Okay I know I am going slightly off topic here, but I thought I would share with you a soup recipe that  is an ideal winter warming soup when served with a couple of large slices of wholemeal bread.

It is excellent if you are out and about in the woods practising and need something warm. We keep it in a thermos flask and have it with a couple of slices of bread.

Since the recipe produces about 10-12 servings so we tend to freeze it in double portions and reheat it in the morning at home before we set off for the day.

How much does it cost and how many does it serve? We normally get about 10-12 portions from these amounts. Since all the ingredient are veg its pretty cheap and if you buy the pumpkin after Halloween it’s even cheaper. We grow a lot of the ingredients so this helps keep costs down.

 Ingredient list

• 1 large size pumpkin
• 2 onions
• 4 -5 carrots
• 1 Butter nut squash
• 1 Swede
• 2 sticks of celery
• 3 chilies red
• Large piece of ginger
• Cumin, Salt and pepper to taste.

The ingredients

Cut the pumpkin up and put pieces into a baking tray, sprinkle with cumin and a little oil, then slowly roast in oven for about an hour at about 200 degrees.

Roasted Pumpkin

By baking it, the skin is much easier to peal off and it releases the sugar in the pumpkin. The skin should come away relatively easily using a sharp knife.

Skinning pumpkin

Whilst the pumpkin is in the oven it gives you time to  peel and dice all the vegetables.

Dice all the veg

Finely chop the chilli and ginger adding them to a little oil in large cooking pot.

Ginger and spices

Add cumin, black pepper and a little salt for seasoning and allow these to soften.

Soften spices in the pan

When they have softened Add the chopped vegetables to the large, read very large pot.

Make sure you use a large pot

Leave this on a low heat for a few hours until all vegetables are cooked. Stir regularly to avoid it sticking to the pot and burning. You may need to add a little water to the pot so vegetables don’t burn.

A few hours later

Taste and add spice if needed.

Warning, it will get spicier once cooked, so don’t overdo things at this stage. Also I found after freezing it , it can taste the chilli a lot more.

Once all the vegetables have cooked you will want to leave it cool before you blend it. We run it for about 20-30 seconds in our blender so its not too thick but it’s up to you. If you want it to be smoother then blend it for a longer period of time.

Once blended

We then serve it into a series of pots to freeze. It keeps for a couple of months this way and we can then reheat it when we want it for shoots down at the wood.

Finished soup ready for freezing

Thanks for reading and hope you find it useful and tasty 🙂