Anyone got a recipe for Pumpkin soup? Food

My son has been hollowing out pumpkins for the charity shop he helps at - so far I've been using some of the flesh in a mixed vegetable soup and cooking some for the dogs.

Does anyone have a good recipe for a pumpkin soup? (Tina please note - 'normal' soup ingredients only please - no bananas, jaffa cakes or jammie dodgers.)

@Janet normal pumpkin soup recipe

Ingredients
Serves: 6

• 750g pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cubed
• 2 carrots, coarsely chopped
• 2 onions, cut into wedges
• 2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 large potato, sliced
• 1 litre water

• 2 or 3 cubes chicken stock, crumbled
• 250ml double cream
• 1 1/4 tablespoons ground nutmeg, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• salt to taste

Method
Prep:5min › Cook:55min › Extra time:1hr › Ready in:2hr

1. Preheat oven to 220 C / Gas 7.
2. Place pumpkin, carrots and onions in a baking dish or roasting tin. Drizzle with vegetable oil.
3. Bake in preheated oven 40 minutes, until soft but not blackened.
4. In a large saucepan over medium heat, bring water and crumbled stock cubes to the boil. Cook potato in simmering water until soft, about 20 minutes.
5. Combine potato and water with roasted vegetables and puree in a liquidiser or food processor until smooth. Return to pan over low heat and stir in cream, nutmeg, pepper and salt. Heat gently; serve.

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• Serves 4-6 Preparation 15 mins Cooking 1 hour

Ingredients
Halloween is on the horizon and pumpkins are in abundance, so make the most of the glut with this delicious, easy pumpkin soup. Healthy but still full of autumnal flavour, thanks in part to a touch of cinnamon, it's a perfect warming lunch or light supper dish.

• 250g pumpkin flesh
• 1 onion
• 500ml skimmed milk
• 2 carrots
• Pinch of cinnamon
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Method

1. Cut the pumpkin into little squares. Peel the onion and carrots and cut them into small slices.
2. Place all vegetables with the skimmed milk into a saucepan and a pinch of cinnamon. Then bake them until the pumpkin flesh is soft and smooth (this will take about half an hour).
3. Stir this mixture to make it smooth and heat it again, adding some water. Depending on the consistency you want, leave this for about another half an hour. Add salt and pepper

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30 mins to 1 hour preparation time - 1 to 2 hours cooking time - Serves 8-10
Adults soup

Ingredients

• 1 x 4kg/8lb 13oz pumpkin
• 125g/4oz butter
• 2 medium onions, peeled, finely chopped
• 1 cinnamon stick
• freshly grated nutmeg
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1.7 litres/3 pints chicken stock (vegetarians may substitute vegetable stock)
• 3 tablespoons sherry

Preparation method

1. Cut the top off the pumpkin and set aside. Scoop out the seeds and fibres from the middle and discard.
2. Using a sharp knife and a spoon, carefully hollow out the pumpkin, removing the flesh and setting aside. (It is imperative that you do not cut right up to the inside of the skin or pierce it. Leave 2cm/1in of flesh all around the inside.)
3. Roughly chop the scooped-out pumpkin flesh.
4. Melt the butter in a large pan with a lid over a low heat and add the onions. Cook the onions gently for 10-15 minutes, until they are softened and golden-brown.
5. Add the pumpkin flesh, the cinnamon and nutmeg, and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Increase the heat to medium and cover with the lid. Cook for 40-45 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the base from burning, until the pumpkin is cooked through.
6. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Transfer the soup to a food processor in batches and blend until smooth.
7. Return the soup to the pan and bring to a low simmer and cook for a further half an hour.
8. Forty-five minutes before eating, preheat the oven to 170C/335F/Gas 3.
9. Pour the soup into the hollow pumpkin shell, add the sherry and stir to combine.
10. Place the reserved pumpkin 'lid' onto the pumpkin and place onto a large baking tray. Cook in the oven for about 45 minutes, to bring the soup up to temperature.
11. To serve, carefully remove from the oven and serve the soup in the pumpkin at the table. Ladle into bowls and serve.

Brilliant! Many thanks.

