Happy Halloween!
For my soup, I vaguely followed this recipe:
I used all the ingredients listed here. However, as there are only two of us, I halved the amounts (and used a much smaller pumpkin! Only about 2kg)
To begin with, I hollowed out the pumpkin, but didn't worry about leaving 1 inch of flesh around it, as I haven't used my pumpkin to serve the soup in (I did however, leave enough that I could later carve it)
Then I more or less followed the recipe exactly for a while - softened the onions in the butter:
Chopped the pumpkin flesh and added it to the pan with a cinnamon stick, ground nutmeg, and salt and pepper:
I find timings on recipes online to be a bit out and/or inconsistent at times, but do cook this for the recommended 45 minutes to release all the flavour (I possibly even left it a little longer)
Added the stock and brought soup to the boil:
After letting it simmer for a few minutes I then liquidised it with a hand blender (Don't forget to remove the cinnamon stick at this point before liquidisation!) (NOTE: Hand blenders are incredible when making soup. It literally took 30-40 seconds):
This is where I diverged from the recipe, having brought the soup back to the boil, I added the sherry:
Having let that boil as well for 5 minutes or so, I tested the soup, and seasoned with pepper again.
Done!
It was really simple to make, and tastes delicious!
(NOTE: I wouldn't expect the amount we've made to really feed 4-5 unless they're quite small portions, but I find BBC recipes are always off on serving size anyway
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