My kids are still pretty picky (the 6 year old especially!), but the rule is that they have to take at least one bite, which was the inspiration of my new blog title (I hated the old title!) and then if they decide they don't like it, they're allowed fruit or vegetables instead. My husband is great about trying new foods and he never, ever complains about what I make for dinner, even though he'd probably be happiest eating pizza or Mexican food every night of the week.
I still try to cook a lot of vegetarian recipes, but we do eat meat in this house a couple times a week, usually turkey or chicken. This recipe has chicken in it, but you could very easily omit the chicken, use vegetable stock, and it would be vegetarian and still really good.
I found the original recipe here, but have changed it quite a bit.
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and chopped into 1-ince pieces
1 14.5 oz can of fire roasted tomatoes
3 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp sage
1 bay leaf
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
1/2 - 1 tsp kosher salt
10 cranks of black pepper
1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa
1/2 - 1 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
1. Place butternut squash through black pepper in slow cooker and cook until chicken is fully cooked and squash is soft. My slow cooker runs hot, so for me, this was about 4 hours on High.
2. Remove chicken from slow cooker and shred with two forks. Remove bay leaf and discard. Take an immersion blender and blend the squash, tomatoes and onions until desired texture is reached. I left it slightly chunky. Add chicken, quinoa, and olives to slow cooker and stir until everything is combined. Set on low or warm, depending on how hot your slow cooker runs. Nothing needs to be cooked after this point, so I set mine on warm and let it go until dinner time.
3. If soup is too thick, you can add more broth to thin it out, but we liked it thick. Ladle soup into bowls and top with chopped parsley.
Review - Jay and I both enjoyed this thick soup. It's really filling, but there isn't any dairy in it, so you won't feel uncomfortably full afterwards. (I love dairy, but it doesn't love me) Eli (almost 4) was happily eating it until he heard his sister (6) declare that "this isn't soup" and "I'm just going to eat carrots." So both kids ate carrot sticks and milk for dinner. We're having this again tomorrow night (it makes quite a bit!), so hopefully they eat a bit more for Round 2. The olives add a really nice flavor, so definitely don't leave those out. Next time I might add a bit of the brine from the jar of olives for extra flavor.
