My favourite autumn treat this year...

I'm a soup addict - just with the begining of autumn I feel a need for a plate of warm soup every day. My favourite soups are simple, almost rustic, almost always vegetarian and based on vegetable broth. Last year I had a tomato soup phase, this year butternut squash rules the menu. It's sweet and nutty with a deep orange flesh. It can be used intercheangeably with other pumpkins. It is a good source of vitamin A and C and has lots of fibres.

 The soup I'm going to present today I call it Good Mood because of its amazing orange colour and creamy, dense texture. It's full of flavour and so easy to prepare...
I serve it with fried small pieces of bacon and garlic bread with smoked cheese. For me, the garlic bread with smoked cheese is just plenty, but having a keen meat eater at home I usually add bacon as well. As I have found a new passion recently (thanks to Liska from Pracownia Wypieków), I baked the bread myself.  It was my second bread inspired by this recipe. As I didn't have rye flour I used whole-grain wheat flour to replace it and I added sunflower seeds. The bread was really yummy, not too moist, not too dry and with a tasty crust.  Baking it was so comforting and the satisfaction - really big. And the smell of fresh bread all around the home... indescribable.

Serves 4 or 5 big portions. It's equally good on the second day.
1 medium size butternut squash (weight after peeling and removing the seeds - around 1,5kg, before around 2kg)
3 carrots
1/2 celery root
1 big onion
1 tablespoon of butter
4 tablespoons of grapeseed oil
2 vegetable broth cubes (I recommend ones from bio-stores without added preservatives etc.)

Prepare the pumpkin: wash it, cut it in half alongside. With an ice-cream scoop remove the seeds and the fibres. Then cut into smaller pieces, cut off the skin and cut the rest into cubes. The same with celery root, carrots and onion - peel and cut into cubes. Warm up the butter and the oil in a big pot, then fry the onion in it until transparent. Then add the carrots and the celery root and fry for around 5 minutes more, stirring from time to time. Dissolve 2 vegetable broth cubes in around 1l 200 ml (use 1l if you want more creamy soup, use 1 1/1l if you want more liquid soup). Add the pumpkin cubes to the vegetables and pour the vegetable broth over it. Lower the heat and cook under cover for around 20 minutes to half an hour until the pumpkin becomes soft. Let the soup cool down a bit and then blend it with a hand mixer.
Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper (don't be modest! the soup requires it in order to break the sweetness of the butternut squash). Serve with bacon (cut it into small pieces and them fry it until it's crunchy without adding any extra oil) and/or garlic bread with smoked cheese.

100g whole-grain wheat flour (type 550)
300g wheat flour (type 550)
1,5 teaspoon salt
2g fresh yeast
250ml water
50g sunflower seeds
Fits rectangular loaf  form 25cm long.

Thoroughly mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover with a cotton kitchen cloth and leave for 12-18 hours. Cover the pan with the vegetable oil and sprinkle with bran. After 12-18h put the dough in the baking pan, sprinkle the flour onto the top and the leave in a warm place to rise. The dough should fill the baking pan within approximately 30 - 60minutes. Preheat the oven to 230°C. Onto the bottom of the oven (or the bottom flat baking pan) spill a glass of ice-cubes. Put the pan into the oven (only once it has risen). After 10minutes lower the temperature to 210°C and bake for 30-40minutes more.
Enjoy with the Good Mood Butternut Squash Soup and Garlic Butter :)

Garlic Butter

100g butter, softened
1 teaspoon of salt
3 garlic bulb squeezed through a garlic press