Comfort food on a cold day

It's cold outside today. Not just cold like yesterday when I bragged about being hardcore. Really frickin' cold. This morning it was -34c (-29.f) with a windchill of -44 (-47f). Heck, it's so cold with windchill that the fahrenheit numbers are lower then the celsius ones. (I don't really get how the conversions work. Thank goodness for online calculators that do it for me.)

If you're like me, you start to crave comfort foods on days like this. A tasty stew, or macaroni casserole, a warm apple crisp...

I don't think there's anything wrong with comfort foods in and of themselves, but if you're like me and have trouble with moderation, it might be time to reframe what you consider a comfort food.

Enter the best soup ever:

Today I made a butternut squash soup. Super simple to make:

Spray roasting pan (I use a turkey roaster for the space) with non stick spray (I prefer olive oil). Cut in half 2 butternut squash and lay down in a roasting pan , add one red onion cut into chunks, and one bulb (yes, bulb, not clove) of garlic. Roast in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Take it out and scrape the squash into a large pot, add the onion and garlic. Add 1.5 - 2 cups vegetable stock (you could use chicken stock, but I like to be able to feed this to vegetarians). Bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.

Then use an immersion blender to puree it. (You could use a regular blender, but it would take a few batches and be a bit of a pain. Seriously, it is worth owning an immersion blender just to make this recipe.)

You can add salt or pepper to taste, but I find with the stock, I don't need to.

Seriously delicious. And, seriously healthy. And, it helps you meet your vegetable quota for the HBBC.