Smoked acorn squash soup

[Starsky]

I made the recipe on this sight and although it tastes very good I had some execution issues maybe you guys could help with. I cooked the squash in the smoker as the recipe directed. After 1.5 hrs. the area which contained the seeds was soft but the rest was still hard so I cooked it longer. When that wasn't enough I placed it in the oven and cooked it longer. It finally started to soften but developed a tough skin over the top. I was able to scrape underneath the tough skin and salvage most of it. The recipe also called for adding a bay leaf and butter where the seeds used to be and then pour everything in to the food processer. After blending there were still some large pieces of bay leaf in the soup. So my first question is, should I maybe have ground the bay leaf before placing it in the squash? And how to get the entire squash soft without cooking it so long?

[IowaGirl]

I'm assuming it's this recipe -- https://amazingribs.com/tested-recip...t-squash-soup/

If so, the leaves called for in the recipe are SAGE not BAY. If you used bay leaves, you would not want to include the actual bay leaf in the prepared food. It should have been removed and discarded after the cook was over. Sage leaves are soft so they can be left in the food, unlike bay.

You didn't say what temperature you ran your cooker. At 325 F which is what the recipe calls for, the squash may or may not be quite ready at 1 1/2 hours if your squash was larger than the 1 1/2 pounds the recipe called for.

If this was the case, you need to adapt the recipe to control moisture loss if cooking a larger squash. If it were me, I would have smoked a larger squash at 325 F for the time specified in the recipe, and then I would have covered the cut surfaces with foil to keep the squash from drying out, and cooked it further, covered with foil, until tender.

[Dadof3Illinois]

We do Acorn squash alot and have found it takes a little over an hour to cook at 400F. So if you want to get a little smoke in it I would reverse the process. Cook it for an hour at 400 to get it soft then drop my temps and add some wood to the coals to give it a little smoke for maybe 15 mins or so. I've never smoked acorn or butternut squash, always cook them on high heat, but I would be careful to not oversmoke them.

[FireMan]

Aha, very interesting. I’m always interesting to find something else to throw on a smoker/grill. The thought in mind is, it’s just another heat source, but the fascinating thing is the flavor & what to or not to expect. I just picked up some acorns, gotta try it!

[MBMorgan]

Rather than throwing squash on the smoker, I like to throw them over the smoker



... and into the yard ,,,



,,, where hungry deer can often be found lurking in wait for such "treats" from a avowed squash-hater ... ...

[ssandy_561]

I know it more of a pain but whenever I smoke acorn or butternut squash I’ll cube it up before I smoke it. It gets done quicker and since I’m doing it on a Grilla OG it allows the squash to get more smoke flavor. (More surface area, more smoke flavor)