Pumpkin Soup with Crispy Bacon and Spiced Parsnip Chips

So we’ve learned that when Issy and Ang go shopping for a pumpkin to carve….

They come home with 3.

Of varying sizes and colours.

Seriously… can’t take us anywhere.

So anyway, we obviously carved one…

‘We’ being Angela, who battled with an absolute beast of a pumpkin! Though, it was totally worth it to have our own little Calcifer -Howls Moving Castle reference- … even if it only lasted a few days before going bad. Sad face.

But then we were left with two to play with….

We knew we wanted to try out all these awesome fancy autumnal recipes… but in all honesty the ghost pumpkin just confused us/looked too pretty to hack up, so we made do with the last dinky boring orange one.

Et voila, we made soup!

And it was goooood.

Ingredients

450g pumpkin

1 red onion, peeled, quartered

sprig of sage

1tsp ground nutmeg

2tsp ground cumin

knob of butter

1tsp garlic paste (or 2 cloves of chopped garlic)

250ml vegetable stock

salt and pepper

splash of cream

few rashers of bacon

1 parsnip

olive oil

1tsp ground cumin

1tsp paprika

Method

For the soup, quarter the pumpkin and roast in an oven with the onion at 180ºC for 1hr. Leave to cool before handling.

In a saucepan fry the garlic, spices and sage with a knob of butter. For added heat, you could stir through 1tsp of red chilli powder. Add the vegetable stock and simmer for a few minutes.

Scoop the pumpkin and puree with the onion. Add to stock and mix till pouring consistency. Season with salt and pepper, and serve with a fancy swirl of cream and some obligatory bacon strips (grilled on both sides for a few minutes).

For the parsnip chips, thinly slice the parsnip and lightly coat in a drizzle of olive oil and the ground cumin and paprika. Grill for a few minutes till crisp.