Back to Basics 19! Well, 20 really as I noticed that we have two Back to Basics 12s. Nevermind.
Since we made a Curried Pumpkin Soup last, I thought we might do an absolute classic, a Cream of Pumpkin Soup.
We have spoken on a few occasions about getting flavour out of soups, this is a pumpkin soup, on its own pumpkin is a pretty one dimensional flavour, we could think of our pumpkin like Diana Ross, good on its own, but, toss in some support flavours and you get something very special, like the Supremes.
What do we have here? Well, this is a pretty good start, I like to put a sweet potato into my pumpkin soup for sweetness and mouth feel, a carrot will add sweetness as well and a base flavour that can only be described as carroty. We have a big brown onion, a whole lot of garlic, I will use about half of that, a Jompkin pumpkin out of the garden, and a range of spuds, also out of the garden, as you can see, the supermarkets do not sell potatoes that are such interesting shapes.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 carrot, sliced roughly
I sweet potato, peeled and sliced
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 cups diced pumpkin, peeled and chopped into chunks
2 cups potato, peeled and chopped into chunks
Water or stock if you prefer
1 can coconut cream
Salt to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg
Heat olive oil in a large pot on a medium heat, add onions, cook until translucent, add garlic and carrot, cook two more minutes, tip in the rest of your vegetables, cover with water or stock, bring to boil, turn down the heat, simmer until tender, this will probably take about 40 minutes, ask the carrots, if they are tender everything else will be.
Remove from heat, purée with a stick blender until all lovely and smooth, tip in the can of coconut cream, put it back on the heat, bring back to the boil, season to taste and it is done. This makes quite a lot, as usual, but this is a really good freezer filler so fill up all your containers and put it away for those days when you just do not want to cook.
Serve with freshly grated nutmeg or a good grind of black pepper.
These pumpkins out of my garden grew under the apricot tree I planted for Jo, they just appeared one day, not all that surprising as I throw the pumpkin guts out for the chickens and they go crazy for it, I can only presume one of them planted a seed for me while they were out scritching under the fruit trees. Aren’t they gorgeous? A gift from the farm.
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