Henry & Tilly went pumpkin carving the other day, and they brought home a couple of extra pumpkins they hadn’t finished – which was a bonus as I could make soup…
- Large pumpkin
- 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
- large knob of butter
- 4 large carrots
- 2 large onions
- cumin seeds
- ground cinnamon
- ground ginger
- nutmeg
Scoop the inside of the pumpkin with an ice-cream scoop. Keep the seeds to one side and chop the pumpkin flesh. Save the empty pumpkin either for use as a soup tureen or to make a lantern.
Fry the onions gently in the butter for 5 minutes with a few cumin seeds, taking care not to brown the onions. Add the chopped carrots, pumpkin and stock. Add salt, pepper, ground ginger and cinnamon to taste – I used about a quarter of a teaspoon of ginger & cinnamon – a bit more would probably have been even nicer. Simmer on a low heat, lid on for about half an hour. Whizz up with a hand blender or food processor and serve with crusty bread, grating nutmeg on top. Perfect after an autumn walk in the park!
For the seeds… put the oven on a low heat – no more than 125 centigrade. Wash the seeds removing any flesh or stringy bits, pat dry with kitchen roll. Place on a baking tray in the oven until quite dry – took about half an hour. You can then put them in salads, or do what I did – toss them in a little sunflower oil and lots of sea-salt – deeeelishous!