thai butternut squash soup

i found my recipe for thai butternut squash soup off the whole foods website.  they give you the main recipe and then offer a few different variations and i thought why not spice things up a bit.  it was a smashing success and i'll be making this again!

since i was making this soup for church i made a double batch.  my church starts at 9am so i prepared this the evening before and stored it overnight in the fridge.  once i arrived at church i dumped it all into the crock pot and heated it back up.  also here are a few changes i made:

Basic Ingredients: 

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 carrot, diced (added 4 carrots in a double batch)    
• 1 celery stalk, diced (threw in the entire bunch of stalks for the double batch)    
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 cups cubed butternut squash, fresh or frozen (i used fresh butter nut squash and i used 10 cups total)    
• 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Method: 

Heat oil in a large soup pot. Add carrot, celery and onion. Cook until vegetables have begun to soften and onion turns translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in butternut squash, thyme, chicken broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until squash is fork-tender, about 30 minutes. Use an immersion blender to purée soup. Alternatively, let the soup cool slightly and carefully purée in batches in an upright blender. 
extra ingredients for the variation that i used:
Stir a tablespoon of red curry paste (i added an entire 4 oz jar) and 2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger into carrot, celery and onion mixture. Add 1/2 cup coconut milk ( i used the entire 13.66 fl oz can) with broth. Purée soup and garnish each serving with toasted coconut flakes and chopped fresh cilantro.

sorry for the terrible picture of the final product, to be honest i forgot to take a picture when it was finished.  this is a picture of the last of the soup from a double batch that once filled that entire crock pot.  the only picture i missed was a bowl of soup topped off with cilantro and toasted coconut.