roasted pumpkin soup

We have heaps of pumpkins at the moment from the garden, so some pumpkin soup was in order.

I love pumpkin soup but VCH is not so keen, so I tend to make it for a winter lunch when he is not home.

My favourite way is to roast the pumpkin with some onion and garlic and a little olive oil.

Then I add it to some chicken or vegetable stock I have made and blend it.

Salt, cracked pepper and some freshly grated nutmeg finish it off.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Yesterday I also made some cheese scones.

I made scones the usual way adding some grated cheddar, parmesan cheese and a little bit of smoked paprika when mixing in the milk.

After cutting them and putting on the tray I sprinkled on some more parmeson and paprika. 

Served hot with the soup they were delicious!

roasted vegetable and chicken soup

This delicious soup is something that I experimented with when I had the flu and wanted to make chicken soup to nourish and heal me. 

Unfortunately I spoiled the first version by adding noodles. 

So for some time I have been meaning to go back and make it again without the noodles and see what it was like.

It was divine and even VCH who is a very fussy soup eater loved it, taking it to watch B1 play soccer one very cold Friday Night.

It was a rainy week - definitely soup making weather.

We had had chicken biriyani the night before so I took the bones and added celery, carrot, onion, garlic, parsley and salt and water to make a stock. 

Meanwhile I cut up potato, pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato into soup sized pieces and drizzled them with olive oil. 

I added a whole head of garlic with the top cut off and roasted them in the oven until cooked and browned.

As I already had the leftover chicken from the biriyani I just cut that up into small pieces and drizzled a little olive oil over the top and popped it in with the veges for the final 5-10 minutes to give it a roasted effect. 

The first time I made this I started with a piece of Chicken Maryland, where I roasted the chicken then stripped off the meat and made the stock with the bones.

When the stock was cooked I strained it and then put it back into the pot and added my veges and chicken. 

To thicken the soup I took a little bit of stock and mixed in some organic gluten free gravy mix (you could just use flour or cornflour) then added it back into the soup and cooked it until it had thickened slightly.

Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

It was so yummy! 

I was going to try a bowl of soup with some peas added to give that true roast dinner effect, but the soup was all gone before I had a chance.

I am definitely going to make this again starting with a small whole chicken to make enough for our family of 8.