Warm boot recommendations please

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

INGREDIENTS

One medium pumpkin

One big onion

Lots of butter

A tub of creme fraiche or something else gooey and creamy

Chicken or vegetable stock

Powdered cinnamon

Brown sugar (or honey)

Salt and pepper

Parmesan cheese shavings

 

HOW TO USE ALL OF YOUR PUMPKIN

Cut the top off the pumpkin in one piece. You will be using it as a lid for a pumpkin lantern. The only thing that gets wasted with this recipe is the pith and a bit of skin. The seeds, flesh and pumpkin shell all get used. It's a lovely way to spend an autumn evening.

 

TOASTED SEEDS

Scoop out the seeds. Separate the seeds from the pithy bit. Put them on a baking tray, spray them with olive oil and sprinkle some crushed sea salt crystals over them. Bake in a medium oven for about 20 minutes. These keep for about 3-7 days in a tub in the fridge of you fancy picking at them later as a snack. Or keep them aside for the soup garnish.

 

Back to the pumpkin itself...

Scoop out the flesh until you have about 5-8mm thickness left in the skin. Pop the flesh into a bowl.

 

MAKE A LANTERN

Cut out triangles all over the skin to make a lantern. I do rows of triangles - one with the point up, one with the point down - so you end up with a stained-glass effect. Take the triangles and cut off the flesh off the back of them - cut right back to the skin. The good thing about triangles rather than, say, a scary face lantern is that you get loads more flesh for cooking. Add the flesh you've just cut off the triangles to the bowl of scooped flesh.

 

PUMPKIN SOUP

Chop an onion up and fry/sweat it in butter until it's good and soft and slightly brown. Add your pumpkin, and more butter if necessary. Sweat it until it is soft (essentially, to sweat it, I fry it in a big stew pot with the lid on). Add salt and pepper, a big pinch of powdered cinnamon and some brown sugar or honey until you like the flavour. Coat the pumpkin in the cinnamon by stirring it well. Add stock slowly. I use chicken stock (chicken Oxo cubes in water - normally 2-3 per pint). It gives a fuller flavour, but vegetable stock works too. Simmer this for a bit, until your pumpkin is going pulpy. Then chuck in a pot of creme fraiche or fromage frais - something gooey and creamy, and whizz it up with a hand blender, so it still has some thickness and chunkiness to it, but so it's all creamy.

 

To serve, add a whirl of whatever creamy goo you're using, parmesan shavings and some of the toasted seeds. I find the best way to shave parmesan is with a vegetable peeler rather than a grater.

 

Enjoy your soup by pumpkin lantern light!

 

Anna x

Edited October 8, 2008 by Guest

[Milly]

I like the idea of making the pumpkin into a lantern to eat by!

 

Just need to find a pumpkin now....

 

Milly

[..lay a little egg for me]

I find pumpkin soup a bit too sweet for my taste, but since discovering a recipe for spicy pumpkin soup that uses garlic, ginger, cumin and tomatoes as well as the pumpkin, veg stock and onion specified by A chickychickychick-ENN, I love it! But I can't use a whole pumpkin in one go because the soup only uses around 3lb of pumpkin and ours always seem to be much bigger than that! And I don't have a big enough saucepan to make more (the 3 lb of pumpkin makes around 8 pints of soup!).

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

Caroline - pie! There is always pie!

 

Anna x

[KAZAROO]

Oh my favourite...I will dig out a recipe for parsnip soup.....

[jackiepoppies]

We freeze any left over in 1 litre containers for a warm lunch/supper with fresh French bread.

It also makes a superb base for a sauce, especially with pork.

 

Another way we use it is roasted, wrapped in parma ham or as one ingredient in roasted vegetables.

 

Jackiex

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

Oooh parma ham! Tres yum bien sur!

 

Anna x

[Cate in NZ]

I sometimes make a casserole inside a pumpkin, it's easy (far, far quicker than peeling and dicing a pumpkin I can tell you ), no waste and cuts down on the washing up too .

Just get a large pumpkin, chop off the top, scoop out the seeds (you can save these for toasting afterwards if you want ), but leave the flesh, then add casserole ingredients, I usually use sausages, tomatoes, onions, herbs etc, but it's entirely up to you. Then replace the top as a "lid" and shove in the oven for 11/2 - 2 hours on a low/medium heat. The pumpkin flesh cooks along with the other casserole ingredients and it's yummy .

It's also pretty scrumptious if you cook a veggie curry this way

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

Ooh that sounds good!