Squash Soup with Kale & Bacon

Mmmm...
A hearty fall soup with a sweet creamy squash broth, hearty kale and salty bacon. What more could you want?



1/2 of a small butternut squash
8 pieces of maple bacon
2 onions
5 cloves of garlic
2 potatoes
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
4 cups stock
salt and pepper to taste
bunch of kale*

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Peel and dice squash, drizzle with olive oil and roast in the oven until soft. Meanwhile cook bacon in a soup pot, and then drain on paper towel.
Chop onions and garlic and add to soup pot and toss to coat in bacon fat. Cook over medium heat until onions are translucent. Chop potatoes into chunks, and separate kale leaves from stems; chop stems. Add potatoes and kale stems to pot and cook for about 10 minutes. Add roasted squash, spices and stock.

Using a potato masher, gently mash up the squash. The potatoes and kale stems should still be hard enough at this point that they will remain intact.  There can be some small bits of squash left, and as it cooks they'll continue to break down. The goal is to create a squash broth with chunks of potato, kale and bacon.
Bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 30 minutes. When you're about 10 minutes away from being ready to eat, chop the kale leaves finely, the bacon coarsely, and add to pot.

Instead of making bread or rolls, we ate this with some leftover flour tortillas which turned out to be a match made in taste bud heaven.



*I used the stems of about a dozen leaves of kale, but only about 6 of the leaves