We love Halloween here at Foothold Cymru, because Halloween means pumpkins! And pumpkins mean delicious seasonal dishes, that are easy to prepare and don’t cost the earth.
Below is one of our favourite pumpkin soup recipes for you to make at home……enjoy!
Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 bay leaf
- 25g/1oz unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium pumpkin (prepared weight about 850g/1lb 14oz) deseeded and roughly chopped
- 1 medium-sized floury potato, such as Maris Piper, roughly chopped
- 1 litre/1¾ pint vegetable or chicken stock, a little extra may be needed
- 100ml/3½fl oz double cream
- 3 tbsp pumpkin seeds
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Put the onion, carrots, garlic bay leaf, butter and half the olive oil into a large pan. Cook over a low–medium heat for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are tender but not coloured.
Add the pumpkin and potato, mix to combine and cook for a further 2–3 minutes. Pour in the stock, season well and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer, half cover the pan with a lid and continue to cook for about 40 minutes until the pumpkin is really tender when tested with the point of a knife.
Pick out the bay leaf and blend the soup until smooth using a stick blender.
Add the cream and a little more stock if the soup is on the thick side, taste for seasoning, adding more salt and pepper as required.
Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and add the pumpkin seeds and fry quickly until the seeds start to pop. Remove from the pan.
Ladle the soup into bowls and serve with a swirl of cream and the toasted pumpkin seeds.
Top Tips:
- Don’t worry if you don’t have a stick blender - a chunky soup will be delicious, or you can break it up with a fork if you'd rather a smoother soup.
- You can pop all the ingredients in to a slow cooker and leave it to simmer away for a low energy way of cooking the soup.
- You can use a squash/butternut squash in place of the pumpkin
- Don’t worry of you don’t have bay leaves, garlic, butter or olive oil. it'll still be delicious without these ingredients.
- You can use a splash of milk instead of cream.
