
Welcome to the very first Dinnertime with Dysphagia post! To learn more about my story and the experiences that have inspired me to produce this blog, the audiences I hope it might reach, and my goals for it, please visit the “About” page of this website! You’ll find the first monthly soup recipe and cheese pairing at the end of this post. This month’s dessert recipe can be found on the “Dessert” page.
Yesterday, my friend Elisabeth and I went to the last Brookline Farmers’ Market of the season. This farmers’ market has been a part of my life for over a decade — when my husband and I got married, our caterer worked with one of the local vendors (Smith’s Country Cheese, https://www.smithscountrycheese.com/) to ensure that their onion and chive gouda spread (a staple in our home for many years) was at every table for the first course of our dinner. This fall, I’ve had the joy of seeing the farmers’ market through very fresh eyes, on two counts.
First, for the longest time, following much experimentation, it appeared that my brand of dysphagia made the consumption of root vegetables in a pureed soup form (much less in a roasted form) completely impossible. A chance purchase while waiting for a flight back to Boston from Chicago this summer showed me that I had not exhausted all the possible avenues.
Feeling rather unexcited by the food I’d packed for myself (travel generally necessitates an unusual level of dietary monotony for someone with dysphagia, at least in my experience), I took to strolling around the different food places in the airport, in a quest to see if I could find something, anything, that would be remotely possible for me to consume. A pureed butternut squash soup at Wolfgang Puck Express caught my eye. I knew that even a single bite was apt to get stuck, but since I’m fortunate enough to not be at risk for anything other than discomfort when eating something of this nature, I splurged on a cup of it, expecting to have just a little taste, and to then turn it over to my husband.
I took a bite. NO STICKAGE. Unbelievable. How was that possible?! I took another bite, and another. Still no stickage. I finished the entire cup within minutes, and searched for the recipe when I arrived home. I followed the directions precisely, and realized that a prolonged boiling process could enable me to eat this vegetable (as well as a few others of the “root” variety) that hadn’t been in my diet for two and a half years. How did I not figure this out sooner?! As such, this year’s farmers’ market has been especially joyous for me because I now feel this special, renewed connection to so many more of the foods on display than in previous years.
This season’s farmers’ market has also been a very special one for me because I’ve been able to see it through my friend Elisabeth’s eyes. Elisabeth is from Paris, and this is her first fall in the United States. I’ve had the gift of enjoying the farmers’ markets in Paris and in the villages of Provence on several occasions, and as much as I adore Boston, I couldn’t imagine that our local farmers’ markets had anything on the ones in France. And then, with my friend’s help, I realized that we might have something here in New England that Paris doesn’t in the fall: SO MANY DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF SQUASH!!!

Our weekly trips to the farmers’ market together have included a great deal of gawking enchantedly at the different squashes, with their vibrant and varied colors and shapes, and Elisabeth has purchased and experimented with some of the more exotic ones, including this Georgia Candy Roaster:

I’ve thought quite a bit during these farmers’ market trips about what my first recipe should be for this blog. I’ve decided to go with a butternut squash recipe (not the Wolfgang Puck one, though you can find it online, and sometime in the future I’ll provide my modified version in a post). The recipe I’m offering here is one that’s been in my repertoire for over a decade. I have fond memories of making it for dinner parties in earlier years (sans the boiling), and serving it once to a group that I crafted with in another city quite a long time ago. It’s hearty and flavorful, and while there’s no guarantee that everyone with dysphagia will be able to consume it comfortably (if you’re a host who wants to make this or other recipes from this blog for a dinner party that includes an individual with dysphagia, always have them look over the proposed recipe beforehand so they can provide input as to whether it’s likely that they’ll be able to eat it), the boiling process should make this workable for just about everyone with severe (only able to have foods in liquid form) dysphagia. As with all the soups I’ll post here, I would enthusiastically serve this to a group coming for dinner that wasn’t affected by dysphagia.
Elisabeth fittingly served as my first taste tester (in order to gauge whether someone with a discriminating palate, sans dysphagia, would find this tasty), and under the threat of severe penalty for dishonesty, she gave the soup a rating of 8.5 on a scale from 0-10. You can be the judge as well–leaving ratings in the comments section should be helpful to others who want to know if this is worth making!

