50 mins
Not Too Tricky
serves 6
About the recipe
This vibrant soup is pretty hands-off – you just chuck it all in a tray, roast, then blitz with stock until you have a creamy, velvety smooth soup. It’s great for batch cooking, or using up what’s in the fridge. My cheesy sage croutons are a game-changer, and take this humble autumnal dish to the next level.
Ingredients
1 pumpkin or butternut squash (1.2kg)
2 onions
olive oil
2 eating apples
2 cloves of garlic
½ a bunch of fresh sage (10g)
200g stale bread
50g Cheddar cheese
1 organic vegetable stock cube
Top Tip
Don’t throw your pumpkin or squash seeds away – turn them into a super-tasty snack. Pull off any strings of flesh, then rinse, dry and scatter onto a baking tray. Season with sea salt, and a spice of your choice, then toss with a drizzle of oil and bake at 180ºC for 10 minutes. Delicious!
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.
- Scrub the pumpkin or squash, slice in half and scoop out the seeds (see tip), then roughly chop the flesh. Peel and slice the onions into wedges. Chuck it all into a large roasting tray and drizzle over 2 tablespoons of oil, then roast for 30 minutes, or until soft and gnarly.
- Meanwhile, core the apples and slice into wedges, and bash and peel the garlic cloves. When the time’s up, chuck them all into the tray with a few sage leaves, and roast for a further 10 minutes.
- Slice the bread into 2cm chunks and place on a baking tray, then pick over the remaining sage leaves. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of oil, toss to coat and spread out into a single layer. Finely grate over 20g of the Cheddar and bake for 5 minutes, or until golden and crisp.
- Remove the pumpkin tray from the oven and tip everything into a large pan on a medium heat. Crumble in the stock cube, pour over 1 litre of boiling water and grate in the remaining Cheddar. Bring to the boil for a couple of minutes, then remove from the heat and blitz until smooth.
- Season to perfection, then divide between bowls and top with the croutons and crispy sage.
Tags
