Roasted Butternut Squash & Pear Soup

One of my coworkers brought in a TON of pears and apples from his parents farm in Eastern Washington on Friday...needless to say I've been baking and cooking with them all weekend. So that's your warning, you are going to see a streak of apple and pear recipes. 

Now onto this soup, it cooled down today so I was in the mood for soup and decided to make a spin on my Butternut Squash & Shallot Soup. This time I roasted some pears and onions along with the squash and added in some fun garnishes; pepitas, gorgonzola crumbles and fried sage. That's right, fried sage.

The result, Mr. KMW taking a bite and accusing me of being insane because the soup was so amazing. Yup, my carnivorous husband loved this vegetable and fruit soup. He also declared that he was going to take all the sage leaves from our herb garden and fry it up.

Ingredients
1 medium sized butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
2 pears, peeled, cored and cut into 1" pieces
1 medium sweet onion, cut into 1" pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 teaspoons, cayenne pepper
3 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon garlic powder
pepitas
sage leaves
crumbled gorgonzola

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place squash, pears and onion on a cookie/baking sheet. Toss well with 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Cook in pre-heated oven for 50 minutes, tossing once while it is roasting.

While squash mixture is cooking, toast pepitas and fry the sage.

Use a small fry pan over medium low heat and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring them around regularly. 

Use the same pan to fry the sage. Add 1 tablespoon oil to pan over high heat. Once oil is very hot add sage to pan and cook for about 20 seconds, flipping leaves halfway through.

Remove squash mixture from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. 

Place squash and pear mixture in blender, add chicken broth and blend until smooth. You can do this in batches if needed.

Add mixture to stove top pan, add garlic powder and cook over medium heat. Taste to see if more salt, black pepper or cayenne is needed. I added a little more cayenne.

Serve and garnish with toasted pepitas, crumbled gorgonzola and fried sage.