how to make grilled cheese croutons for soup

Denver is funny this time of year- one day is sixty five degrees, perfect weather for going for a run around the park with my mama. And the next day, there are blizzard warnings on the radio (though, this weekend, the blizzard warnings only yielded a few inches of snow, so not such a blizzard after all). It’s grilling weather, then soup weather, then back again. This weekend’s ‘blizzard’ was one of those swings- and the perfect chance to make my favorite Butternut Squash Soup.

Now, I love this soup with my whole heart (and so do the kids, incidentally). However, Adam is not so keen on soup for dinner… he thinks it’s not filling enough to be a whole meal. He equates it to having cereal for dinner (sidenote, I eat Shredded Wheat for dinner at least once a week, so we differ there as well). I can, however, coerce him to try soup for dinner if there’s some kind of ‘real food’ involved- like sandwiches or quesadillas.

When I saw first heard about grilled cheese soup croutons, I thought they might be the perfect solution to Adam’s not-filling-enough soup woes. Turns out, I was right- he was a huge fan (well, Adam is infamously even-keeled and unexcitable, so ‘huge fan’ might be a stretch- probably just ‘fan’ would do).

I thought I’d share the how-to, in case you have the same how-to-make-soup-more-filling dilemma… To make these grilled cheese croutons, I got a loaf of french bread, sliced it into pieces, put cheese between each pair of slices, grilled up sandwiches (I smooshed down the sandwiches while they grilled so that they’d be easier to cut into croutons).

Then I sliced the sandwiches into bite sized ‘croutons’ and put a pile of them on top of each bowl of butternut squash soup.

I’m happy to report that the Smooches loved them as well- Burke asked if we can always have ‘grilled cheese-y squash soup’ from now on. I am definitely adding these to my make-soup-more-dinner-esque (and yummy!) repertoire.

Is your weather similarly all over the place right now? Also, do any of you have my same husband-induced (or someone else induced) soup making dilemma?