Roasted Curried Butternut Walnut Soup with Spicy Cheese Straws

uickly browsing through my recipe categories, you will realize that I am not much of a soup person. There are very few kinds, actually only a couple, that I would even allow myself to taste and that too made at specific places or by specific people. This soup is one of them. My first encounter with butternut squash was aboard a Caribbean cruise liner out in the middle of that vast blue spread of the Atlantic. It was an acquired taste. Hubby tells me I made a sorry face when I first tasted it but the expression soon changed with the second and third sips. Very seldom happens to me. I either like something or I don't. Things don't normally 'grow' on me, but this was different. Having remembered seeing butternut squash on the shelves of the grocery stores, yes of course I decided I would try it at home. 

Since then this soup has been either a part of the entire dinner for us on several occasions. I normally accompany it with some salad and bread toasts or these cheese straws using puff pastry sheets - the supermarket wonder. Of course the cheese sticks are a winner combo so I picked them for the post here. A savory, spicy, cheesy crunch is all you need to clean your palate when enjoying this hearty soup. A few touches that I prefer with this soup is I like the version with the squash roasted better. Also I add some Indian masalas and some walnuts for that spicy nutty taste. Regardless of the twists and the masalas, each time I make this soup, the fond memories of the cruise vacation still pass my mind and I feel myself seated on the deck looking at the vast blue nothingness with the breeze in my hair sipping slowly from a hot bowl.

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