Meeting The Pickles

Fiona (from Inner Pickle) and her family came over on Saturday for afternoon tea, and we had a great time. It was the first time we’d met, and we ate cake and drank coffee and talked of big plans, families, gardening, animals, food, and more. Lots of good stuff, and a lovely family coming from very much the same place as us.

To top it off, Fiona brought a beautiful loaf of her sourdough bread (wrapped in a cool tea-towel bread bag!), a block of home-made butter, and a jar of home-made yoghurt. Yum!

Oh, and her kids loved the flying fox. I think a project just got added to Dad’s list :-).

After they’d left and thoughts turned to dinner, we looked at the wind outside and the sourdough inside and said, “mmm, soup”. So I whipped up another batch of pumpkin soup using an immature pumpkin that we had to pick early after it got damaged. It tasted good, although the colour was a bit pale. But who cares about looks when you’ve a meal like this!

I made this soup a bit differently to the last one.

I diced the pumpkin, splashed it with a little oil, and roasted it in the oven. While that was going, I sweated down an onion and a few cloves of garlic with olive oil in a big saucepan. Once the pumpkin had caramelised a little (the corners of cuts had just gone brown/black), I tipped it in and added about 3 cups of chicken stock (substitute veggie stock if you like).

The herbs I added this time are the easy ones to remember – just like the old song – parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. You can’t go wrong with those four! All fresh from the garden, chopped up fine, and thrown in the pot. I also put in a bay leaf.

Once the pumpkin was soft, I took out the bay leaf and whizzed the soup with a stick blender.

I served it with a dollop of home-made yoghurt (substitute sour cream if you like), and a side of sourdough and home-made butter (there’s no substitute for those, unfortunately!).

Yummo!