French Fridays with Dorie - spiced squash, fennel, and pear soup

Happy Friday.  I'm actually writing my post on Friday at 5:38 am...cause I couldn't sleep.  I got up to read, and then remembered I hadn't done my Dorie post yet.  I made this terrific soup for the starter course for our Sunday dinner.  It was my middle sister's birthday, and she had requested her favorite meal (breaded pork chops, mashed potatoes, white gravy and white corn).  I decided that this soup would be a great start to this festive dinner.  As it turns out, I was spot on.  As she came in to the house and saw what was cooking, she said  "Butternut squash soup is my favorite soup, did you know that?"  I happily admitted that yes, of course I knew!  Under my breath, I also said it's for FFwD this week too.

Aromatics sauteing!

Well, that cat's out of the bag, but I'm glad the universe conspired to align my birthday sister's dinner with the week we make her favorite soup. (Who's we, you ask?  Check out all my fellow Doristas who are making their families oh so happy every week by cooking along.

This was a fairly simple soup, just roast your squash (I used butternut), saute the base of ingredients (minus fennel, because my store didn't have any...ugh!), add the roasted squash and stock, simmer for a bit, add the pear (for me the best part...I loved how you could feel the little granules in the pear...reminded me of when my sis and I were kids (like 6 or 7) and we loved to eat jars of baby food.  Don't know why, but we did.  I remember the pear baby food.  So smooth, creamy and with just those little granules.  Of course, you can get the same result by just eating a really ripe pear.

Everyone loved the soup (we were 10 for the dinner), except hubby.  He said it tasted like curry.  I asked him how that could be since there was a speck of curry in this soup!  He just shrugged.  I'm starting to think maybe he doesn't like ginger or cumin and just thinks it's curry.  I see a little experimenting coming soon.

Not such a pretty picture, but it was good soup!

Only got two photos this week (and the final dish I didn't remember to take until I'd already started eating...oops!)  But that's ok.  I love that I was so caught up in the cooking and being with my family that I forgot I was doing a dish for Dorie.  That's the way life is suppose to be.

Happy Veteran's Day and a big thank you to all who have given so much so that we can continue to have to much.  Living in Coronado has given me an even greater admiration for the men and women who serve our country.  Especially watching all the hot SEALS train every morning on the beach as I drive Ethan to school (and when I say HOT, I'm not talking about their temperature!)