A rainy day staple

For me that would be soup. I just love the comfort and warmth a soup offers... I know that I might have a strange relationship with food, but you can't really tell me that I'm wrong about that.

A winter and autumn favourite is pumpkin soup. So whenever I come across a new recipe for a hearty pumpkin soup, I try to put my own spin on it.

The following soup was inspired by Jamie Oliver (original recipe can be found in his newest book), especially when it came to seasoning.

But as always - I changed it a bit.

Hearty roasted pumpkin soup

Ingredients:

• a pumpkin; basically any would work
• 3-4 potatoes
• an onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• fresh thyme; to be more precise: a handful of its leaves
• fresh coriander (cilantro) 
• Harissa paste
• salt, pepper
• olive oil

Preheat the oven to 160 °C/ 320 °F. Cut the pumpkin and the peeled potatoes into even (or almost even) sizes. Halve the onion and peel the garlic cloves.

In a bowl mix the thyme leaves, 2 tsp of Harissa paste and a generous amount of olive oil.

Line a baking tray with a sheet and spread the vegetables. Now rub them with the olive oil- mixture. this will get your hands messy, if you are not a fan of that - neither am I- just use two spoons an toss everything around until it is covered.

Now roast them in the oven for about 50 to 60 minutes. 

When everything is soft and nicely toasted put the vegetables in a pot and cover them with water. You could also use vegetable broth. (I am trying to cut back on salt a little - so I went with water)

Bring to boil and let simmer for 10 minutes.

I used that time to prepare some bacon (160°C--10 to 15 minutes) and some bread as sides.

Now  purée away until you are happy with the 'smoothness' :) 

Season with salt, pepper and the coriander leaves. 

Bon Appétit

P.S.: I used the Harissa paste as a bread spread, topped it with some crème fraîche and some coriander leaves. That went extremely well with the soup.