Atonement for Halloween soup

A host of soups (like Roast Pumpkin Soup with Gremolata and Spicy Seeds) in celebration of pumpkins.

Welcome to this week’s recipe inspired by the harvests from my backyard veg patch. Currently, the recipe is free to everyone (though that’s changing soon). Paid subscribers also receive a weekly PDF recipe card, an Extra Helping (this week it’s FIVE more recipes for pumpkin soup), a monthly video (like this), and plenty more (see here). Whichever subscription you pick, I’m just grateful you’re here. Otherwise it’d just be me and the pumpkins. So thank you.

In October’s newsletter I made a plea for pumpkins:

Even if you must insist on carving them, keep the flesh and please, eat it. How would you feel if you’d wished your whole life to be loving roasted and fanned with sage, but ended up butchered by a cack-handed toddler and left to rot on a doorstep?

It seemed to touch a nerve because I had several messages along the lines of, “Poor afflicted and forlorn pumpkins! Yes, they do deserve better.”

So today, when I imagine the poor sunken carcasses of scowling pumpkins slumped amidst the Halloween debris, fake cobwebs drooping from the overnight rain, and discarded Haribo that litter suburban cul-de-sacs this morning, on this today I offer a celebration of pumpkins to remind us what they really are: not ghoulish and disposable, but gorgeous and delicious and, most of all, not for carving.

For paid subscribers (as well as the usual PDF of the recipe), this week’s Extra Helping features FIVE more recipes in the form of variations on this soup.

Roast pumpkin soup with gremolata-ish and spicy pumpkin seeds

Roasting the squash and garlic gives this simple soup a complex, savoury flavour that belies the simplicity of its making. Use the best stock you can find. This is no place of stock cubes. Water would be preferable if you don’t have fresh stock. I find squash soup can be a bit blandly sweet, so I’ve added a kick of fresh zing with the gremolata (ish because I’ve left out the traditional garlic since we have plenty in the soup already) and a chilli wallop from the seeds to pep things up.

Serves 2

• 500g winter squash or pumpkin (approximately ½ a butternut squash)

• 1 fat garlic clove, skin on

• 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• ¼ tsp chilli powder

• 2 tbsp chopped parsley

• ½ lemon, zested

• ½ tsp white wine vinegar

• 200-300ml hot chicken or vegetable stock

• Yogurt, to serve

Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

Scoop out the seeds of the pumpkin and set them aside. Coat the squash with two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper.  Place on a baking tray with the garlic clove, skin on, nestled in the middle of the squash and roast for 45 minutes or until charred and soft.

Wash the pumpkin seeds to remove the flesh, then boil them of 5-8 minutes to soften them a little. Drain, pat dry and tip onto a baking tray. Drizzle with one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil then sprinkle with a little salt, pepper, and the chilli powder. Spread them out on the baking tray then pop them in the oven for the final 15 minutes of the pumpkin roasting time. Once golden and crispy, remove and set aside while you finish the soup.

Remove the squash from the oven and scoup the soft flesh into a saucepan. Squeeze the pearly white garlic clove out of its casing and add to the pan too. Pour over a little hot stock then use a stick blender to whizz everything together, adding more stock as needed until you have a velvety thick soup. Check the seasoning and keep on a low heat while you finish up.

In a small bowl, mix the parsley, lemon zest and vinegar with a little salt and the remaining tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

Ladle the soup into two bowls, spoon a dollop of yogurt on top, then finish with a sprinkle of the sort-of-gremolata and the crispy pumpkin seeds.

Now, here’s the PDF recipe card (have you tried printing direct from the Substack www? It’s a disaster! You’ll be needing the recipe card.) Plus, in this week’s Extra Helping, more squash soup recipes …