Butternut squash soup

One of my most favourite meals, and my number one soup.

I love it because it tastes delicious and is perfect in any weather. You can put all kinds of scary veggies in there, like brussel sprouts or broccoli or cauliflower or onions or celery, and your family won't know any better. And you only need to kind of chop up stuff - you'll obliterate it in the food processor later. Any spices work well.

I hate it because it's a pain to make. I don't care that all the websites boast how easy it is. Puréing the soup "in batches" is awkward, and hot, has inevitable spills and, thus, burns. Plus it's a pain to clean up after all the spills. And preparing the squash is a nightmare: it's extremely difficult to cut, peeling is even worse, and your hands are covered in white crap afterwards. Which I think is dead skin. Luckily, Costco had pre-peeled pre-cut butternut squash in boxes, so that saves about an hour and is extremely useful.

I also threw in a frozen fish patty, which was disgusting when fried alone, but went perfectly with the soup (ie: blended). Also I threw in bacon. Because bacon.

Then on top, dill and smoked chili. It was really good. I used a handheld blender and once I figured out how to use it, the number of spills and burns decreased significantly. But I still had a mess to clean up.