am being helpful or not.

I am starting with some simple soups, as even for folks that have never cooked before, they are so easy that help give people confidence in the kitchen. Also with the recession biting for many, soups can be a great money saving lunch idea too.

Half a Butternut Squash
Two small or one Large Sweet Potato
One Vegetable Stock Cube
Water
Two Bay Leaves
Salt And Pepper to taste

The Squash and the sweet potato can be roasted first. This can be done the day before while cooking another dish. However if this has not been possible then just follow the same method as this can be made with roasted or un-roasted veg.

Method

Peel and chop the vegetables into even sized chunks.
Place in a pan and pour on two pints or one litre of water.
Add a vegetable stock cube and two bay leaves.
Bring to the boil and turn the heat down and let the vegetables simmer for half an hour.
There is no need to add salt during cooking as stock cubes have a lot of salt in them already.
When the vegetables are cooked drain the vegetables reserving the cooking stock.
Remove the bay leaves and put the vegetables into a blender. If you don't have a blender you can use a potato masher (ricer) or a stick blender, but it will not make the soup as smooth.
Use some of the cooking stock to blend the soup.
Pour the blended mixture back into the remaining stock, reheat, check the seasoning and add a little salt if needed and pepper to taste and serve hot.

I also hope that you liked the film, I have listened to my critics and I hope that it was not to boring. If it was then I know you will tell me.