Did you know that you can make a really tasty soup from Hallowe’en pumpkins?

When you’re making the pumpkin lanterns for Hallowe’en you’ll end up with a pile of pumpkin insides. Don’t throw it all away! Make sure you keep the fleshy parts to make this delicious soup.

We’ve been making this soup in late October for our customers here at Abbey Cottage for a few years now. It’s one of our popular seasonal soups and the spiciness makes it nice and warming on a chilly autumn day. The quantities here will make enough for 4 good bowls. Why not give it a go?

Soup ingredients:

1 medium pumpkin (or the insides of 2 carved pumpkins, excluding the seeds)

2 carrots

2 onions

200g potatoes

1 clove of garlic

¼ teaspoon chilli powder

½ teaspoon fresh root ginger

½ teaspoon ground cumin

1.5 litres vegetable stock

Salt and pepper

Method

Peel and chop all the vegetables, removing the seeds from the pumpkin. Crush the garlic and grate the ginger.

Put the oil in a large pan, add the onions, garlic and grated ginger and heat gently until they are soft.

Add the chilli and cumin, stir through and cook for further 2-3 minutes.

Add all the remaining vegetables and the stock and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 20 minutes.

Take the soup off the heat and allow to cool slightly, then blitz with a hand blender to make the soup smooth.

To serve, stir and reheat the soup gently and add seasoning to taste.

A wee bit of inspiration

Here’s a selection of the pumpkins we’ve carved and displayed at Abbey Cottage – from pussycats to traditional scary faces, and of course, a Sweetheart one as well.