But first, a quick peek into last night…
After work yesterday, Ryan and I knew Sadie needed some love and piled into my car to take the pup to the dog park!
We don’t go to the dog park in Ocala all that often since it’s a bit of a drive and Sadie is quite content to play frisbee in our backyard, but yesterday Ryan and I decided to take her out for a little adventure.
She made us laugh by avoiding all of the other dogs and barking at us to play fetch with her using a deserted ball she found on the ground. Clearly Sadie failed to understand that we brought her there to play with the other dogs, not us.
This dog loves fetch, that’s for sure!
Once we made it home, it was time for dinner. I’ve been trying out the free sample meal plans on Cook Smarts (<—affiliate link!) and loving them lately, so I knew exactly what we were going to have for dinner the moment we walked through the door.
I discovered Cook Smarts thanks to Kath’s blog and I’m so glad I did. The website makes meal planning a breeze and you can easily customize recipes and make them vegetarian, gluten-free or Paleo if desired. The recipes tell you what you can prep ahead to save time and also come along with a detailed grocery list for the week.
Last night Ryan and I loosely followed Cook Smarts’ recipe for butternut squash curry, but transformed it into more of a broth-based soup with chicken and kale. It was fantastic!
Slightly altered from Cook Smarts’ Butternut Squash Curry
Curried Butternut Squash Soup
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Curried Butternut Squash Soup (with Kale and Chicken)
- Prep Time: 2 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 32 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: lunch, recipes
Description
This is a delicious and comforting soup to enjoy anytime during the year!
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cup pureed butternut squash (I used frozen butternut squash)
- 1/2 large onion, chopped
- 2 cups fresh kale, leaves torn
- 1 large skinless chicken breast, cubed
- 1/2 14-ounce can light coconut milk
- 1 tablespoon red curry paste
- 1/2 teaspoon dried ginger
- 1 1/2 cup reduced sodium chicken stock
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
Instructions
- Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Pour in 1/4 can of light coconut milk and whisk in curry paste. Simmer for ~1 minute.
- Add chopped onions and simmer for another ~3 minutes. Add chicken, butternut squash, kale, ginger, another 1/4 can of coconut milk, chicken stock and fish sauce. Cover and bring to a boil.
- Lower heat to a simmer, and cook uncovered for an additional 25 minutes to allow flavors to develop.
- Ladle into bowls and enjoy!
It was delicious!
Question of the Morning
- Do you take time to meal plan every week?
- Have you ever used a website or magazine to help with meal planning?
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I menu plan every week. I never feel like doing it but I’m always glad that I do! I have a few folders on my computer for “recipes to try” and “recipes to repeat”. Its so much easier when I’m tired to just look through the “recipes to repeat” folder and make a grocery list.
Thanks for the yummy and healthy recipe!
Meal planning is a life saver! I take time to plan out 5-7 meals for the week and then always leave myself wiggle room for a night out with the girls or a date night with my hubs. 🙂
My dog prefers fetch too!
Wow this sounds incredible! I’m not always the biggest fan of curry, but I think with this soup it would go really well. And I’m so big on kale lately – I put it in/on everything! That’s so nice you took Sadie to the dog park 🙂 It’s nice to get a change of pace with all new smells for her too! haha
I love, love, love soup, so I look forward to trying this one out! It looks delicious!
My parents’ golden retriever refuses to fetch. She just likes to run like a crazy girl all around the yard. We had thought as she got older she’d be more into it – but she prefers to grab the ball, run as far away from us as possible, drop it, and then keep running. In the end, it’s more of a workout for us! 🙂
Isn’t Cook Smarts the best? All the recipes we’ve tried have been delicious!
It’s wonderful! I have yet to make a bad recipe!
I have a rough meal plan! I used to a lot but now I am more into getting what looks good at the store (veggies in season, fresh meat) and then going from there!
I make a rough meal plan every week – a couple dinner ideas that I can make and have a few leftovers but can choose to have whatever night it sounds like the best option. 🙂
That looks delicious! I try to plan 3-4 set dinners each week before a grocery trip and leave the rest up to whatever we feel like making. My husband is a great cook so I leave a lot of the meals to him!
I love just about everything about this soup 🙂 I think I’m going to have to add it into our meal rotation for next week!
Hope you like it!!!
Oh man, this sounds like a delicious combination of flavors, plus veggies and protein together to make it super healthy. Love!
I am a big meal planner, and it makes cooking in the week so much easier and helps me budget. I am going to check out the website you mentioned.
Unrelated to this post, but I was watching friends the other night and Joey made a comment about peanut butter fingers that reminded me of your blog. Here’s the clip! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvRz_R32GsM
Loveeee it!
That does look good. I need to be better at meal planning. I make big batches of food and hopefully keep some as leftovers or freezer meals. I really want to try Blue Apron, but it’s a little expensive.
