Creamy Roasted Pumpkin Soup

The temperatures are begining to drop here in Johannesburg :(. But the exciting news is that it is going to be soup season soon.....So to get me more excited I randomly made quite a tasty pumpkin soup. The nice part is you don't have to peal this pumpkin while it is dry (what a work out!). Try it out and enjoy:

Ingredients

½ a large pumpkin
3 tbsp Cream cheese
1 tbsp Butter
3 Spring onions chopped
2 tbsp chopped Coriander
250 ml veg stock (alt chicken or beef stock)
250 ml milk
1 potato peeled and chopped (or handful pasta shells)
Chilli flakes sprinkled
Pepper and salt to taste

Directions
1. Sprinkle salt and pepper over pumpkin place 1 tbsp butter in the centre of pumpkin. Cover with foil and place in a preheated oven till cooked and pulp is easy to scoop out of shell.

2. Place Pumpkin pulp in pot with 500mls vegetable stock and remaining ingredients. Mix well and bring to boil.

3. Once the mixture has boiled through and potato (or pasta is cooked), stir in cream cheese.

4. Place all ingredients into a blender and blend well.

5. Place soup back into pot and cook till it thickens to your desire add more milk if you would like to change the consistency.

Lentil Something Something

I am starting to be very creative with my vegetarian dishes. So much so that my husband is actually considering eating only 2 meat dishes a week. Imagine  now that means something must be tasting good. So try this Lentil something something dish it tastes like there is chicken in it …but there is not. The sweet potato and grated apple adds a wonderful flavour to the curry. I just added stuff that I had but wow it tasted amazing. Try it.


1 T sesame seed oil (optional else olive oil)
1 Cup onions
3 cloves garlic
1.5 T ginger
4 cups water or veg stock
1 cup Red Lentils
1t cumin, 1t coriander, 1.5 tsp Turmeric (substitute these spices for 2 T curry powder)
1 bay leaf
1 tsp Lemon juice (optional)
1 grated apple (optional)

1 grated tomato

1.5 red pepper

1 cup cabbage

1.5 Cups chopped sweet potato

Coriander to garnish

1. Fry onions, garlic and ginger till onions are transparent

2. Add the spices and mix till you can smell the aroma

3. Add remaining ingredients (excluding coriander leaves), Salt and Pepper to taste.

4. Mix well and simmer covered for 15 -20minutes. Keep checking if more water is needed. The texture should be a thick soup at the end.

5. Serve warm with coriander (can be served with rice or eaten alone)