Happy Halloween! In the spirit of things, Jenna and I attempted to carve pumpkins last weekend (see below…) Not wanting any pumpkin to go to waste, I decided to make a soup with the leftovers. We also tried to roast the seeds but then fell asleep watching ‘The Others’ and the seeds burnt to a crisp… Don’t let my failure put you off though – it’s worth trying because it adds a nice crunch sprinkled over the soup.

Shopping list: pumpkin, 2 onions, garlic, lentils, thyme, paprika, cinnamon, vegetable stock, natural yoghurt.

Pumpkin is a mega pain to chop up! When we carved our pumpkins, I laid newspaper all over the floor and still managed to just get pumpkin everywhere… I’m not sure I would cook with it in normal circumstances. It was almost as bad as when I grate carrots…

Gimme the soup:

1) Roast the pumpkin with the onions and 2 cloves of garlic. Cover with some olive oil, paprika, cinnamon, thyme, salt and pepper.

2) In the meantime, place 1 litre of vegetable stock in a large pan with 150g lentils. Let that simmer for 25-30 minutes.

3) Half an hour later, remove the roast veg and add to the vegetable stock. Add 100ml of natural yoghurt and blend.

Serve with a drizzle of natural yoghurt, some more thyme and some pumpkin seeds if you were successful!