Food / 1 October, 2019 / Joanna Preston

Halloween Pumpkin Soup

Hope half term is heaven and you are somewhere with no rain – London is horrid today! You may be bombarded with Halloween recipes but this pumpkin/ butternut squash soups is one of my all-time favorites.

Bonfire Night Spiced Butternut and Apple Soup

This is perfect broom stick rocket fuel for Halloween. A wonderful autumnal, rich orange colored soup; spicy, intense and very satisfying. It is made with butternut, which is an altogether more intense squash to use in cooking, as opposed to pumpkin, yet clearly still has that wicked orange hue. Combined with apples, ginger and chilli this is soul warming fare. Go easy on the chilli and ginger for the little people.

Ingredients:

Serves 4

• 1kg butternut squash, peeled and cut into cubes
• Splash of olive oil
• Splash of maple syrup
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and cut roughly
• 4cm ginger, peeled and chopped finely- or grated
• 1 red chilli, chopped roughly
• 1 onion, chopped roughly
• 500ml of chicken stock or vegetable stock
• 4 small or 2 large, eating apples peeled and chopped roughly
• 200ml of milk

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F/ gas mark 6

1. Place the butternut, onion, garlic, chilli and apple on a baking tray – splash over the olive oil and maple syrup, a good pinch of Maldon sea salt and grind of black pepper and roast for 30 minutes until soft and slightly caramelised.

2. Place the chicken stock in a liquidizer with the roasted vegetables, ginger and milk and puree until really smooth, add more stock or milk depending on consistency and richness required.

3. Return the puree to the pan and add some Maldon sea salt and a good ground black pepper and reheat.

Serve with a swirl of cream and some chopped fresh herbs, parsley and hazelnuts works well or just some fresh thyme.

P.S: A note on stock – it is always preferable to use homemade, however, if the cupboard is bare (!) most of the large supermarkets sell fresh stock, if you can’t get hold of this I would recommend just using water and not bothering with stock cubes at all.

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