Warming squash soup

Prep Time: 20 Mins
Cooking Time: 20 Mins
Total Time: 40 Mins

Ingredients:

  • Veg oil
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 large squash (e.g. Uchiki kuri, blue or green Kuri squash, Crown Prince squash, few little Harlequin squash)
  • Veg stock
  • Paprika

Optional topping

  • Sunflower seeds
  • Pumpkin seeds
  • Soy sauce or tamari

Directions:

  1. Fry onions in veg oil in a deep pot
  2. Chop up the squash and lob in
  3. Turn down pot to a simmer and pour in veg stock
  4. Add some paprika (smoked paprika is nice if you’ve got it in)
  5. Cook with lid on until squash is soft
  6. Blend it all up with a stick blender, adding more hot stock if it needs thinning out.

For optional topping

  1. Heat a frying pan on the hob on full
  2. Chuck in handful of seeds
  3. Stir seeds around to toast- you’ll hear a popping sound
  4. When seeds nicely toasted turn off heat
  5. In the still hot pan, add in dashes of soy sauce and stir around so all seeds have a coating of soy sauce. The sauce will evaporate and leave a sticky yummy savoury taste on the seeds
  6. Leave seeds to cool on a plate, they will crisp up when cooled
  7. Sprinkle a bit on your soup to serve!

Notes:
Funny old year for squash- lets make the most of the smaller than usual harvest this year after the cool summer. Really simple but the squash gives such an excellent flavour. I feel like this recipe is a “if its not broke dont fix it” deal. Often whipped up for shared farm lunches when its cold outside 🙂