Foodie Friday : Summer Squash Soup with Coconut Milk and Banana

Hi everyone! It's Foodie Friday and I'm back again this week to share another recipe that I whipped up intuitively. This time it's a soup and while I apologize for the absence of measurements to accompany each ingredient, this dish welcomes even more flavour flexibility, so you're able to fine tune it as you wish :)

Summer Squash Soup with Coconut Milk and Banana

Ingredients:

• Summer squash
• Bananas
• Fresh or dried garlic and onion -- I used both
• Water
• Spices: coriander seed, red chili flakes, cardamom, ginger, cassia, turmeric, clove and nutmeg
• Coconut milk (if desired)
• Minced herbs for garnish (if desired) -- I used chives and shiso leaf

Method:

1. Wash, peel, de-seed and chop/cube summer squash
2. Sautée squash in a well heated pan with olive oil with a bit of dried onion until lightly golden on all sides. If you're making a lot of soup using a lot of squash, you may need to do this in multiple batches. In either case, when finished, set it aside. The purpose of sautéing in advance is to enhance the natural flavours of the ingredient before boiling it into soup. This step also helps the squash cook faster, so you can dig into the soup faster :)
3. Using the same pan, sautée bananas into a mushy consistency, and put them aside as well.
4. In a soup pot, brown finely diced onion and garlic until the scent increases, then add the squash and banana and stir everything together.
5. Once stirred, add enough water to cover the contents of the pot.
6. Add the spices mentioned above to taste, and don't be shy about the quantity. You might have noticed this recipe doesn't use soup stock, so all of your flavour will come from the ingredients you've added, including these spices.
7. Allow the soup to boil briefly, then lower the heat to a simmer
8. Taste the blend and add more spice if desired
9. Allow the soup to simmer until the squash has soften enough to either transfer to a blender, or use an immersion mixer to purée everything to your desired consistency.
10. Ladle the soup into bowls, heavily pour coconut milk so it creates an aesthetically pleasing swirl and top with fresh  fresh herbs for garnish. 

You will probably have left over coconut milk. If so, add it to the leftover soup still in the pot and stir -- tomorrow's soup will taste different without any work to create variety ;) Whooo! Who says leftovers are boring? *lol*

Enjoy!!

Post and Recipe by: Milena from Just the Goods 

Check out her Etsy shop HERE