Warming butternut squash soup for bonfire night

I love the excitement of bonfire night –amazing fireworks, writing my name with sparklers, wrapping up warm, the smell in the air. It’s a real marker in the year – a celebration of the end of Autumn, with a chill that reminds you that winter is just around the corner. Every year, around this time, I start pinning warming soup recipes on Pinterest and promise myself I’ll cook myself some, but it never seems to happen. But with a new commitment to eating more veg, I’ve decided that making soup is a must so I sought out a tasty-looking butternut squash recipe.

As luck would have it, the lovely folk at Fiskars offered me a set of cutting-edge knives from their Functional Form range, which was just what I needed for my soup prep. The Functional Form large cook’s knife (with a strong 20cm blade), was the perfect tool for chopping up the butternut squash. Really sturdy, it made easy work of cutting up the squash, with an ergonomic grip (called Softgrip) and a finger stop so it was comfortable to use too.

As well as the large cook’s knife, I used the Function Form paring knife to finely slice some garlic. They slot neatly away in the birch wood knife block, which also holds a tomato knife, Asian cook’s knife and break knife.

I’m a big fan of squash with cumin, so The Green Life’s recipe for Butternut Squash, Coconut & Turmeric Soup with Crispy Sage Soup was right up my street. It’s nice and simple which meant I felt confident enough to tweak it a bit – roasting my squash with the spices rather than simmering it, and adding a veggie stock cube. I reckon this soup would be great with some fresh red chilli, too – give it an extra hit of warmth. Meat-lovers could pop in some little pieces of crunchy bacon or chorizo.

 

This soup is without a doubt the tastiest I’ve made in a very long while. It was so easy to cook, it’s sure to become a firm autumn favourite in our house, and will be the perfect dish to warm us up after a chilly evening watching the fireworks this weekend. I hope you enjoy bonfire night, whatever you’re up to.

 Fiskars’ Functional Form range product ranges are available at Sainsbury’s

 

Disclosure: This post was written in collaboration with Fiskars, but the content and opinion are very much my own.