Recipe: Sahara's Spicy Pumpkin Soup

If you enjoyed reading about the spicy pumpkin soup in Chapter 29 of Christmas at Tillingford Hall, then you might like to make the recipe yourself. I 'asked Sahara' to share it with us!

Pumpkin ready to go!

So, I've decided to start eating cooked food again. The raw food diet wasn't helping me gain weight at all, and seeing my Dearest Brother looking so dejected when I tried to feed him another plate of salad after a hard day working in the rain made me feel like I was torturing him. I adapted this recipe from Mrs Powell - of course she puts loads of butter and bacon in hers. You can do that if you want but I'm staying strictly vegan.

Ingredients

A medium sized cooking pumpkin

Chilli powder

Ground or fresh ginger

Paprika (smoked if you have it)

Turmeric

Nigella seeds

Ground coriander

Ground cumin

All spice

4-6 garlic gloves - more if you like garlic

1-2 litres of veg stock (I used Marigold Vegetable Bouillon powder)

Balsamic vinegar

Worcester sauce

You can use all or some of the above or any combination of winter spices - just check 'em all in, I say. Use a modest teaspoon of each - you can always tweak it a bit later.

A pumpkin is a tricky beast to cook with - they're so massive and tough. So I take my strongest knife and lay into it around the equator and then put the two halves into the biggest roasting tin I can find, run some oil over it and whack it in at 200 degrees Celsius (GM 6) until the flesh is soft. So much easier than hacking away, trying to cut it up. But if you don't have time to cook it in the oven, you can do it that way.

When it's ready and cooled down a bit, I pour off the juices into a bowl so I can use it later and then separate the skin and the stringy, seedy middle from the flesh and put it in another bowl.

A fine array of spices

I fry the spices (not the garlic) in a good amount of cold-pressed rapeseed oil first, then I add in the chunks of pumpkin and garlic and sweat it all until it's all properly soft and the pumpkin and spices are combined. Then I'll add 1-2 litres of vegetable stock (depending on the size of the pumpkin and how runny you like your soup). Gently simmer it for 20 minutes or so and then use a stick blender to whizz it all up.

Blending with a stick blender

Then taste it! This is crucial - I'm not giving precise amounts because it really depends on the size of the pumpkin and whether it's a reasonably tasty one or not - they vary so much. Add a bit of balsamic, a bit of Worcester sauce, a bit more bouillon powder to taste.

Serve up with chunky sourdough from A Little Treat and good olive oil and hummus for dipping.

Serves loads - depending on the size of the pumpkin, 10-20 portions. I freeze some for those evenings when I can't be bothered to cook.

Enjoy.

Love, Sahara.