pumpkin soup

If you have spent much time at all visiting this little blog of mine, you know that I love to bake. A lot. But when it comes to cooking, I am very happy to let John have all the glory. Every night he makes us delicious meals. When Tim & Becky were staying with us at the weekend, John effortlessly made gluten free tagliatelle from scratch, and was not put off by my doubting voice, pointing out our lack of a pasta rolling machine. 

John will often ask me what we should have for dinner, and for the most part, I am clueless. (I put this down to a good number of years cooking three different meals a day, and always trying to make different things. My creative juices got a little drained.) But last night when John asked, I knew exactly what I wanted. Pumpkin soup. Perfectly Autumnal in colour and flavour. I wondered aloud if this would be sufficient to fill all 6 ' 6" of John, and he was quite happy to go with my idea.

So I wanted to share it with you today in the form of a recipe. I texted John to ask him what he'd put into the soup so I could share it on my blog and this is what he said:

'Um...oil, butter, onions, potato, pumpkin, paprika, carrot, chicken stock, coconut milk, chorizo, salt, pepper, 1.5 chilli's. Xx.'

If you would like to try making this soup (I would highly recommend it), I would translate this as follows:

a good slosh of oil

a knob of butter

2 onions

3 large potatoes

600g pumpkin (weight before it's peeled & de-seeded)

a handful of carrots (maybe 4?)

1 litre or so of stock

1 can (400ml) coconut milk

handful of chorizo, finely diced

salt & pepper to taste

0.5 - 1.5 chillis depending on your heat tolerance. Ours is pretty high, so maybe go for less rather than more...  

This made an enormous batch of soup - probably enough to feed ten people if not more.

1. Heat the oil and butter (butter adds good flavour, but you need oil too so the butter doesn't burn)

2. Add chopped onions and saute

3. Add everything else, chopped, except for the coconut milk, and leave to simmer until veggies are tender

4. Blitz veggies in a blender (or mash with a potato masher if you don't have a blender)

5. Return veggies in all of their lovely orangeness to pan, stir in coconut milk and heat gently.

6. Serve with warm rolls & don't forget the kisses.

It's half term week, which means a lovely break from school for me, and an opportunity for John to take time off work. We're heading to London and Herne Bay for the rest of the week for football fun (John), song writing fun (John), a baby shower (Hannah), family fun (John & Hannah) and lots of sewing (Hannah).

I am hoping to pop in to this little space for updates of our London & Herne Bay adventures. Right, now it's time for me to brave driving across London by myself for the first time ever. I am a little bit scared. Hopefully I'll arrive in one piece with my heart beating at a regular rhythm. I'm trusting our sat nav lady will help me out a lot.