Eco-club Diary

Hi all,

in our last eco-club on Tuesday we sowed our sweetpea seeds in the toilet rolls.  We also sowed some basil seeds as we hope to grow some on our window sill for use in HE. 

We also had some visitors from Iraq last week in our school and we were delighted that they loved our garden.  We planted an oak tree to commemorate their visit.

Rachel and Ellen had brought in pumpkin soup recipes so we all looked at the two recipes and mixed them up a bit to suit what we thought would be nice.  The pumpkins will be ready by next week to harvest and we are going to make our spicy pumpkin soup in eco-club.

Here is our recipe below.

Spicy Roast Pumpkin Soup


Pumpkin could be substituted with Butternut squash

Ingredients:

4medium cloves garlic, unpeeled

1kg peeled, deseeded pumpkin

1 tablespoon oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 medium potato, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Pinch of chilli powder

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 litre vegetable or chicken stock

1-2tsp caster sugar (optional, depending on the sweetness of the pumpkin)

To serve:

Cream, for serving

Ground nutmeg, for serving



Method

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/ gas mark 6.

Chop pumpkin into even-sized pieces (larger pieces will require a longer roasting time). Place pumpkin and unpeeled garlic cloves in a baking tray/dish, drizzle with three teaspoons of the oil and toss to coat with oil. © exclusivelyf

Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the garlic so that it doesn't overcook. Continue baking pumpkin until tender and cooked through. Keep an eye on the pumpkin to ensure it doesn't burn.



Heat a teaspoon of oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, diced potato, nutmeg, cumin, chilli powder, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, for one minute.



Add pumpkin and stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until onion and potatoes are soft and stock has reduced, about 20 minutes. The more the stock reduces, the thicker the soup will be.

Peel roasted garlic and add to saucepan. Add sugar if necessary.

Puree the soup using a blender.



Serve the soup hot. Top with a drizzle of cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg, if desired.

I will put some photos up on Tuesday when we cook it next week.  If you make it why not post a comment and let us know if it is nice.Will update next week.