British Expatriate Network

I have a great recipe for Pumpkin Soup. I made it today, its absolutely gorgeous!!

Pumpkin Soup

50g (2 oz) Butter
2 Onions, chopped
1 Clove garlic, crushed
900g (2lb) Pumpkin, peeled, de-seeded & diced
250g (8oz) Potatoes, diced
2 Tsp Tomato puree
600ml (20oz) Chicken stock
2 Tsp Lime juice
½ Tsp Mixed Spice*
600ml (20oz) Milk
150ml (5oz) Sour cream
1 Tbsp Fresh Coriander (Cilantro), Chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

*Mixed spice is a blend of sweet spices containing cinnamon, coriander seed, caraway, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.

Method Melt butter in a large saucepan, add onion and garlic, cook gently until soft. Add pumpkin and potatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes, then add tomato puree, stock, seasonings, lime juice and spice. Bring to the boil, cover and gently simmer for 40 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Pour the soup into a liquidiser and blend until smooth. Return to the saucepan, add the milk and bring back to the boil. Adjust seasoning if required. Remove from heat and stir in the sour cream and chopped coriander. Serve with hot crusty bread. Serves 6.


One caveat.. it makes quite a lot, so if youre not feeding a family, you might want to freeze some of the mixture, after you liquidise it, and before you add the milk!

Ive got a recipe for pumpkin pie if anyone wants. smile

Plus you can roast the seeds too!

mmmm smile

You know I don't get that roasting seed stuff. I had some yesterday (and I had some last year and still didn't learn). It's like eating bits of wood. What am I missing cry

It's <!-- BBCode Start --><font color=#ffff00>how</font><!-- BBCode End --> you roast them.

What you should do is rinse off all the ex-punkin, dry them thoroughly in paper towel, then toss them in a little olive oil and then add seasoning.

I make my own cajun style seasoning (somewhat like Paul Prudhommes rubs), with equal parts of garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, sea salt, dried oregano, paprika ,some cumin, and adjusted to my own taste.

Or you can buy Paul's seasoning or Zatrain's make a good ready mixed cajun spice to shake over stuff.

The next step is to have a hot oven, about 400F, spread the seeds over a parchment paper lined cookie sheet (with all the seeds in one layer) and roast until they're crispy. This can take about 20 minutes or so.

Remove from the oven and then sprinkle some more seasonings (not too much - taste first) over the seeds and eat.

They really don't keep too well, but make sure you take them off of the cookie sheet once you've seasoned them (put them into a paper towel lined bowl), so they do not go tough.

Andrew

Andrew, is your name Martha?

Bite me :lol:

That woman is <!-- BBCode Start --><font color=#ff0000>SATAN</font><!-- BBCode End -->

In all honesty, she has some good ideas, I just can't deal with her voice.

I have cooked since I was 11 years old. It started as a result of asking my Mum "where's my dinner?"

She said, in no uncetain terms, if you talk to me like that you can cook it yourself.

So I did, I found some of my Grandma's recipes and cooked.

From then on I literally cooked all the holiday meals, made sandwiches, did canning, made jams etc etc etc. Cooked pretty much all of the week.

Bought my first carbon steel 18" wok at 14. That was chinese and balti cooking taken care of (before Balti became popular). In Balti cooking they have a karahi (sp/), similar in shape to a wok, and does the same thing.

I progressed through self taught French techniques, sauces, cakes etc etc. Bought Escoffier, and taught myself all the basics...

Fast forward to moving to this country, Spanish/Mexican cooking blew me away. I simply adore peppers, jalapeno's, cayenne you name it I've grown it and made hot sauces, powders whatever.

A few years back someone tried to coax me into opening either a restaurant or a school. They offered me $$ to do it too. I did neither. This is my karma.

I'll cook for anyone, offer advice and send 'em recipes I've either concocted myself, tweaked from originals or just found. (I'll give credit where necessary too).

Moving here opened up the world for me as far as cooking is concerned. I have met Julia Child, (my hero) and Jaques Pepin.

I have "helped" (loose term - I asked for his autograph and he wanted to see what I knew, asked me to make a bearnaise..easy) Emeril in the kitchen at Emerils in New Orleans (my other hero).

I just adore food. When you think that people spend nearly a third of their monthly budget on food, it should do what it's supposed to do. Make you feel good.

It runs hand in hand with sex :wink: . The feelings and tactile nature of food just send me off....

Did I ramble?

Andrew

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: maczippy on 2001-11-01 13:29 ]</font>

No, you didn't ramble. It was a great post and very interesting. I'm definitely a Mr. Average in the kitchen but enjoy hearing from people who are excellent chefs.

Very cool that you got to meet your heroes here too and I know what you mean about Spanish/Mexican food - I love the spices and peppers involved in that.

Thanks Mark,

I do ramble though - my wife tells me that...

lol

I do enjoy your posts Maczippy. As someone who hates cooking, but persevers in the kitchen to provide a healthy diet for my family, you are my hero. What I would give to be married to someone who enjoys cooking smile Your Emily is a very lucky woman.
You remind me of my brother, who also does all the cooking and revels in it.
You must be a revelation to the American's, because it seems to me that noone cooks here, just order takeouts.

Thank you, I do appreciate the kind words!

I too feel fortunate in having someone who loves what I do also. As for the takeouts and going to restaurants, friends we have have long since given up trying to drag us out to dinner....

They come here, don't have to worry about drink driving, stay the night and have some bang up nosh!

Thanks again for the words though.

Andrew

I've never heard anyone sound so passionate about food. Tell me what you think about American cooking. Here are a few things that I find odd biscuits and gravy, pancakes, peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches. Anyone else think of any oddities?

This one I can't get into. For me it's too weird, I have tried it and just can't do it. Although, on the flip side there would be people just as horrified with curry sauce on french fries or chips (let alone actually ordering something like faggots peas and chips in a chippie...).

I like American food, it's rather hard to define as the culture is so broad, with so many international influences, but the staples (I consider these to be centred around holidays) if done well, can be very enjoyable.

One of my favourite cookbooks that champions American cooking is called "American Home Cooking by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison".

It has a bunch of really excellent traditional homestyle Amrican recipes, with historical and genral background information alongside.

Andrew

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: maczippy on 2001-11-11 13:16 ]</font>

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

had a discussion with a British cow orker about food, and PBJ came up.... he said "I cant believe you would actually make up a batch of jelly and wait for it to set just to make a sandwich."... I then had to explain what jelly means in American. Now I just call it a Peanut butter and jam sandwich.

Oddities I thought sweet popcorn in the cinema was odd. Caramel corn or toffee popcorn is pretty standard in pre-packaged bags, though.

Natalie-

Sadly, much to the chagrin of Emily, I cannot do popcorn either...

It's kinda up there with those evil rice cakes...

Andrew

Andy,

I must admit you are a very entertaining writer of your cooking fancy...I enjoy it immensely. I am terrible in the kitchen, with patience more than effort.

I have devised a half hour rule that is in effect in my house until further notice. If a recipe takes more than half an hour to prepare, I will not make it - why? Because my husband being the militry man he is, will eat it in five minutes flat, no matter whether I have spent 10 minutes or 3 hours on it. Also just found out I'm diabetic so that kind of puts the dampers on the good stuff I love!

Anyway, keep up the interesting posts, and the recipes are making my mouth water razz