Last night I made my calabasa soup at the request of my wife using butternut squash from her mother’s urban garden – i.e. from the squash she grows at the fence line alongside the driveway.  The recipe is simpler than when I started making it ten years ago.  Last night’s recipe:  butternut squash, onion, celery, some leftover yellow pepper and green onion stalks, initial spice mix, a little bit of salt, pepper, lots of paprika both sweet and spicy, garlic powder, a pinch of chipotle, two quarts of stock, a can each of Navy and Cannellini beans.  Simmered for two or three hours until I mashed it.  (I do not enjoy blended squash soups without chunks, especially the sweet style.)

2015 version

When we visited Chile in January 2015 we enjoyed the soups, many were consume based with large pieces of corn and calabasa in them, but others were smoother, like a pumpkin soup here at home, but not sweet at all.   So once we were back home I googled around a bit to find recipes like http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Porotos_Granados and have now made my version of the Chilean soup four times.  The first three times I used chicken broth, but today since we are making the soup for a potluck I used vegetable broth.  The vegetable broth has less flavor but the end product tastes like its starting to settle into a good flavor.

Here is the recipe for my Chilean Soup, its relatively quick to make time wise, with all the time due to the need to chop a lot of vegetables, plus a long amount of unattended simmering.

Chilean Soup – All measurements are approximates, I eyeball everything

Mild Italian pork sausage – crumbled – one pound (skip for vegetarian soup)

Fresh Basil – chopped fine – three tablespoons  (ether american and thai basil)

Garlic – chopped fine – four cloves

Onion – chopped rough – one

Celery – chopped rough – four stalks

Paprika – ground – four tablespoons  (adds flavor no hotness)

Carrot – chopped dice size – two large (these will soften in soup but remain shape)

Chili pepper – ground – half teaspoon (whatever type of peper that you like, for flavor, we don’t want soup spicy)

Green pepper – chopped rough – one (other colors fine)

Fresh Corn – one – strip kernels

Calabasa – chopped dice size – approximately the same amount uncut to equal the size of two green peppers (this will cook down become the soup)

Great Northern or Navy Beans – rinse – one can

Cannellini beans – rinse – one can

Potato – chop 1/2 dice size – two medium (precook – boil or microwave beforehand)

Chicken stock – one 32 oz box plus one can (use vegetable for vegetarian soup)

Chop everything in advance. Crumble sausage into hot soup pot, brown well, remove and save until after soup is blended.  Brown onion, celery, garlic and basil in sausage fat, as it becomes soft and translucent add paprika and brown a bit more.  Then start adding in the rest of the vegetables slowly allowing pot to stay hot.  Add chili pepper and if you like other Italian like seasonings, also could add a bit of black pepper.  Add in beans and potato, then add in stock.  Brink soup to a boil and allow to simmer, not boil but hot enough to steam, for a few hours.  Once vegetables are starting to get soft enough to eat remove one blender full of soup and blend well, then add back to the soup.  That blended soup will form a thick base to the soup.  At that time add back in the sausage you saved.  Allow to simmer for a few more hours.  Everything in the soup will become very soft, the calabasa will cook down and become part of the soup base, once its done only the carrot, corn, beans and potato will be identifiable.  Enjoy.