It’s that time of the year again…

The nights are closing in and there’s a nip in the air, who wouldn’t want some pumpkin soup? This is one I made last week for myself and my uncle Kazik who is staying with me right now, doing my floors and finishing off all the stuff that the builders have given up on. Soup is always better, in my experience, when you take your time with it. Therefore, I cooked it one night, left it to cool, then blended it the next morning, adding the cream. We then warmed it up and ate it for dinner for two nights running, the second night with penne pasta, which worked really well, and made it into a more complete meal

1 small pumpkin, cut into chunks, with seeds taken out

1 leek, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 parsnip, chopped

1 green chilli 

Chicken or vegetable stock

1 tblsp butter

1 tblsp olive oil

1 small single cream

Salt and pepper

Roast the pumpkin in olive oil, with salt and pepper, at about 180 degrees C for about an hour. In the meantime, fry the leek, chilli, carrot and parsnip in the butter. Once they are translucent, add the stock (or water if you prefer) and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer. Once the pumpkin is ready, peel it and add the bits to the soup, then carry on cooking for another half an hour or so, seasoning at the end. At this point, I turned the heat off and left the soup to infuse overnight, before blending and adding the cream. There’s a Polish saying about relationships, which translates as “I don’t like my soup reheated”. It means that you shouldn’t go back to old relationships and try to “reheat” them. I find it so strange, because soup is definitely better reheated, everyone knows that.  Conclusion: sayings that don’t make any sense are annoying