Excerpted from My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life by Ruth Reichl. All rights reserved.
Butternut Squash Soup1 stalk celery
2 carrots
1 pound butternut squash
1/2 pound potatoes
1 onion
olive oil
salt
1. initiate by coarsely chopping an onion,a stalk of celery and 2 carrots; you don’t have to be fussy about this since you’re going to terminate up pureeing everything. Slick the bottom of a casserole or Dutch oven with olive oil, add the vegetables and let them tumble into tenderness, and which should take about ten minutes.2. Peel a pound of butternut squash and cut it into 3/4 inch or so cubes. Peel half pound of waxy potatoes (Yukon Golds are trustworthy),and cut into chunks of the same size. Stir them into the vegetables in the casserole, add a couple teaspoons of sea salt and 2 1/2 cups of boiling water, and cover and simmer until everything is very soft. This will take about half an hour.3. Very carefully puree the soup in a blender,in small batches, making sure the top of the blender is secure (hot soup can be painful).4. Taste for seasoning and serve drizzled with a few drops of olive oil and/or trustworthy balsamic vinegar. A crisp dice of apples on top makes this recognize lovely and adds a very pleasing note of sweetness. (Diced pickled walnuts also create a wonderful topping.)
Source: wnyc.org