Roasted Sweet Squash Soup

I absolutely adore the spring season but before I wave goodbye to the long dark nights and comfort food, I must make a roasted vegetable soup once more.  It's not that you can't have it in the spring or summer but I might just be too preoccupied with the salads and cold soups.

I have to confess, the reason this soup exists is because we have some left over vegetables.  You know when you peer into your vegetable baskets and realise that butternut squash is still there?  So what are you to do but to make soup?

This soup is sweet with a good garlicky hum.  It's tastes really wholesome with simple flavours and is perfect for a cold night.  You can also try adding leek or carrots, coriander or cayenne, and if you like perhaps some pancetta or parmesan cheese!

The key to roasting vegetables is to cut all items into similar size or in proportion as to how fast they cook.  If I am going to add my onions in I like to make the onions chunky so they won't turn to mush by the time the root vegetables are done.  In this soup, I have used two sweet potatoes, half a large butternut squash, a whole bulb of garlic and a medium onion.

Once all vegetables are cut up, throw them in with your halved garlic bulb.  Next you add oil.  I chose to use regular olive oil for its flavour.  

 For seasoning I used a mixture of dried herbs I found in my cupboards but fresh herbs would probably be ideal.  I used a mixture of thyme, rosemary and parsley.  At this point I haven't added salt or pepper.  

Mix until everything is covered in everything.

The vegetables are roasted for 45 minutes to 1 hour depending on your oven at 180 degrees Celsius.

The magical part of this soup is when I get to use my Vitamix Blender.  I have been using this baby for half a year now and it's one of my favourite kitchen gadgets.  With it's super high speed and easy to use functions, it speeds up my cooking times and makes my life really easy.  It does a really good job of blitzing this soup really smooth but if you don't have one of these, a regular blender will work or a hand held blender.  

Once you have a roasted vegetable puree, I add in a litre of chicken stock.  This is chicken stock I made a day ago from a roasted chicken carcass, root vegetables and a lot of rosemary.  Overall it compliments this soup well.  It makes sense to choose a stock you like and prefer, after all, you're the one eating it, right?

With the Vitamix you can get the whole soup heated up in about 3 minutes but I prefer to transfer it all back onto the stove top and heat through.  At this point, I add in the salt and pepper to taste.

Nothing goes better with soup than croutons ... unless you want mini toast bites!  Instead of crunchy bread I like to have toast but in croutons size!  First I spread a little oil on the pan and bread and let that toast on the griddle pan.  I toast it until it's nice and charred.

 Once this has been done, I cut up the little toasties in small bits.

At this point I add in some salt and pepper (or whatever seasoning I'm feeling for.  Garlic and parmesan anyone?) and then toss once over in the pan.  

Serve with toasties on your soup and really, really enjoy it.