We love our soups and smoothies here at Science and Strength. They are easy, often complete meals, packed with micros and macros. In a busy schedule, soups fit in perfectly. They are one pot wonders, that lend easily to batch cooking/freezing and are a portable meal option. A warm soup in a thermos will last a while and sometimes you don’t even need a spoon to eat it, just slurp and go.
However, most soup recipes add calories with the addition of cream, cheese and stocks to increase palatability. As we mention in our The No-Diet Book, you should always be weary of these types of soups as a healthy meal option. Our recipe adds favour with healthy ingredients like onions, ginger, garlic and secret herbs – Herbes De Provence. It’s not that secret as you can buy this herb from most grocery stores. This mixture of herbs include: marjoram, rosemary, thyme, sage, anise, savory and lavender. We feel it adds something very special and unique to the soup.
Most of us have likely seen fit and lean people often add squash as a side dish. Often, squash as a side dish looks boring and bland however, this recipe is anything but that. As with most vegetables, the benefits of squash are tremendous including, decreasing the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and overall mortality while promoting a healthy complexion, increased energy and overall lower weight.
Butternut Squash is a winter vegetable, which peaks in the fall but is available year round. 1 cup of cooked squash provides the following daily requirement needs and benefits:
Wight management – Less then 80 calories per cup
Eye Health – A single serving contains over 400% of daily requirement in Vitamin A, due to massive amounts of beta-carotene content. Beta-carotene is an antioxidant compound that can be split into vitamin A, but don’t worry as the body will only convert as much as necessary.
Bone Health – valuable source of minerals including zinc, calcium, manganese and other important trace elements.
Immune System Health – contains around 50% daily vitamin C.
Electrolytes – Post-workout we often reach for a banana for it’s potassium content (20%DV). Did you know, a cup of squash has around 17% potassium along with significantly more Magnesium and Manganese. How about a squash soup post-workout? Sounds good to us, here’s the simple, easy and delicious recipe.
Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
Serving Size: 2 cups, recipes makes 7 servings
Nutrition facts with seeds: Cal 300, Pro 9g, Carb 33g, Fat 20g, Fiber 8g
Nutrition facts w/o seeds: Cal 170, Pro 3g, Carb 30g, Fat 9g, Fiber 6g
This soup is mildly spicy due to the addition of mainly ginger and garlic. Fell Free to add some cayenne pepper or extra ground black pepper to taste. We recommend enjoying this soup with the added seeds option, as you should try to move away from calorie counting and look at the nutrition in the food. Yes, the seeds are fatty and add calories but these are nutrient rich calories – as in good fatty acids, increased fiber and protein content also.
1.5kg – 1 large squash – diced 1 inch pieces
300g – 2 large carrots – dices 1/2 inch pieces
300g – 1 medium onion diced small – 300g
1 inch piece – Ginger grated
4 cloves – Garlic grated
1 tsp – Herbes De Provence – try to get this, it really adds that distinctive taste that compliments the spiciness of the ginger and garlic. However, in a pinch you can use combination of Thyme and Rosemary – also delicious.
Water – enough to cover the vegetables
1/4 Extra Virgin Olive Oil – EVOO
1 tbsp – Butter
1 tbsp – Salt
1 tbsp – Black ground pepper
For Serving
1/4 cup Pumpkin Seeds (optional calories)
1/4 cup Sunflower Seeds (optional calories)
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On medium-high heat, in a large pot add the EVOO and butter.
Add the small diced onions, grated ginger and garlic, herbs. Sauté until the onions start to lightly brown, about 3-5 minutes.
Add in the diced squash and carrots – the smaller the dice the faster the cooking time, dice squash 1 inch cubes, carrots slightly smaller as they take a little longer time to cooking. Mix in with the onion mixture and cook for 5 minutes.
Add water to just cover the vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix, cover and bring to boil.
Drop heat to low and simmer until vegetables are fully cooked and mash-able with a fork – 30-40 minutes.
Bend in batches until mixed and smooth. We use our Vitamix and blend on a short smoothie cycle, no need to complete the cycle. At this time, if desired, you can thin the soup by adding little hot, boiled water in 1/4 cup as needed. Taste the soup, add extra seasoning as needed.
For serving, top the individual portion with the seeds and enjoy warm – 2 tbsp of seeds total should suffice for 2 cup soup portion.
Extra soup can be frozen in an air tight container. For re-use, thaw in fridge overnight, heat on stove, add extra hot water as needed to thin out soup.
References:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2648/2
https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/fruit/squash.html
