Pumpkin Soup
Soups are easy and cheap to make, and are great during the colder months. However, they are not the most exciting meals, and can sometimes be lacking a little in flavour. For this pumpkin soup I roast the pumpkin along with some garlic which intensifies the flavour, and then I add some cheesy croutons which are fabulous with this, and almost any other soup you can imagine.
Ingredients
Soup
1 butternut pumpkin – you can use any type you like, but I prefer butternut
1 small red onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic
1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock
Thumb-sized piece of ginger grated
Cheesy croutons
2 or 3 slices of old bread (I store this in the freezer and defrost when I need it)
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 cup of grated cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil
The soup
Turn the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Slice up the pumpkin into even slices with the skin on. Keep them thin as they cook quicker, and you can leave the skin on as it’s easier to remove once the pumpkin is cooked. Place the pumpkin on a baking tray, and add the cloves of garlic, leaving their skin on. Cooking time will vary depending on how you slice the pumpkin. Check after 15 minutes, and this is probably time to take the garlic out – if it’s all squishy it’s ready. Leave the pumpkin until it’s cooked.
Add some butter and oil to a large saucepan or stockpot – about 1 tablespoon of each. Heat up to a low to medium head, and add the onion and ginger. Let this cook for a few minutes until it starts to turn translucent and smells good. Whilst this is cooking slowly in the pan, use a fork to mash the pumpkin up a little and remove the skin, and add it to the onion and ginger. Squeeze the garlic out of the skins into the same pan. Add enough stock to almost cover the pumpkin, and bring to the boil. Cook it all together for about 10 minutes – the ingredients are all cooked, this is just to allow all the flavours to develop and come together.
The croutons
To make the croutons – cut the bread into cubes about 5cm x 5cm, and put them on a baking tray. Add the fennel seeds, and the olive oil, and mix it all up so that each bread cube has some oil on it. Even them out on the tray into a single layer, but with no gaps between each cube of bread, and sprinkle the grated cheese over the top evenly. Put in the oven for about 12 minutes.
Once done, take your croutons out of the oven and allow to cool a little.
To Finish
Once the pumpkin mixture is cooked, season it, and then use your stick blender or food processor to blend to a smooth consistency. Serve with the cheesy croutons. The version in the picture has some bacon too, which adds lovely flavour and keeps the carnivore in my house happy. Pumpkin soup is great served fresh and hot, but also can be frozen for a later date.
