Ingredients:

- 5 or 6 sweet potatoes, scrubbed & with just the ends nicked off
- 1 butternut squash, scrubbed & stabbed full of holes
- 1/2 red onion
- 1/2 lb unsalted shelled peanuts. Or, fuck it, just use a whole pound, they're tasty
- 1 bunch scallions (2, if you really like 'em)
- 1 bulb garlic. Not a clove. A BULB.
- 2 tbsp Islay scotch; not the fancy-pants quarter cask stuff your brother got you for Christmas, the regular stuff
- red wine
- vegetable broth, IDK, like a pint or a quart or something
- 1 shitton arugula. If you've got one of those pre-washed salad bags of it, just grab the whole thing
- olive oil and/or butter
- salt
- pepper

• Preheat oven to 380º F and bake sweet potatoes & squash for 1.5 – 1.75 hrs or until flesh is soft & skins blackened where they sit on the pan

• Peel & mince garlic. All the garlic. THE ENTIRE BULB, MOTHERFUCKERS; DON'T FUCKING STINT ON IT.

• If you feel like you have too much garlic, get a SECOND bulb and mince up about half of that shit

• Dump garlic in cast-iron skillet with olive oil & set aside. You can use a regular, not!cast-iron skillet, but why the fuck would you want to do that

• Chop onion medium-fine & add to skillet

• Put peanuts in a bag & grab a hammer & crush them into bits. But not too fine; big bits of peanuts are awesome and will be tasty and have good texture

• Add peanuts to skillet.

• Slip sweet potatoes & butternut squash out of their skins, which should be fairly easy to do or you haven't cooked them long enough, and scoop out the innards of the squash

• Dump everything orange into your soup pot

• Pour broth over orange stuff (sweet potatoes & squash). Grab fork & mash until more or less puréed. Put on low – medium-low heat & do other stuff

• Add the slug or two of scotch. Add the scotch NOW, not later; it needs to do its thing early on

• Put skillet with garlic, peanuts, & onion over medium-high heat. You'll prob have to add more olive oil; just fucking go for it. Or add butter, whichever.

• Cook that shit, stirring frequently, for, IDK, 10, 15 minutes, however long "Voodoo Child" lasts

• In between stirring your garlic-peanut-onion mixture, chop scallions finely & drop in soup pot. Add salt & pepper to taste, then add just a little more

• No, seriously, if it tastes just slightly too salty, it's perfect, 'cause it won't taste too salty after the garlic goes in

• Cook what's in the skillet until well browned. Nothing blackened, but liberally browned, and don't shy away from the olive oil

• Take skillet off the heat & chop all the arugula & throw it in the pot. I just grab it by the handful and chop it up with a pair of scissors, it's way faster, but I guess you can use a cutting board and a kitchen knife if you're masochistic

• Stir. Add some water until it looks right, like a pint or 3 cups or something like that

• Glug some wine into the skillet, return to not-quite-high heat, & cook, stirring constantly, for the duration of "People Are Strange"

• Dump that shit in your soup pot; get ALL of it, this is the good part

• Stir

• Add more red wine. Stir. Add more. Keep going till it tastes right

• Cover & simmer or even just let it cook in its own internal heat for roughly the amount of time "Slow Ride," "Fortunate Son," "Time Has Come Today" (full-length version), "Peace of Mind" (or "Gallows Pole" or something ifyou have no fucking taste and you don't like Boston), any given AC/DC song b/c they're interchangeable, "Torn and Frayed," & "Alice's Restaurant" (any version)

• Eat the best fucking soup you've ever had in your fucking life