1. Procure a smallish butternut squash, or a largish one if you have more people. I used a smallish one.
2. Hose baking dish down with non-stick spray. Whack squash in half length-wise and scrape out the seeds. Bake at 350 until squooshy. Remove, cool, and scrape innards off of skin.
3. Select a leek, a shallot, and as much garlic as suits you. Bigger squash = more of this stuff. Choppety-chop.
4. Sauteé the aforementioned in the best olive oil you can afford. Shallots, then leeks, then garlic.
5. Dump in squash. Moosh it all up with the back of your stirring spoon.
6. Add between a half and a whole cup of milk, depending on how much dairy you want. Or you can use no dairy at all.
7. Dump in some chicken stock (or veggie stock, if you want to be vegan about it.) Whir with immersion blender.
8. Repeat until you reach the consistency you want.
9. Taste. Season with powdered ginger and Hungarian paprika. Or nutmeg. Or white pepper or black pepper and sea salt.
10. Taste again.
11. Taste again.
12. Decant portion into suitably colored bowl. (I used dark blue.) Consume.

Of course, you could have the presence of mind to grate some fresh ginger into the shallot/leek/garlic mixture when it's about done. Or you could just roast everything and not bother to sauteé. You could leave out the savory things and head toward a sweeter soup: roast up a sweet potato with the squash and dump in some maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice. Either way, it’s cheap and tasty and very hard to screw up.