I'm going to try this with butternut squash, coconut milk just because I have some to use up, garam masala and a bit of cayenne. And prob a bit of spinach because I have that languishing too.

2Many, wow...half and half and cream is pretty decadent! I also went a bit overboard with the spices the first time I made the soup. ;-) The cookie cutter croutons are fun for company.

pinkmountain, let me know how your changes work out!

I think lpinkmounain’s soup should be good. I regularly make my pumpkin soup with quite a bit of curry powder, coconut milk and stock, no regular milk. It also ramps up the flavour if you roast the pumpkin.

I'm making the soup tonight. Great idea about roasting the pumpkin/squash! I'll report back. I also plan on adding some garlic, yellow split peas and saffron. Hubs is recuperating from hip replacement surgery and needs the extra protein plus healing herbs.

Soup finished and I just had it for lunch. Thanks for the recipe Chloe, this is going into my "keeper" file. Best combo overall for squash/pumpkin soup I have tried so far. My notes:

1. Roasting the butternut squash was a great idea. I always find butternut to be one of the blander squashes, so roasting it definitely doesn't hurt if you make that substitution. Of course I started with a garden grown squash, but you could easily use one of those frozen squares of squash, as I often do for soups in a hurry.

2. I added/used about a scant half cup of dried yellow split peas. Not sure how long I had the peas, but I soaked them for a few hours before cooking and then cooked them for TWO hours in extra water, and even blended them up with the stick blender and the soup still had a little "tooth" to it because of the hard peas. I know old beans take forever to cook, but this taught me that although beans and peas don't really go "bad" there is a point when they are practically better suited for craft projects and pie weights . . . On the other hand, a little bit of yellow peas added some depth and protein to the soup which was not a bad thing. Depends on what you want the soup for. Being mostly vegetarian, soups are usually part of a full meal for me rather than a starter. I might even add a wee bit of brown rice to this soup before blending to complete the protein, depending on what else I was serving. Could also add some other type of white or beige bland flavored bean, but keep the proportion small or the nature of the soup totally changes.

3. The 1.5 hot peppers I added from the garden with the saute just skirted the edge of acceptability for me with heat. I'm glad my watery eyes alerted me to stop after 1.5 and not add that last half. I had peppers from the garden to use up, otherwise I would have done better adding a dash or two of tabasco after the soup was finished to taste. It was good with a bit of hot pepper though. If I do it again I think I'll also add some ginger, I have a small jar of ground ginger in the fridge.

4. Saffron always a good addition. Don't overdo, but it was fab in this soup. I just added a few threads in with the broth. I used 1 tsp. curry powder and 1/4 tsp garam masala, Spice Islands" brand. All curry blends are different so it will make a difference in how the soup tastes but I imagine most folks have a blend they like. I am not a big fenugreek fan so I look for blends without that.

5. I dialed down the butter to half with no noticeable effects. Could go slightly less even, if you're worried about such things. I also used about 1/3 cup lite coconut milk and 1/3 cup half and half, because I had those to use up. The soup will be good with any type of creamy beverage if you have dairy issues like we do. Easily dialed back if you're watching your calories.

6. Kale addition was fab. but we love kale. I love kale with root veggies or squashes, great flavor combo, IMHO. But mushrooms or corn would also be cute floating in this soup I think, if you want to guild the lily. Or red pepper, although we are not big fans of cooked peppers, particularly matched with blander things and not tomatoes. None of this would be critical to the basic goodness of the soup though.

Thanks again Chloe for sharing!

pinkmountain, thanks for the good feedback. It sounds like you really made it your own...the sign of a good cook! :-)