Happy Thanksgiving! Roasted Autumn Soup

This year we will be hosting our family's Thanksgiving Meal....if you are like me, you would have purchased a collection of colorful and interesting squash for decoration. Rather than add those toss those gourds into the compost heap, try out this delicious seasonal soup as an appetizer or something other than left over turkey this week.

This is a very straight forward soup and well worth the extra effort of roasting and eventually pureeing. I chose to use all the squash I had on hand (1 medium sized Butternut, and 3 small to medium ornamental) and several large yams. Wash the vegetables, taking the seeds from the squash and wrapping the yams in tin foil.

 I use glass dishes, baking the vegetables in a convection oven 350 degrees until you can easily pierce through the center of the yam. Allow some time for your squash to rest so they are not too hot to handle.

 

I find it helpful to hold the squash in clean tea towel while removing the fleshy part. It keeps my hand safe while allowing me to remove all the squash from the skin with little waste. I transfer the squash, and yams into my large crock pot along with 2 (or more to taste) Roasted Red Peppers and a package of Vegetable Soup Mix (never mind the peas....we will be pureeing at the end). The amount of water you use will vary depending on the amount of squash you use. I started with 3 cups....and you will use quite a bit more while pureeing.

After everything is heated through and your soup mix has become tender, break out your immersion blender, and a fair amount of water and start pureeing. I ended up using another 5 cups of water, so 8 in total.

After you have pureed to the texture you prefer, leave on auto or low until ready to serve. This made a lot of soup for me, but it freezes well, or could be preserved in Mason Jars to share with friends and family this Thanksgiving Season.