Hallowe’en Pumpkin Soup

At the risk of looking like I’m turning in to a food blog, this week is going to be a bit food heavy here at The Bear & The Fox, as I have a couple of recipes I simply must share with you before Hallowe’en. The first is a soup recipe. When we were at the grocery store doing our food shopping for the weekend, Mr Fox said he wanted pumpkin soup. And to “make a face in the pumpkin”. We are saving our main Hallowe’en pumpkin, which we picked at Cragie’s Farm a couple weeks ago, for the big event, but when your 2 year old (well, almost 3) actually requests vegetable soup for dinner, you’d be a fool not to make him vegetable soup! So we bought another, smaller Hallowe’en pumpkin, and he carved his first ever pumpkin – with a little help from daddy.

Many people don’t actually know that you can eat Hallowe’en pumpkins. They think they are just cultivated for display purposes. But you absolutely can! They are not as rich in colour as e.g. Butternut Squash or Hokkaido pumpkins, so will give you a much paler looking soup – somewhere between beige and light brown – and they are also not as flavoursome. But with the right seasoning, and the addition of a couple other vegetable friends, they can be transformed in to yummy soup that your kids will fight over (or maybe that’s just my kids fighting over anything these days, haha). This soup is gluten free, but check the vegetable stock you are using!

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

• 1 medium sized Hallowe’en pumpkin*
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 large carrots
• 2 small shallots
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 litre vegetable stock (check it’s gluten free, if needed)
• 200ml coconut milk
• salt & pepper
• a grating of fresh nutmeg (or a sprinkling of ground nutmeg)

* Our medium sized pumpkin weighed around 2kg, giving us around 800g of scooped out, usable flesh, not including the seeds and the ‘goop’.

Directions

• Cut off the top of your Hallowe’en pumpkin. Scoop out the ‘goop’ and pumpkin seeds, and either set aside (you can wash, dry and roast the seeds) or discard.
• Scrape out as much as you can from the inside of the pumpkin. We find this is easiest with a large, sturdy spoon. You’ll need to put a bit of elbow grease in to this. You want to sides of your pumpkin to be around 0.5cm to max 1cm thick.
• Peel and chop the carrots (these give the soup a bit colour as well as flavour) and shallots, and add them to a large saucepan together with the pumpkin scrapings, vegetable oil, and ginger. Cook over a medium heat for around 3 minutes, stirring constantly.
• Peel and press or finely chop the garlic cloves, and add to the saucepan together with the cinnamon. Cook for another 2 minutes, continuing to stir.
• Add the vegetable stock, and leave to cook for around 20 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
• While the soup is cooking, carve a spooky face in to your hollowed out pumpkin!
• Take the saucepan off the heat, and puree with a hand blender, being careful not to burn yourself!
• Add the coconut milk, season with nutmeg, salt and pepper, and return to the heat to briefly warm through.
• Serve with chunks of buttered, (gluten free) bread.