Slow Cooker Butternut Squash Soup

This is yet another slow-cooker recipe from the Betty Crocker website. Yes, I know it’s time to pay the poor people and buy their cookbooks instead of wearing out the website. Does it count that I have a hundred of those $4 grocery-store-checkout-counter-cookbooks? I added and subtracted a few ingredients, but I left the marjoram as is because I have never used it in soup before and I didn’t want to ruin the whole thing.

This recipe calls for fresh butternut squash, which I used, but if you really want to save time I recommend either chopping up the squash the night before or using frozen winter squash. Peeling the squash is a pain. It’s a major pain that I can offer just a few tips to relieve: sharpen your knife, cut it into several smaller same-size sections and cut the skin off like an orange or a melon. Did I mention you can use frozen?

2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 butternut squash (2 lb), peeled, cubed
2 cups good quality chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram leaves
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper (I used a smalled amount)
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, cubed

– In a skillet, cook onion in butter until crisp-tender.
– In 3- to 4-quart slow cooker, mix onion and remaining ingredients except cream cheese.
– Cook on low heat setting 6 to 8 hours.
– Place one-third to one-half of mixture at a time into a blender on high speed and blend until smooth. (**)
– Return mixture to slow cooker.
– Stir in cream cheese and cook on low heat setting about 30 minutes longer.
– Stir with wire whisk until smooth. (This step is perfect for getting the consistency right)

** Here I strongly, strongly recommend an immersion blender. I got one that had never been used for $5 at a yard sale and it is perfect for situations like these. Who really wants to lift that heavy insert out of the slow-cooker and poor it into a blender? Not I!