Creamy Butternut Squash Curry Soup

Yesterday I made an awesome soup that I documented in pictures and wanted to share.  I made it with my new Vitamix, but I have made this in the past and the special blender is not necessary.  Any regular blender or immersion blender will work for this.  The Vitamix just made it easier and heated it up...

I took one butternut squash (around 1-2 pounds), cut it half, removed seeds, brushed with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.

butternut squash on Pampered Chef Large Bar Pan, ready for roasting in the oven

Placed on my Pampered Chef Large Bar Pan (again...any pan will work, but this seemed to toast it up nicely), 375 degrees for about an hour, after which was fork tender and looked like this:

After:  looks a little toasty and is definitely fork tender.

Wait until it is cool enough to handle, then scoop out the squash contents, which can now be done with a spoon, and dump into the Vitamix (or blender, or a pot if you're using the immersion blender).  While this is all going on, I get 2 stalks of celery, 1 small/medium carrot, and 1 small onion chopped up and then 6 cloves of garlic, left whole

and put in a pan with about 2-3 tbsp of butter to slowly sweat until soft and and translucent.

Then, add the veggies into the Vitamix, blender, or the pot, add 2.5-3 cups of stock (I used turkey since I have a ton of it in the freezer, but you could use chicken, veggie, or I would think even beef with this...), 1 tbsp of yellow curry powder (we LOVE curry in our house, so you can adjust as needed), black pepper and kosher salt to taste.  Then blend...and it will look like this...

I have no idea how to spin this...but you get the idea!

The Vitamix heats up the soup for eating, but if you are using a regular blender or the immersion blender, you obviously need to heat the soup up in a pan...and then serve!  I like it with a dollop of sour cream on top, but can totally be served with or without.  YUMMY!

This is one of our favorites.  I hope you like it as much as we do.  Please comment and let me know how it turns out in your house - or if you have any variations to add!  I'm always looking for things to jazz my homemade soups!