Recipe for roasted butternut squash and chorizo soup

This is what autumn/winter means for me, food-wise.  Deep bowls of nourishing, warming, tasty soup.  This particular one with roasted butternut squash and chorizo is so good that even Mr H, who hates soup (?), is a complete convert.  It's quite a thick soup, so it's a good one to have as a meal in itself with crusty bread (or bacon butty if you're feeling extra greedy).  You could use pumpkin instead of squash, I suppose; it's a good way of using any leftover pumpkin if you've carved any Hallowe'en lanterns!  We like to have a bit of fiery kick to our food, so I've listed the ingredients as I would make it, but please feel free to adjust the dried chillies/chipotle paste to taste.

This recipe probably has about 6 generous greedy portions.

Ingredients:-

1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped into 2 or 3-inch chunks
250g of chorizo, peeled and roughly sliced
4 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
1 large onion (red or white), roughly chopped
2 cans of borlotti beans (pinto or butter beans would work also)
approx 2 cups (1/2 litre) of chicken stock
olive oil
a good pinch of dried crushed chillies
salt to taste
1/2 jar of chipotle chilli & smoked paprika paste (really handy and delicious ingredient for soups/chilli con carne- you can get this in Tesco in the World Food aisle, but if you can't find it, then you could use smoked paprika/add in extra crushed chillies instead)

Method:-

• Heat the oven to Gas Mark 6 (200 deg C, 400 deg F)
• Add the squash to a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil, and toss so all the pieces are covered.
• Sprinkle on the crushed chillies, and half the crushed garlic, salt to taste.
• Roast in the oven for about 40 mins, or until the squash is tender.

• Next, in a large pot, brown the chopped chorizo.  (No need to add extra oil, as the heat will render the tasty paprika-infused oils from the chorizo, and this should be enough to fry off the remaining ingredients.)
• Add the onion and remaining garlic and fry until softened.
• Add the chipotle paste and stir until the onion/garlic is coated. 
• Add the roasted squash, stock, and beans.  Stir then cover and leave to simmer on a low heat for about 30-40mins.
• I then check for seasoning (I don't usually need to add any extra salt as the paste would already be salted, and no need for extra ground pepper!)
• Blitz the mixture in the pot using a hand-held blender to your desired consistency, or you could leave to cool and use a food processor (be careful!).  You could even just serve as it is: chunky and hearty.

This is my favourite soup in the whole world, and I like to enjoy it slobbed in front of the TV.  Try it.  I guarantee, you will never buy ready-made soups again!