Roasted Nutty Squash Soup

1 lg. butternut squash

2 big sweet potatoes

6-8 cloves of garlic

½ lg. onion

2-3T Tuscan olive oil

¾-1c sunflower seeds

fresh ground lemon pepper

water - white wine - broth

1t-1T pumpkin pie spice
½t cayenne pepper

8 oz. coconut milk

Peel the squash, which is no easy task!  Cut the squash in half, crosswise.  Cut up the top - skinnier neck half - into small chunks.  Quarter the bottom, scoop out the seeds and dark stringy membranes.  Cut these pieces into small chunks as well.  Scrub, then peel the bad spots off the sweet potatoes.  Cut them into small chunks. . .and a pattern emerges!  😁 

Peel and chop the garlic, slice-chop the onion.  Combine all this in a medium-large bowl with the oil, sunflower seeds and lemon pepper.  Spread out on one or two jelly roll pans lined with parchment paper. 

Roast-bake at 400° for an hour or more, checking-turning-tossing the vegetables every 20 minutes.  I only used one pan, which is why the vegetables took an hour and 20 minutes to get to the stage of 'doneness' I wanted.  If you use two pans, this would go quicker.  The vegetables should be a little brown and dry, to be well roasted.

At this point, put all the vegetables into a 5 quart pot, mash with a potato masher, add liquid, stir and check flavors.  Add spice, more lemon pepper, and any other seasoning needed, and simmer for about 45 minutes.  Leave as is, if you want the soup chunky, or blend now with your immersion blender to smooth it all out.  At the very end, stir in coconut milk, just before serving.  Garnish with a dab of sour cream, a sprinkle of smokey paprika, dill or croutons. . .Lin