Pumpkins are widely available during this time of year.
One Northern Irish food blogger has shared a tasty slow cooker spiced pumpkin soup recipe for you to try - and it looks so easy!
Nate Grimley created his Bored of Lunch Belfast account on Instagram during lockdown to help inspire others to spruce up their meals.
His cook-alongs and recipes are mostly healthy, and this one is perfect for Halloween or to simply warm you up during the cold weather.
Ingredients
- 1 edible pumpkin, or butternut squash if preferred
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 1 potato, chopped
- 1 onion, diced
- Honey
- 4 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1-2 inches of chopped/grated ginger
- 1 tsp of cumin, ground coriander and curry powder
- Chilli, optional
- 1.2 litres of vegetable stock
Method
1. Cut pumpkin in half and remove seeds.
2. Add pumpkin and chopped carrots to a baking tray with a generous drizzle of honey and salt and pepper. Bake at 180 C for 45 minutes.
3. Let it cool for 10 minutes.
4. To your slow cooker, add chopped potato with the skin on, onion, garlic, ginger, cumin, curry powder and corriander. Then season the ingredients.
5. Add the carrots and pumpkin to the slow cooker. Scoop the pumpkin from the skin with a spoon, it will come off very easily.
6. Cook for 2 hours and 30 minutes on high.
7. Blend with a hand blender and serve.
Nate told Be his top tips and the difference between normal and edible pumpkins.
- Edible pumpkins are much smaller and come in a range of colours and sizes including green and white, but mainly varying colours of orange.
- They are quite dense. Carving pumpkins don’t have a lot of flesh on the inside and it can be very stringy and watery, which is not great for cooking with.
- Carving pumpkins are also quite hollow because there is not much flesh in the middle.
- You’ll get great cooking pumpkins from your local fruit and veg shop, farmshop and some supermarkets.
- A good cooking pumpkin will have plenty of flesh on the inside for you to roast. It’s very difficult to carve an edible pumpkin.
- The inside of a cooking pumpkin will be reminiscent of a butternut squash, perfect for roasting.
