The Big Glut Recipe – October

October’s flavour packing pumpkin soup

A warming and colourful starter that’s easily whizzed up in an electric blender and serves four to six as an autumn meal starter.

Ingredients

• 25g/1oz butter
• 2 small onions thinly sliced and separated into rings
• 500g/pumpkin flesh chopped
• 1.2l/2 pints chicken stock
• 1 celery stalk chopped
• 1 large potato peeled and chopped
• 1tbsp lemon juice
• Salt
• Tabasco sauce
• 1 tsp paprika pepper
• 250ml/8fl oz double cream
• Croutons

Melt the butter in a solid based saucepan. Add the onions and pumpkin and fry until the onions are soft but not brown, then stir in the stock, celery, potato, lemon juice, paprika, a dash of Tabasco sauce and season with salt to taste. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for about thirty minutes, until the vegetables are tender.

Let it cool a little then pour it all into an electric blender and strain it back into the saucepan, you can push it through a sieve. Stir the double cream into the soup and reheat gently without boiling. Serve with a generous helping of croutons.