Pumpkin soup (for Halloween)

Here’s an idea for a very simple, fairly quick pumpkin soup (30 minutes and it’s ready). Uncomplicated, with no need for lots of ingredients. No curry, but plenty of ginger. Perfect for Halloween (take a look at the serving suggestion with ghost-shaped snacks; I like it :)), but also for chilly autumn evenings in November.

All in all, this pumpkin soup recipe really hit the spot for me. The soup is exceptionally light, with a hint of citrus, slightly sweet and velvety. It doesn’t need cream stirred into it. In fact, it can do without any extras. Tasty. And it really is ready in a flash.

Where did it come from? Ninka and I were making Halloween pumpkins today. Carving faces into them, I mean 🙂 And I felt a bit bad about throwing away what was left. Of course, the whole big bowl of guts and seeds went in the bin. If we’d only been making one pumpkin, there probably wouldn’t have been enough, but we prepared three, including one huge pumpkin.

The cut-out pieces alone (the lids and all the openings) added up to about 1/3 of a small pumpkin. So the idea of a quick soup took shape. I recommend it.

And while we’re at it, take a look — they turned out pretty well, didn’t they?

By the way, if you don’t know how to go about carving a pumpkin, nothing could be simpler. Just cut out a lid, scoop out the soft flesh and seeds, and let your imagination run wild designing the pumpkin’s face. It has to be terrifyingly scary, with the odd dental filling (those are the hardest bits to carve). See for yourselves:

Recipe details:

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Serves: 4 portions

Calories: hardly any

Ingredients for pumpkin soup:

• 1/3 of a small pumpkin
• 1 apple (mine was moderately tart)
• 4 cm piece of fresh ginger
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 shallot
• 2 stock cubes (vegetable)
• 1 tablespoon Vegeta seasoning
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• half a teaspoon of salt
• a pinch of ground black pepper 
• two tablespoons olive oil

Recipe for pumpkin soup with plenty of ginger and no curry:

I put the peeled pumpkin pieces into a pot (I had a typical Halloween pumpkin, which needs peeling). I added the peeled apple, cut into strips. I added two tablespoons of olive oil, two teaspoons of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt and a pinch of pepper.

I put the pot on the heat (6 on a scale of 1 – 10 on my induction hob) and fried everything for a few minutes, stirring frequently. Meanwhile, I peeled the shallot, garlic and ginger. I chopped them into small pieces and added them to the pumpkin frying with the apple and seasonings.

After roughly 6 minutes of frying, I poured two glasses of warm water (previously boiled) over the vegetables and added two stock cubes. I mixed everything thoroughly, reduced the heat (from 6 to 4 on my induction hob, on a scale of 1 – 10) and cooked it for 20 minutes.

After that time (the pumpkin pieces should be soft), I set the soup aside to cool a little. Once it was no longer boiling hot, I blended it until smooth. Soup ready. I served it with ghost-shaped snacks, perfect for Halloween. Don’t they look cute 🙂 But if you’d rather not, I promise it tastes just as good without the ghosts. Enjoy!