Pumpkin soup

Sunday 8.45pm

This is becoming a bit too depressing - time for something comforting, Pumpkin soup I think.

here is the recipe that I use

1/2 onion, 1 clove garlic

- fry gently 5 minutes or so in oil and 1/4"slice butter till onion is clear

cut say a 3" piece of pumpkin scoop out seeds and peel

- turn up heat, add pumpkin and stir till pumpkin browns and blackens at the edges

- add 1 1/4 pints 1/2 strength vegetable stock ( say 1 dsp stock powder or 1/2 a stock cube )

- add a tomato or two chopped or 1/3 tin tomatoes drained

- reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes or so till pumpkin is nice and soft.

- cool a little then liquidise

- salt, pepper to taste and adjust thickness with more stock if neccesary - should be thickish and velvety.

This is the basic recipe.

Today I added the following

1/2 a cinammon stick
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 finely chopped small red chilli

- fry all these very gently in a slice of butter and some oil, going carefully so as not to burn the spices or the butter.

- take off the heat and add -

1tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp of turmeric

- allow to warm through and add to the soup

or if you have no spices just add say a teaspoon or so of curry powder to taste to the soup or warmed in butter first.

You can vary the soup as you feel eg-

-add some bacon with the onions at the beginning
- a big handfull of spinach with the stock
- any vegetables you fancy could go in with the pumpkin eg carrots or celery or courgettes, whatever. I would probably only go for one other to keep the flavour clean.

enjoy