Recipe

Not too well, so I thought I'd share a recipe.

Potato & Pumpkin Soup.

I like this one - simple and fairly quick, but most of all cheap, and autumn season veg.

My eldest lass had a variation of this at a friends house, and deduced it had "Simple, it had Potatoes and Pumpkin and Cream and some other stuff". So I did what all IT literate cooks do, and Googled :)

And found that most recipes are spicey. Thats great, if thats what you want, but I wanted simple and cheap, and besides, Daughter said hers wasn't spicey.

So here we go. Note the hints'n'tips.

Equal amounts of Pumpkin and Potato, chopped as fine as you like. I'll get back to that later.

Good couple of pinch's of ground black pepper.

You might have to compromise on that - I found I had 2lb (about a kilo) left over pumkin from Samhain, which would have meant two Klicks of veg. That's a lot. 4-and-a-bit pounds of soup, and an already packed freezer? No ta. I reduced the potatos to 1lb. (One pound)500g, half a klick)

2 Garlic cloves, and 1 medium red onion, finely chopped.

As much butter as you like, or if you are very health conscious, as much as can cope with. Don't use Ghee. (clarified butter) it's a killer either way.

Two table spoons of Olive Oil.

Add the Olive oil to a thick bottomed pan, and half the butter. Neat little trick. if like me you've ever cooked with butter and managed to burn it - add a spoonful of olive oil. If you don't want to drown the taste of the butter use extra-virgin, rather than blended olive oil.

Allow the butter to melt in the olive oil, until it sizzles a little. Throw in the ground black pepper.

I've found that the flavour of all ground spices, including something as common as pepper, improves if its cooked in any oils or fats for about half a minute. Hard to describe - it kind of ups the flavour a bit, yet 'rounds' it and takes away any bitterness or powdery taste. But hey - it works.

Throw in the chopped onion and garlic and cook on a low heat until the onion is the nearest thing red onion gets to transparent. Watch that garlic though. It can brown at the edges and become caramalised, and very quickly burn. Actually, if you like a sweet edge, feel free to let the edges turn a slight brown. However, This recipe doesn't call for a strong garlic flavour.

Add your chopped Pumpkin and Potato. Stir well. Turn the heat down low. Put a lid on the pan.

What? No water or stock? This works well with stews, hotpots or curries too. But mainly with anything where veg is the main base of the meal. Keep the heat low, and the lid on. Veg has a natural high water content. In this case, the pumpkin. What you'll be doing here is the same as what you'll have done to the onion and garlic. Leeching out the natural water content and flavour from the veg into the oil's and fats. Trust your nose, and nip into the kitchen and give it a stir every 5 mins. After about 15 mins a lot of juices will out and try to boil. If it does, pull it off the heat, let it cool.

Add stock. By this time, you'll find the pumpkin and Tats have produced a lot of liquid. I wacked the heat up to a rapid boil, then used enough water to be half-way up the pan, and added a veg cube and chicken cube, and stirred well. Then wacked the heat down again, and cooked for another five mins.

By this time you might have stirred around with a spoon and felt something sticking to the bottom of the pan. Don't be afraid to scrape around a bit. If you come up with a lot of brown bits, Hmmm, maybe you left it a bit too long between stirs. But don't worry. If there aren't too many, your fine. If it sticks a bit, add a teeny bit of boiling water before adding your stock (or cubes) scrape like crazy, and congrats.

The stuff that sticks to the bottom of the pan often adds the greatest flavour, as long as it doesn't burn.

I prefer not to use times. When the potatos are soft, the pumpkin has dissolved and the liquid thick, the choice is yours. Stir in the remaining butter, stir in as much cream as you like, Mash, liquidise. or seive if you wish.

Warm gently, and serve.


Wheelie.