A pumpkin hunting holiday

I’m a bit late with my blog post for this week, I’ve been on holiday, hooray for me … a two day week at work is just the way it should be!  However, I haven’t been slacking, I’ve been hunting pumpkins!  Please excuse the grey photos, it was a rather grey rainy day!

Peirce Orchard - Central Otago

There are two things that I would love to grow in the garden that I haven’t so far, raspberries and pumpkins.  I just don’t think I have the room or at least the right set up.  Raspberries can go mad if not kept contained with suckers running wild underground, then they need a support network and net cage otherwise it all goes to the birds … maybe one day I can organise a contained / raised bed in an unobtrusive corner.  I haven’t tried, but they can also be grown in containers as long as the container is at least 60 cm wide … hmmm, that’s got me eyeing up the metal trough by our fence that I had earmarked for beans… hmmm.  Anyway, pumpkins … pumpkins just take up a lot of space and like to ramble, again I’ve got a flowerbed with a falling down tree in it, perhaps when the tree gets removed it could be the pumpkin patch? 

That said, I’m not sure it is worth growing it myself.  Along the roads to central Otago in autumn there are stalls of pumpkins and apples for sale, the usual deal seems to be 4 for $10 … pretty cheap.  I only really use pumpkins for one reason, pumpkin soup,  I like a bit of roast pumpkin every now and then but that’s about it.  I have visions of growing heaps of massive pumpkins and then getting sick of needing to find new recipes for pumpkins for all eternity.  So, I might just stick to going pumpkin hunting each autumn and filling the freezer up with soup for the rest of the year.  I was mightily peeved earlier in the year when I was craving pumpkin soup and a miserable wedge of pumpkin was $8 compared to this time of year the whole pumpkin costs about $5 in the supermarkets.  So lesson learnt for me, shop seasonally and stockpile the goodies! 

Pumpkins galore!

Farmers markets are your friends if you have them nearby, or fruit & veg stalls in the wop wops like the one we stopped at are good places for cheap pumpkins.   I was very tempted by a 10 for $20 deal but then realised that this was madness.  I bought 4 for $10 and I think that will do me fine!  I can’t fit that much soup in the freezer, (1 pumpkin makes about 10 portions of soup) so the other 3 remaining pumpkins will store nicely in a cool dark place until I am ready for them.  For cooking, ignore the orange jack'o'lantern pumpkins like in the first photo above, great for halloween but not as tasty for cooking with.  The grey pumpkins are my favourite but any kind of eating pumpkin will work well with the recipe.

Soup in the making, lotta eating on that there pumpkin!

It is my favourite soup, no contest, I like really chunky or thick soups.  This soup could probably more technically be called a puree, but it is damn tasty and full of flavour, recipe below … don’t leave out the curry powder or bacon if possible, it doesn’t make the soup spicy but it works so well for the flavour … mmmmmm.

Definitely need help with my photos though, anyone know a good photography course!?

Thick pumpkin soup

Should make multiple servings depending on the size of your pumpkin, if it is a massive pumpkin then I slightly increase the ingredient, the one I made this weekend needed about 1.5 times the recipe.  Just remember you can always add more spices near the end of the cooking if it is a bit bland, or a bit more hot stock if the soup is a bit thick, better to add more at the blending stage than have a watery or over-spiced soup.

- 1 large onion, diced
- 3 rashers bacon
- 1 tsp ginger
- 1 tbsp coriander
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- pumpkin, peeled and chopped in to even sized chunks (no need for tiny chunks, maybe a couple of inches)
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp curry powder
- chicken stock

In a very large saucepan, cook the onion in oil until soft, add ginger, bacon, coriander and garlic.  Fry until bacon is cooked through.

Add pumpkin to pan and stir around to coat well.  Add enough chicken stock to just cover the pumpkin and simmer until soft.  Remove from the heat and blend with a stick blender until smooth.  

Serve with crusty bread, a spoonful of sour cream or yoghurt swirled through and garnished with a fresh coriander leaf.