Curried butternut squash soup

This is a brilliant soup to warm your soul on a cold winter day which was passed on to me by a work colleague and then slightly modified. Its almost a meal in itself with a scone or lump of buttered bread.

Ingredients (This makes about 5 bowls of soup)

• 2 leeks
• 1 butternut squash
• 1 red chilli
• 1 pint of vegetable stock (I use 3 veg oxo cubes for a pint)
• Thumb sized bit of ginger
• 1 teaspoon of curry powder (I normally put a bit more in)
• 1 can of light coconut milk
  

Turn your oven on to top temperature and start peeling and chopping the butternut squash. Theres no easy way to do this and Ive broken 2 vegetable peelers trying them. Throw the lump sized bits of squash into the oven onto a tray as you chop to roast. Let them roast for 10-15 minutes (you don’t have to roast the squash but it’s a bit tastier if you do) while you are chopping up the leeks and ginger and chilli (remove the seeds first).

Get a big saucepan and put a bit of oil in the bottom, heat it up and then throw in your chilli, curry powder and chopped ginger. Let them fry a bit for a minute or so and then throw in your leeks. Pour in your pint of stock. Take your squash out of the oven and throw that into the pot too. Bring it to the boil then turn it down and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes until the leeks and squash are soft.

Use a hand blender to liquidise the soup (or a liquidizer - but wait until its cool if youre going to do it this way). Open your can of coconut milk and throw it in to the pot and reheat slowly if the soup is too cold. Enjoy, its yum.