Homeade Chicken Broth and Curried Squash Soup

For dinner tonight I made a spicy curried squash soup. For the base of of my soup I made a crock pot chicken broth using last night's chicken carcass.  The idea behind using the crock pot is that I can cook the broth at a very low heat overnight, or about 8 hours.  This allows for tons of flavor to be extracted from the chicken.

I placed the chicken carcass in the crock pot along with a few chicken wings that I roasted in the oven, carrots, celery, onion and bay leaf.  I added salt and pepper and cooked on low overnight.

In the morning I woke up to the great aroma of chicken and vegetables.  The broth was flavorful and the chicken had imparted all of its flavor.  I strained the broth which I used to make my curried squash soup.

To begin I first cut a butternut squash in half and scooped out the seeds.  I cut the squash into large chunks, drizzled with a bit of oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and placed in a 375 degree oven for an hour, until the squash fell apart easily with a fork.

Using a spoon, I pulled the meat of the of the squash away from the skin and added to a blender.  To this I added two guajillo chiles which I seeded and added to the blender along with a couple cups of chicken broth.

I blended this mixture until the squash was smooth and the guajillo was fully blended.  I set this aside  momentarily to focus on the spices for the soup.  In a saucepan I sauteed onion, garlic, ginger and serrano chile then added 1 teaspoon each of tumeric, garam masala, ground cumin, ground coriander, cinnamon and brown sugar.  I sauteed for another minute or so and added to the blender.

After blending one last time I added a splash of heavy cream.  I served the soup in a bowl with a few pieces of last night's chicken and some cilantro.  The soup was rich and had a good amount of heat to it.  With the temperature getting so cold, this was the perfect way to warm up.

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