I love autumn time. Root veggies and pumpkins comes to season and it means the beginning of soup lunches. Recently I’ve been planning some wonderful soup recipes (most of them are found from my phones notes). Last week I went to the market and saw that pumpkins had finally arrived. At that very moment I decided to prepare roasted pumpkin soup and you know what – the result came to be perfectly filling and spicy.

My personal favorite pumpkin is butternut squash. It suits well to soups, because it makes the texture very creamy and rich. The texture is very similar with sweet potatoes, although pumpkins are slightly sweeter.

Soups are one of the favorite lunches, because they are filling and high in nutrition. The soups are easy to prepare a bigger amount of time. The taste only gets better by time. Usually I use to my soups different root vegetables and red lenses.

During the summer time I missed so much the taste of roasted root vegetables. That’s why I decided to put butternut squash, onions and red bell peppers into the oven together with olive oil and spices. Bingo! Roasting gives such a rounded flavour and a little toasty nuance to soup – and these flavours suits perfectly to all autumn foods!

The recipe may seem more demanding than it is, but do not be afraid of the ingredient list or instructions. When you see a little effort with roasting, the end of the recipe comes easily. You just blend the roasted veggies and cook the soup for five minutes. The result rewards, I promise! This soup is perfect combination of velvety butternut squash, warming spices and filling lentils – a complete and tasty food to daily life.

ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH LENTIL SOUP 

6 portions

free from gluten, dairy, nuts, soy, corn, grains and sugar 

1 ½ kg butternut squash

6 garlic cloves

2 red bell pepper

3 small spring onions or 2 original onions

300 gramns red lentils (cooked)

1 cup coconit milk (thick part)

2 cups water

2 vegetable stock cube (Herbamare)

1 tsp cajun spice mix

1 tsp sea salt

black pepper

olive oil

Split butternut squash with a big knife. Scoop out the seeds with a big tablespoon. Do the same for the red bell peppers. Peel the garlic and the onions, split onions in half. Line baking sheet with baking parchment. Add butternut squash halves, red bell peppers, garlic cloves and onions on the baking sheet. Pour over the olive oil and add some sea salt and grounded black pepper. Cook at 200°C (392 F) for about 40 minutes or until the vegetables are fully ripe and beutifully roasted. I used convection mode as cooking my veggies.

Scoop ripe butternut squash with a big spoon to a pot. Add roasted red bell peppers and onions. Add 300 grams cooked ren lentils and 2 cups of water. Mix with a hand blender until smooth. If you decide to use blender I recommend to add veggies in two parts so that the result is smooth and silky. Add then vegetable stock cubes, sea salt, cajun spice mix and coconut milk. Cook for about five minutes and serve with peeled hemp seeds, coconut milk and thyme leaves.

Happy and relaxing days of autumn!