Butternut Squash Soup with Saint Andre Cheese
Butternut Squash Soup
Yield: Approximately 6 cups
Ingredients:
2 pounds butternut squash, pre-peeled and pre-seeded
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
1 large chopped garlic clove
1 tablespoon PLUS 1 teaspoon olive oil (fine to add more if you like)
1/4 cup apple cider (if you can, splurge on one from a local farm!)
4 cups vegetable broth (I use College Inn Low Sodium, purchased online from Target)
1 cup water
Sour cream for dolloping (optional)
(Now, if you have dysphagia, the first thing you may be thinking as you’re looking at this recipe is that onions are impossible! But I’ve found that if the ratio between the onions and the main vegetable in the soup is 1:4 or lower, it’s not a problem. If you don’t have dysphagia, keep in mind as you make this recipe that in order to best ensure that an individual with dysphagia will be able to eat it, no modifications should be made unless s/he tells you it’s okay (i.e. don’t cut back on the liquid ingredient measurements, add fresh herbs, or skip the essential pureeing in Step 3 for increased efficiency, etc.), as any such changes could make it very difficult for that person to eat it. See my Novice Essentials page if this is your first time preparing a soup (https://dinnertimewithdysphagia.wordpress.com/novice-essentials/) for more details that may help you avoid common mishaps.)
Instructions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place the squash in a baking pan (I use a 9″x9″x2″), and then fill the pan about 1/3 of the way up with water. Cover with aluminum foil, and bake for an hour, then remove and let cool, reserving 1/4 cup for possible later use. (I usually do this step the night before I plan to make the soup.)
2. Chop the onions and garlic, and saute them in the olive oil (I do this in a dutch oven of 5.5 quarts) on low heat until translucent, about 10-15 minutes.
3. While the onions and garlic are cooking, fully puree the butternut squash in a blender (it’s best to use a regular blender here rather than a stick, which is less thorough and often less powerful too). If it’s not pureeing fully on any of your settings, try adding in 1/8 cup of water at a time (drawing on the reserved water from Step 1 first) and stirring the mixture each time before you try pureeing again. Once finished, put the puree aside briefly.
4. Add the apple cider to the onions and garlic in your dutch oven or soup pot, followed by the pureed squash, the water, and the vegetable broth. Turn up the heat so that the soup will come to a boil, and continue to boil on a medium to high setting (just take care that it doesn’t burn) for 20-25 minutes, stirring periodically. (If you see the soup begin to thicken around the 20 minute mark–you’ll see a difference in how it’s sticking to the stirring spoon–turn off the heat. Otherwise, give it another few minutes.)
5. Let cool, then place in a blender (do not use a stick blender) for 1-2 minutes on a high setting. Be sure that the onion and garlic pieces are completely invisible/absorbed before finishing.
Notes: This soup is delicious at all temperatures, and on a cold fall day, it can be served as a dinner meal all by itself. If it’s too thick for you, adding a bit of water and microwaving for 20 seconds or so should solve the problem, with very little change to the underlying flavor. (If you don’t want to water the soup itself down at all, taking sips of water between bites should also do the trick.) Along with the optional sour cream dollop, sour cream and onion seasoning powder and/or cheddar seasoning powder (both available through Amazon) are nice to have on hand as additions that people with or without dysphagia can opt to use, as are chopped chives for guests who don’t have dysphagia, and toasted bread with margarine on the side (again, for people who don’t have dysphagia). That said, if you use an egg bread, like brioche or challah, someone who isn’t at risk of aspiration (you can Google it) might even choose to have a bite if it’s toasted to a very dark brown/black (this is a “stretch” food for me, which means it sticks a bit, but only for a few hours; for someone with less severe dysphagia, it might not stick at all.) Also, a final caution: Do not freeze prior to serving, as the defrosted product may have a noticeably different texture that won’t work for some people with dysphagia.
Cheese pairing: Saint Andre cheese (with the rind removed) is something I can eat with absolutely no stickage. I hope you have the same experience! The creamy, buttery texture and savory flavor complements the moderately sweet taste of the soup (care of the apple cider) beautifully. (In theory, cheddar would be a very natural pairing, but it’s too dry for most people with severe dysphagia, and I cannot in good conscience recommend spreadable cheddars.) If your table will include individuals with and without dysphagia, you might consider offering Saint Andre and a nice cheddar!