Simple Vegan Butternut Squash Soup

Do you ever just have a big old butternut squash lying around with nowhere to call home?  I do because the show up in my CSA box every time I start thinking the season is over.  This mama was probably a five pounder (I have no experience in weighing squash to back up that statement).

And if the tense in which this post is written confuses you, it's because I wrote some of it at night when I prepped it, some of it when I saw it in the morning, and some of it after I ate it.  I take things sloooow.

Here is roughly (emphasize roughly) what I did.

Beautiful, wonderful, simple, worthy-of-serving-for-breakfast butternut squash soup
Makes 4 bountiful servings

• Bake squash at 350 degrees for 1ish hour.  Let cool.
• Cut off skin and chop into large cubes.  Throw them in the Vita-Mix (seeds, too, why waste) with a few inches of water.  Use thruster thing to plunge down the mixture (don't want those seeds getting stuck in your teeth!).  If you prefer, leave some chunks out so you have some lumps in your soup.  
• Blend on the soup setting (or on highest setting) until it changes color to reflect it's thorough blended-ness.  Mid-way through, add another cup of water with a boullion cube.  Should take 2-3 minutes.
• Dump this mixture into your slow cooker.  Taste it (yum).
• Add roughly
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon whole cumin seeds or powder
• several (5? 8? 10?) strands of saffron
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (next time--crushed red pepper)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• several grinds of black pepper
• 1 teaspoon tumeric (might as well add some inflammatory herbs in there)
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil
• grated or minced ginger (I made teeny tiny cubes)
• Taste it again (yum) to see what to add...I had to make a few adjustments.
• Eat it now, or wait until the morning.  Or eat some now like I did and cook some for the morning. (Why am I saying morning?  Am I going to eat it for breakfast?  Maybe.  It is pretty awesome.)
• I slow cooked it on low for over twelve hours.  But it was until the next night (tonight, read 24 hours later) that it was reeeally good.
• With a little umph to be desired, I topped it with spicy mango pickle (Bedekar brand from the Indian market with baby green mangos in it is my favorite!)

You know me, always gotta sneak in pictures of Tristan 

(and is he always checking email on his phone?)

and on the left, a big ol' pressure cooker full of rice