I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Ah, in winter a not-so-young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of soup.

When the weather gets cold, hot soup sounds delightful. Especially a nice hearty soup. Maybe creamy, maybe not. With warming spices. And croutons. I mean, fried bread makes almost everything better right?

Squashes and sweet potatoes lend themselves to this sort of treatment, since they purée nicely, and give body to a soup. With the right additions, their sweetness can play off against some bolder flavors to make a soup worthy of a meal.

• a couple of squash
• a couple of sweet potatoes
• an onion or two
• a few cloves of garlic, or quite a few if you like garlic
• 3 cups of stock, more or less
• salt and pepper
• about 1 tsp of ground ginger, depending on your preference
• a couple of pieces of bread
• some olive oil

Remove them from the pot. I find a slotted spoon works well, and purée them according to your preferred means. I use a food processor, myself, although you could use a blender, or even an immersion blender. When the bits are nice and smooth, return them to the cooking vessel and mix thoroughly with the liquid. If it's too thick add more stock. Turn it down low and move on to the next step.

Cut your onion into small bits and your garlic into still smaller bits. Put some grease in a pan and brown your onions. It may take a while to get there, but be wary of turning up the heat too high - yes, they will brown faster, but they will also go from browned to burned faster. When the onions are starting to get browned, add the garlic and cook for a bit longer. Then toss them all into the pot and stir well. Add some salt and pepper and some of the ginger. Give it a good stir and let it cook for a couple of minutes, then taste it and see if need more of something. Repeat as needed. Meanwhile, make some croutons.

Cut your bread into crouton-sized pieces. Heat some olive oil in a pan. I used the same one as I had cooked the onions and garlic in - waste not, want not! (And wash one dish fewer.) Toss your bread in, sprinkle with salt and stir around. Keep 'em moving, and add more oil if they absorb it all. Work in batches, if need be.

Put the soup in a bowl and the croutons on the soup.