Squash and leek soup: Another guesstimated recipe

Last Sunday night a put together an Indonesia themed dinner (despite the fact that I don't know any one who is Indonesian, I have never been to Indonesia or eaten at an Indonesian restaurant). I used the recipes from the Extending the Table cookbook, which is (or at least was) available at Ten Thousand Villages. I made a variety of dishes including Sweet Vegetables (p.128). Sweet Vegetables included 3 cups of butternut squash, sweet red pepper and most importantly, coconut milk. The meal overall was tasty, with lots of vegetables prepared in several different ways. The one thing I found with the Sweet Vegetable recipe was that it was very runny and since I've never had this type of food, I don't know if that's normal.

By about Wednesday it was clear we were going to have a lot of the coconut juice left over and I decided I would save it and try and make something of it, rather than throw it away. I also still had half a butternut squash and most of a leek. It seemed obvious that these things should go together. And so, for lunch today Andrew and I had squash and leek soup. I'm going to write the recipe as if I hadn't made it from leftovers, so bear with me. I imagine it will taste pretty much the same, regardless. But it might affect the consistency of the soup.

Ingredients
Butternut squash (1 medium-sized)
Coconut milk (1, 400 mL can)*
Chicken or vegetable stock (1-2 cups)
Garlic (3-5 cloves)
Onion (1 medium-sized)
Ginger root (1 tablespoon, minced not powder)
Ground turmeric (1/2 teaspoon)
Salt (2 teaspoons)
Leek (1)

Method
1) Peel and chop the squash into 1 inch cubes, place in a heavy sauce pan or stock pot.
2) Add the can of coconut milk to the sauce pan.
3) Add enough stock to cover the squash (and the other ingredients to be added).

This is the one spot where the recipe is kind of iffy. How much stock you add to the pot depends on the size of your pot and the squash. I don't think this will affect the taste, you might just have a runnier soup than I did.

4) Simmer the ingredients at a low temperature.
5) Chop the onion and garlic and add to the pot.
6) Slice the leek (the white and light green part) and add to the pot.
7) Add the spices. Stir.
8) Continue to simmer the soup until the squash is soft (about 1/2 hour). Using a potato masher (or a hand blender if you have one) mash the squash and other vegetables until the soup is mostly smooth (small lumps are okay).
9) Serve.

We added some chopped green onions as garnish and I made apple oatmeal muffins to go along side the soup. The muffins mostly came from the Company's Coming Muffins and More recipe for oatmeal muffins, but I omitted the raisins and molasses, and added shredded apple.

*Do use coconut milk and use the full-fat stuff. It has a very different taste than regular milk and gives this soup most of its flavour.

Ciao,

Andrea