Winter Soups: Mexican Garlic and Butternut Squash

Brrr! It's cold out there! Stay in and warm up with nice hot cups of soup. Here are two cheap and choosy options to knock the cold right outta ya.

MEXICAN GARLIC SOUP is sweet, with a spicy garlic kick, and prepares in minutes. It is very light, with practically zero calories, so you may want to follow it up with mexican bean burritos or something heavy and hearty of the like. Some may worry that garlic soup isn't quite appropriate the evening before a hot date, but I says: who would want to date someone that doesn't love garlic? As for ingredients, I pick up my ancho chilis at House of Spice in Kensington Market, 190 Augusta Ave.

Ingredients: 1/4 c. olive oil, 1 head garlic coarsely chopped, some bread cut into chunks, 2 stemmed and seeded ancho chilies coarsely chopped, 4 medium tomatoes (or a can) coarsely chopped, 7 c. vegetable stock (or water), 3/4 tsp salt, 1/2 c. cream (optional)

Preparation: Heat the oil in skillet until smoking, add garlic, stir over med heat 1 min until lightly toasted, transfer garlic to soup pot. Fry chunks of bread in skillet until lightly browned on both sides, approx 1 min, then set aside. Place the chili peppers and tomatoes in the skillet and stir on med heat until wilted. Transfer to soup pot with the garlic. Add the stock (or water) and salt, bring to a boil, simmer for 20 minutes or until the garlic is soft. Ladle the soup into bowls, garnish with the oil-fried garlic-infused bread and dollop of cream (optional) and fresh coriander (optional).

Note: For the bread, use whatever you have in store, or opt for tortilla, french baguette, or homemade white bread. Delish!

BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP is always a challenge because you first have to tackle the task of cutting and peeling the squash. I don't normally like to radiate my food in microwaves, so I either bake it for a while, which makes it easier to peel, or simply attack it with a big knife. However you choose to tackle the gourd, you want to end up with 1-2 inch chunks of peeled squash for this soup.

Ingredients: butternut squash cut into 1-2 inch peeled chunks, a carrot chopped, a leek chopped, yellow onion finely diced, 3 tbs butter or margarine, 4 c. chicken or vegetable stock (or water), coriander, cumin.

Directions: The first thing I did was prepare my stock by boiling a chicken carcass and bones (the bird meat I ate the night before). When boiling the chicken stock, be sure to periodically skim the scummy grease buildup off the top, then drain and discard the bones, reserving the stock. You can also use a vegetable broth or water. In this case, I also had some leftover mexican garlic soup, so I threw a bit of that into my stock as well for extra flavouring. To really begin, sautee onion in oil or butter until onion is limp, add everyting else, bring to a boil and let simmer until squash is tender. Attack soup with either a potato masher or hand blender for creamy texture. Many recipes I've read also add thick cream at this point, but I like to keep my butternut squash light, so that it can be followed up with something heavy or hearty like scalloped potatoes, steak and homemade pumpkin pie. That's what I had last night, plus beer. In a restaurant, this would have cost me upwards of $40 for sure!

Soup tip: I usually freeze some of my soups for days when I am too busy to cook or too broke to go out. Enjoy!