How not to make “Country Pumpkin Soup”

Sometimes when you have homegrown pumpkins, you simply must make a nice warming wintry soup. What’s not to love? It’s good for you and can be very rewarding in terms of flavour. It’s no butternut squash of course but that can’t be helped.

However, there are also times when you’re just not that into making the soup. So do(n’t) try this at home!

Here’s what to do to make the terrible soup as above:

1. Wash, peel and boil those pumpkins to death – there’s no sense in trying to improve the taste by say, roasting them first.
2. Save lots of time by making the stock at the same time as boiling the pumpkins. The flavours won’t improve but you’ll probably save some gas. Plus, you can forget about it and leave it on the hob for hours and thereby further achieving step 1.
3. Add the classic country soup mixture – peas, lentils, grains and that sort of thing about half way through boiling the pumpkin to a pulp. But don’t pre-soak it, or wash it. In fact, that will help you to lengthen that cooking time yet again. And if you forget to stir regularly, even better – you will get some burnt bits to act as a kind of crouton.
4. Season at the very end, after it’s been removed from the hob, mashed and cooled. The fact that the taste will have been completely altered because of its temperature doesn’t matter, one little bit.
5. Don’t add the onion or garlic, until the very end. And when you do, make sure those onions are over crisp and the garlic is still a touch raw.
6. Forget about the herbs. Once you’ve added the salt, onion and overpowering garlic, there’s little room for further improvements.
7. Definitely don’t try to rectify it by turning it into a spicy pumpkin soup.
8. And finally, add cream and stir badly.

Enjoy… !