Roasted Garlic Butternut Squash Soup

Instructions

Roasted Butternut Squash

1. Preheat oven to 400°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. 
2. Peel the butternut squash, this will take a few passes with the vegetable peeler to get down to the actual fruit. You will know you are down to the fruit part when the squash is bright orange, and there is no haze of white skin left. 
3. Carefully cut off the top and bottom of the squash. Lengthwise slice in half, then in quarters. Using a spoon, scrape out the seeds on all pieces of squash. Arrange squash on baking sheet in one layer, so none of them are overlapping. 
4. Brush melted butter over squash and season generously with salt and pepper. 
5. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes. Then remove from oven and set aside. 

Roasted Garlic

1. Preheat oven to 400°F 
2. On a roughly 8"x8" square of aluminum foil pile all peeled garlic in the center, pour extra virgin olive oil on top, and season with salt and pepper. 
3. Gather all corners of the foil and crumple together to make a little pouch. Roast pouch in the oven for 30-35 minutes. While your squash is baking, just toss this on the corner of the baking sheet when the timer is reading 30-35 minutes left. 

Soup Base

1. After your squash and garlic is roasted, in a large stockpot on the stove, combine broth (vegetable or chicken), honey, ginger, and nutmeg. Bring to a simmer. 
2. Once the soup base is simmering carefully add in the roasted squash and roasted garlic. Cover and boil for 5 minutes. 
3. Remove from soup from heat and using and immersion blender (or VERY carefully transferring soup into a blender*) blend soup until creamy and smooth. 
4. Return blended soup to stove and bring to a light simmer. While stirring consistently, slowly add in cream. Stir until all cream is combined. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes before serving. 
5. (optional) serve soup with thinly sliced green onions and freshly grated nutmeg.