Spiced Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1. Firstly, roast the butternut squash. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan assisted/350ºF. Slice the squash from top to bottom, remove the seeds and place onto a lined baking tray cut side up. Drizzle a teaspoon of oil over each half, followed by a little salt and black pepper.

2. Cook for 45 minutes until the squash is soft. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before scooping the flesh from the skin (discard the skin).

3. Next, prepare the onions and garlic while heating a tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan. Don’t worry about slicing things finely, we’ll be blending the soup at the end.

4. Add the garlic, and cook for one minute before adding the onion. Cook for five minutes, or until translucent.

5. Pour in the hot vegetable stock and give everything a good stir. Then add the spices, butternut squash and season with salt and black pepper. Increase the heat and bring the soup to a simmer. Cook for a further ten minutes.

6. Then simply blend with an immersion blender until smooth. Leave to stand for a minute before serving, it’ll be too hot to eat straight away (and no, I don’t know that from eating it straight away and burning my tongue/mouth/everything. I’m not sure where you got that impression from).

I served mine with a little Violife Prosociano and black pepper on top.