Sausage, Butternut Squash, and Rice Soup

     It's that time of year again... soup weather! I love soup weather. And we had a bit of a rain storm a few weeks back that made me immediately begin searching for a delicious looking soup recipe. And I found one.
This soup takes a bit of time, but it was quite worth it. Especially if you like sausage (Yes!), Butternut Squash (Yes!), Rice (Yes!), and Corn (Yes!)!!!

Ingredients:
A 3-4 lb Butternut Squash
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
12 C chicken stock
2 1/2 C chopped onions
1 C wild rice (I didn't have wild rice, so I just used regular white rice, it was really good, but I'm interested in trying it with the wild rice next time).
3/4 lb smoked sausage, such as kielbasa, cut in half, then in half again
2 C fresh corn kernels (I cut my kernels right off the cob and tossed them in with the soup)
1 1/2 C half and half
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Peel, seed and slice your squash into 1 inch chunks. Be careful because this squash is difficult to peel. As you can tell, I bent my peeler. I had to buy a new one... YAH! I mean, darn!

Place the chunks onto a baking sheet lined with foil and toss with 1 tbsp of oil and salt and pepper (Make sure you don't slather it with the oil, just 1 tbsp, you'd be surprised at how far that tbsp will go. I've made the mistake of putting too much oil before, it doesn't roast right). 

Roast for 45 minutes to an hour, until tender. Remove from the oven. Using a spatula, gently move the pieces around so that they don't get stuck to the foil while cooling. Be careful so that the foil does not tear and then you'll be picking little tiny foil pieces out of your squash. 

Once the squash is cool, place in a blender or a food processor (I used a blendor, I think next time I'll use a processor, this was too much squash for a blender. I found it to be very tedious trying to shove the squash on top down to the bottom of the blender to be pureed. It was frustrating... learn from me. Unless, of course, all you have is a blender, then my suggestion is to work in batches), with 2 C of chicken stop and puree until smooth. 

In a saucepan over medium heat, add 4 C of stock and 1/2 C onions and bring to a simmer. Add the rice and cook until done, about an hour (Unless you use an instant type rice that doesn't take that long... my vote!). Remove and let cool.

In a large pot over medium, add a tbsp of oil. Add the sausage and brown for a few minutes. Add the rest of the onions and the corn and season with salt and pepper. Saute for a few minutes more. Add the last 6 C of stock and squash puree. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 20 minutes.

Sorry about the weird glare thing going on here

Stir in the rice and continue cooking for 10 more minutes. (There was no reason to continue cooking for another 10 minutes with the plain white rice, mental note for next time!)

Remove from the heat and stir in the half and half and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with parsley and dig into this delish soup!

Recipe Courtesy of: Emeril Lagasse (Maker of the best soups ever!)