Laurie, It's ready when there is no green. Leave the stem on and date the squash (I use a marker). Leave it in a well ventilated, sunny and dry location (I use a windowsill) for 10 days, then place in a cool location (room temp is okay) out of the light, for storage, not touching other fruits. Should keep for several months--this has always worked for me, esp. with butternuts.

Not a special recipe, but this is a really simple one that anyone can adapt. It's from Dr. Zorba when he was on The Splendid Table show on Minnesota Public Radio. "Simply" scrumptious.

Pumpkin Soup
1 large onion
1 Tablespoon margarine
2 Tablespoons flour
2 cans chicken broth
2 cans pumpkin
4 oz. evaporated skim milk
salt

Saute onions, add flour, stir until light brown. Add broth, then pumpkin. Cook 30 min. Add milk, heat and salt to taste.

Hmmm......no green you say? Will they have enough time to ripen yet? How frost hardy are they?

Leftwood, great recipe! I've made pumpkin soup before......basically the same recipe as above, but with a couple of cloves of garlic and a pinch of cayenne pepper.....it's awesome. So you're saying that I can just substitute butternut instead of the pumpkin?

Thanks for the replies.
Laurie

That's exactly what I mean: replace the pumpkin with butternut. I don't know if I'd use the cloves with it though. Then again, I really don't care for most squashes, except for spaghetti squash and pumpkin, so who am I to say?

The best squash soup I've ever had was at a businessman's club in Saskatoon that we were once invited to. It was made with pumpkin, and basically contained much the same spice mixture as pumpkin pie, yet was savory and totally delicious. Have been trying to duplicate it ever since... sigh.
Here's a nice one from an old Canadian Living, when it used to be just recipes:

Butternut Squash Soup
5 cups chopped squash (~ 1 large)
2 tbsp butter
1 large onion, chopped
1 small sweet red pepper, chopped
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup whipping cream (hey, what can contain cream and not be good! Well, milk can be used instead.)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
pinch each ground cumin, ginger
salt and white pepper

Boil squash until tender and drain. In large pan/stockpot, melt butter, cook onion & red pepper until softened, add squash and stock. Bring to boil, then simmer partly covered for 20 minutes. Puree in batches until smooth (a potentially dangerous step if you're a klutz like me!) Return to pot, add cream and spices, cook another 5 minutes.

There's also pesto (1/2 cup each Italian parsley and basil, chopped fine, l large clove garlic minced, 1/4 cup olive oil, all mixed) to swirl into each bowl of soup - a nice touch but it doesn't need it.

I think it's fair game to substitute pretty well any similar sort of squash in recipes, although butternut is certainly my favorite for soup (until I happen upon that elusive pumpkin soup recipe, anyway).

ABGardeneer,

That recipe or one very similar to it was in an LCBO magazine last year. I tried it... Its one of the best squash soups I've ever had. Since then I've tried it a couple times. Simple if you have a good food processor. I recommend leaving out the red pepper and adding another onion.

Mmmm......sounds great, Lori. Thanks! Past few days have been cooler and rainy....I sure hope I'll end up with at least ONE butternut.