Here’s Barbara’s recipe for the tasty soup she brought to our potluck:

Sauté garlic, onions and leeks in olive oil. (How much? How much soup do you want?)

While preparing the veggies for sautéing, steam carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, leftover squash, turnips, beets — anything that can be mashed to thicken the soup. (Veggies and proportions depending on what you have and on your tastes.)

When everything is soft and the sauté is sautéed, put the steamed veggies into the blender a little at a time with enough water to make it work. As each blenderload is pureed, pour it into the sauté pot. Keep at it until all the steamed veggies are pureed and everything is in the same pot.

Mix it all together, heat it up some more — and there it is. If you want to go to hell with yourself and want to call it a Cream of Autumn Soup, add a carton of heavy cream at the end. But we don’t.

Oh, yeah: salt and pepper to taste.