@Janet [and anyone else who feeds their dog raw or home cooked].

Do not throw away the pumpkin seeds - just add them [stringy bits an' all] to the dog's food. Raw, as they are. Actually you could also add them to kibble or wet dog food.

You can also eat them yourself!

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=82

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrientprofile&dbid=117

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=82#nutritionalprofile

I must admit, I have been throwing the raw pumpkin seeds away. Bit stupid when I actually buy packets of pumpkin seeds to eat myself! I just wasn't sure whether it was OK to eat them as they are - the white ones inside the pumpkins look nothing like the dark green ones I buy!

Are you buying raw hulled pumpkin seeds? The raw ones I buy are dark green, but if I buy a pack of salted/roasted ones they are still in their husk and are white - just as you see inside a pumpkin. Theoretically you crack them between your front teeth and just eat the inner bit of the seed but I like to crunch them as they are, husks and all!

I have an unopened pack of dark green pumpkin seeds in front of me- all it says is Tesco Whole Foods, pumpkin seeds. Doesn't say anything about being roasted so I'm assuming they must be raw.

I'll check out my local health food shop, and see if theirs are any different. It's not a particularly good shop though - I have to order some things, like hemp seeds, from good old Amazon!

I have just checked Tesco online and they look like the raw hulled pumpkin seeds I buy.

As for hemp seeds, I buy those from iHerb in California! I have just looked at the ones from Amazon [well I would, of course, 'cos I is nosey!] but they do not look like the hemp seeds I buy. I wonder why?

Curious! The ones I get are Whole Foods Organic Shelled Hemp Seeds - I have them stirred into my porridge and I love them! What do you do with yours?

I typed "Whole Foods Organic Shelled Hemp Seeds" in Amazon, and the ones I buy look like the ones shown as Organic Shelled Hemp Seeds 500g - second row down on the right.

What do I do with them? It is not porridge weather yet but when it is I will add some to it. At the moment I mix half and half with chia seeds and add enough water to soak them [the chia seeds go lovely and gooey!] - add a pot of 0% fat sugar-free fruit yoghurt - and usually some oat bran and ground flax seeds. Makes a sort of cold porridge but without the oats!

Oh, it's always porridge weather as far as I'm concerned! I have porridge every single morning, with some chopped up dried apricots or dates or figs and some hemp seeds.

Chia seeds are extraordinary! I once stirred some into a drink, and when I came back it was solid and I had to eat it with a spoon!

Janet, Azz started me off with the chia seeds - he posted a thread asking what food could people not have enough of - or words to that effect - saying that his current one was chia seeds and yoghurt.

Found it! It was 12 November 2012!

http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php?p=2621699#post2621699

Thanks for the link - I've just read through the whole thread!

Ladies dry the pumpkin seeds out & plant a couple then you will be able to grow your own pumpkins.

Tina - they have grown without even being dried and planting out!

Well, a couple of raw seeds must have been picked up from somewhere [maybe by a bird from someone's open wheelie bin?] and dropped just the other side of the little wall round my "patio", as this thing started growing and growing, all along the ground and up the three breeze-block high wall, and along the wall...

...and my neighbour said it was a pumpkin plant.

So she watered it [well, she has an outside tap and can carry water to it].

And it grew and it grew and it developed yellow flowers, and then the things started to grow out of the centre of the flowers.

First they were courgettes - picked some... then they were small marrows - picked some... then they were bigger marrows - picked some...

...and then they were pumpkins and we shared them!

She did not want the courgettes or marrows and had they not been picked the pumpkins would not have grown. Or so somebody said.

My pumpkin plant - well think it is I save all seeds out of fruit & plant them just keep forgetting to put what they are on the markers




My carrots

Will definitely plant some of the seeds and see what happens.

I put out a lot of wild bird food, and all sorts of things pop up in the garden - we've had some spectacular sunflowers.

Not having a proper garden I an unable to grow things and I reckon that if I deliberately tried to grow pumpkins I would be unsuccessful as my thumbs are definitely not green!

Sorry ladies it seems my "pumpkins" are butter squash plants, but still yummy

Ooh - give me butternut squash over pumpkin any day [licks lips and drools! ]