Pumpkin soup, of course!

 Pumpkin soup (p89) was an obvious recipe to be making during my budget challenge; pumpkins are particularly cheap at the moment. Even so, I was quite stoked when I walked into the Funky Pumpkin the other day and saw the bin of small pumpkins for $0.69. They were exactly the right size too - with the seeds and pulpy stuff taken out, the flesh amounted to just over the 750g I needed.

I'm not a big eater of pumpkin soup. Until a few years ago, I didn't eat pumpkin at all. I'll eat it happily enough now, but I can't say I liked the thought of eating pumpkin soup every day for a week or so. Since the soup made up a large chunk of the meals within my budget challenge plan, I had to find a way to make it palatable enough for repeated consumption.

Bacon bones are not a standard ingredient in the pumpkin soup recipe, but they are mentioned as a possible addition. Remembering how yummy my spicy lentil soup was with bacon bones, I thought that would make a considerable difference. $1.89 got me 2 bacon bones, which turned out to be cheaper than not putting them in.


How come? Well, the recipe called for 4 cups of chicken stock. I had a 500ml carton of stock in my cupboard, and I figured that I could substitute water for the other 500ml. The bacon bones would make up for the lost flavour. Since the bones were cheaper than another carton of stock, I came out on top with this one.

The worst part of making pumpkin soup is cutting up the pumpkin. I took advice from Mum on this point, and, after stabbing the pumpkin a few times for steam holes, I bunged it in the microwave for a few minutes. It was amazing how much easier it was to cut once it'd been microwaved. Even so, it still took a while, and I managed to cut myself a couple of times.


Eventually, all was ready. I'd been heating up some oil in a pot, (which, luckily, didn't quite catch fire while I was running to the bathroom with a bleeding finger. It was a close call though) so I started with the onions, after which I added the pumpkin, some potato, the stock, water and bacon bones. Bring to the boil, set to simmer, and wait. Easy.

The pumpkin and potato cooked quite quickly, but I had to wait a bit longer for the meat to cook on the bacon bones. When they were ready, I pulled them out, scavenged all the meat off them and stuck it back in the pot. I've discovered I didn't do a great job of sorting through the bits of meat, (probably because I was doing it in the ad breaks) since I've found a few bits of gristle in the soup. I'll have to be more careful next time.


Next, I poured the whole lot into my food processor and blitzed it. There was quite a lot, and the processor was a bit over-full, but it did the job. When the texture was nice and smooth, I returned the soup to the pot and tasted it. It was still too sweet to my taste, so I put in quite a lot of salt.

I'm pretty happy with the result. I think I'll manage to eat this for lunch for a few days in a row at least. I'll put a bit more in the freezer so I can have some more next week (when I've had a chance to eat something else for a change). I definitely prefer it with the flavour from the bacon bones: it cuts through the sweetness of the pumpkin. I couldn't say whether a pumpkin soup connoisseur would be keen on my version, but it's good enough for me.