Curried Butternut & Carrot Soup with Homemade garlic naan

Last night it was snowing. Instead of cursing winter, I decided to embrace it by making soup and bread. Yes! Bread!! I made naan bread, an Indian flat bread, from scratch! It was the first yeast bread I've ever made. I had to knead and let it rise and everything! It was scary for me, but not as hard as I thought it would be. It may have helped that naan is flat, so I didn't have to worry about having a perfectly risen loaf shape. Anyway, I used the recipe and technique from this post on Never Bashful with Butter. I wasn't sure about the garlic, but I went ahead and added it and I am sooo glad I did.

Here are my naan balls. The recipe made 21 for me:

Cooked naan:


As you can see, it was definitely a soup kinda night. A friend had made this soup the other day and I asked him for the jist of it becuase it was so yummy. I veered a little from his (for instance he used half & half and I used yogurt for creaminess), but I got some good tips and ideas. Here's recipe I ended up with:

Curried Butternut & Carrot Soup

4 cups butternut squash, cubed
2 cups carrots, cubed
1 medium onion, sliced thin
2 shallots, sliced thin,
5 cloves garlic minced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
8 cups stock (I used a combo of vegatable and chicken stocks)
3 Tbsp curry powder
1 orange, 1 tsp orange zest
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. hot chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. powdered ginger
2 tsp. worstershire
2 tsp. hot sauce
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. flour
salt
pepper

1. cook garlic, onion and shallots and curry powder in olive oil until soft and fragrant. Add in squash and carrots and a pinch or two of salt and cook until they are kinda sweaty. Add stock, thyme, orange zest, juice from the orange, worstershire and hot sauce. Simmer until veggies are soft and mashable...about 40 minutes.

2. Strain soup through a colander, separating the solids and liquid, reserving both. Put the liquid back in the pot. Add turmeric, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, ginger powder and pepper to the solids and puree in a food processor. Stir puree into the liquid, taste and adjust seasonings.

3. Make a blonde roux with the flour and butter. Add to soup. Simmer all this together for another 30 minutes or so.

4. Serve with plain yogurt that's been drained through cheesecloth for 30 minutes, or Greek yogurt, and naan bread.

It was kind of a lengthy cooking process, and I didn't eat until late. It was worth it though. Plus, I froze the naan in batches of 3, and froze the leftover soup, so I have meals ready to go next time the weather calls for soup and bread.