I have a whole bowl of butternut squash that will be perfect for this!
That is our vizsla too! I feel like as she has gotten older she cares less and less about other dogs and more obsessed with her ball! I can’t believe how gray Sadie is becoming! How old was she when she started going gray?
I know! She has always been a really, really light vizsla and started getting white around 3.5 years. We calls her white hairs her “highlights.” 🙂
This soup has all of my favorite things in it! I love Sadie and her love for you guys. My pooches go to the dog park and chase each other instead of the other dogs and then when other dogs join in they realize how awesome it is.
I definitely meal plan, but rarely do any of the prep at the start of the week. I’ve been trying to put together a system for that though as I get busier in my new job. The soup sounds tasty.
I’m huge on meal planning. When I first started cooking for myself, I’d spend pretty much all afternoon stressing about what I would eat for dinner. I realized how ineffective that was pretty quickly, so I started meal planning, and it’s been a lifesaver! It’s so much easier to not have to think about what I’ll eat for dinner every day!
Yum! I love butternut squash! I’ve never had it in curry before. What a great idea!
Yes, I do plan my meals every week. I recently bought a dry erase calendar to put on my fridge and use it to plan my meals. It’s actually been very helpful!
Thanks for the recipe! Love new ideas for soup.
Hi Julie!
What is your opinion of Birchbox? I currently have the monthly subscription and am trying to decide whether or not I should get the annual subscription.
Thanks so much!
Hmmm – well, I love having a monthly surprise of new beauty goodies. I’ve received some amazing things in my boxes that I adore (like a great dry shampoo, lip gloss, etc.) but sometimes I do think the items I get aren’t worth $10. I continue to subscribe though because it’s a lot of fun and it’s helping me break out of my beauty product rut a bit!
Thanks for the input! I do enjoy the beauty surprises and trying new products, too 🙂
Looks nice! We don’t really meal plan because I like the flexibility of making whatever we want that night. However, we will plan around leftovers or what we have in the fridge.
I’m usually similar to you, Leah! I’ve been loving Cook Smarts for a change though!
I always meal plan and have gotten my mom into it too. It saves us so much money and time at the grocery store. Our grocery bill has been reduced by around $50-$75 because of this. It’s also a huge help because we don’t end up throwing groceries away at the end of the week. We also have a day every week for leftovers and everyone gets to have whatever they want that’s left in the fridge. It’s one of our favorite things when menu planning and that way everyone is happy!
Yummm! I get recipe inspiration from blogs all the time.
My husband does all the cooking – he is like a magician when it comes to food. If I cook something, I have to have a recipe or instructions that I can follow step by step. He, on the other hand, can whip something together from the most random ingredients. I’ve always told him he should go on one of those cooking shows on the food network. 🙂
I kind of meal plan– mostly we have the same rotation of meals each week so that makes it easy. One of the harder parts is gauging which meals will have enough leftovers for lunch, and then planning lunches for days that don’t have leftovers!
Cooks Smarts is the best! I use Cooking Light a lot to help me get ideas for meals for the week too!
Love their recipes, too!!
Mmmm I love butternut squash soup of any kind!
I don’t really meal plan–more of a meal ideas per week type a gal 😉
Thanks for the tip about Cook Smarts! I just signed up. I LOVE that they figure out your grocery list for you. Flipping amazing. Thanks, Julie!!
Me too!! That’s my fav part!
LOVE Cook Smarts! And while I’m huge on the whole meal planning thing, it’s helped me save even more time and money.
i try and map out my weekly food and do the shopping on saturdays. i usually fail to bring it to work tho, d’oh!
As a new mom I’m always looking for fast an easy recipe. I can’t wait to try this one. I’ve used a lot of your lunch ideas and love that they can be altered for my dairy free life!
I just recently started Meal Planning and I love it so far. It saves so much money, effort and time. Plus, it ensures that I stay on track all day and week long.
My chocolate lab does the exact same thing at the dog park. No socializing! Just. Ball. Sometimes I think he is part Viszla because he is a little Velcro pup too!
I like to briefly meal plan, and by briefly I mean I like to just have a general idea of what we’ll be eating 🙂
This soup sounds amazing! I’ll be trying it soon. I meal plan each week, or at least a few days ahead, otherwise I end up spending frivolously at the grocery store and making less healthy impromptu meals. Pinterest is my main go to for recipes, but I also signed up to receive the free meal recipes from Blue Apron and have incorporated a number of those meals in. They are always a hit and more creative than I usually try out. Those and my favorite cookbook of all time (for its scope), The Joy of Cooking, never let me down.
This may be the silliest question, but is the chicken breast cooked before you put it in the soup or does it cook in the broth? Usually I can figure these things out but I’m really curious because I would add it cooked to the soup but I’m intrigued that you add it in raw…. Thanks! I’m definitely making this!
It’s raw before you add it!