Pumpkin soup...

 Well, if we had any doubts about the arrival of winter, they're gone.

Over a weekend of wind and rain, we've been brutally slammed into winter. The leaves have been stripped from the trees and are rapidly turning into a wet soggy mass. It's time to hunker down with a good book  and eat soup.

But what sort of soup?

Pumpkin - pumpkins are cheap and plentiful at the end of autumn, and it's easy enough to make your own.

Go to the supermarket or your local organic vegetable store and get a hunk of pumpkin - we usually go for Kent pumpkin if there's a choice, but if there's not, any pumpkin will do, although butternut can be blander than the others.

Peel and roughly cube the pumpkin. 

In a decent size pot heat up a generous dribble of olive oil, add garlic, some chopped celery, diced carrot, diced red onion, a bit of leek and a finely chopped hunk of ginger and a couple of birds eye chillis - we have our own from the garden - change and vary the ingredients as you feel appropriate, but you do really need the ginger, garlic, onion, celery and carrot for flavour. If you don't have any fresh chillis to hand, tabasco or even srichacha works well. 

Once the leek and celery are a vivid green colour, throw in the pumpkin and stir the veggie mix around for a minute or so.

Add water to cover, a chicken stock cube, salt and pepper bring to a gentle boil. Add a couple of handfuls of red lentils to give it a bit of body.

Leave it to cook until the pumpkin is mashy - ie it can be coarsely mashed with a wooden spoon.

Remove from the heat and use a stick blender to turn it into a smooth glop a little reminiscent of old fashioned wall paper paste.

Decant into a container and leave to cool.

Serve with toasted crusty bread to make a filling lunch - we usually find that a standard supermarket hunk of pumpkin makes enough soup for the two of us to have it for lunch two days running.

This is very much a 'your mileage may vary' recipe, but believe me, when the wind is howling outside and there's a constant rattle of wind driven rain on the tin roof, it will warm your soul...