Curried Coconut Acorn Squash Soup with Goat Cheese and Black Pepper Biscuits

Johnson Backyard Garden CSA subscribers were lucky enough recently to get several acorn squash in their boxes. I roasted mine and turned them into a coconut acorn squash soup, following a recipe by Barbara Kafka, cookbook author and former food contributor to the New York Times.

Begin by roasting the squash. Unlike when you roast squash to eat on its own, you don't need to dress the squash for this soup -- no oil, no spices, nothin'. Just stick it in the oven and let it cook for 45-60 minutes -- until it is soft enough to pierce with a fork, knife, or toothpick.

Next, saute curry powder in oil for 2 minutes. This is called blooming and is a way to maximize the flavor of dried spices by heating them before adding the ingredients. Add onions and cook until soft and translucent. Add stock, squash and coconut milk and heat through. Now, puree. Tonight, I used my new immersion blender for the first time. And, typical me, I didn't bother reading the instructions (how hard could it be, right?), and this led to lots of splatter on the stove, hood, and all over the sides of the pot. Apologies for the messy pot!

Once heated through, add the lime juice and adjust with salt and pepper. I always recommend the combination of roasted squash with coconut milk and curry, but I wouldn't recommend following this particular recipe. Or, if you follow it, please omit or greatly reduce the lime juice. It's not a typical component to a curried coconut squash soup, and there is probably a reason. If you decide to go ahead and try the lime juice to see what it adds (which is what I did), you can always offset the bitterness of the citrus by increasing other ingredients -- more coconut milk, more squash (if you have it), or even by adding other vegetables.

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