Cheap Recipe – Zesty Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients:
- Butter (margarine will do fine, whatever you already have)
- One or two leeks
- Chicken or vegetable stock (about a litre – that’s about 2.1 pints)
- Butternut pumpkin (depending on how many people you’re serving for, a half usually does. I used two and made 7 meals from this recipe.)
- Paprika (optionalish – it makes a real difference)
- Salt and pepper (optional)
- Cooking cream (I use extra light, you can also use milk if you want)
- An orange
- Low-fat puff-pastry (I use pre-rolled sheets, but it’s more economical to make your own!)
- Garlic (optional)
- An egg
Slice the leeks and warm the butter in your soup pot while you’re doing it. If you happen to have garlic around, feel free to throw some crushed garlic into the pot. Put the leeks in the pot on low heat and stir ’til they’re coated in the butter. In the meantime, peel and cut the pumpkin into small cubes. When the leeks are soft and the whites are slightly translucent, put the pumpkin in the pot. Almost immediately, add the stock. Cover the pot, bring the whole lot to the boil and then simmer, covered until the pumpkin is very soft. Allow the soup to cool. Grate the rind from the orange and add it to the pot along with the salt, pepper and paprika to taste. Transfer everything to a food processor (or blender) if you have it, otherwise just mash it up! Add cream to taste. Cut the pastry to cover small ramekin dishes. Put the soup in the dishes and cover with pastry. Brush the pastry with the egg (whisked) and bake in the oven until it’s golden.
The effect of this is to have what looks like a small pie served to each person. When they break through the pastry, they’re greeted with a waft of the citrus from the orange plus the sweetness of the soup. Everyone I’ve ever served this to has absolutely raved about it, and it’s so very cheap!
Budget tips for this recipe: The good thing about this recipe is that you’ll often have lots of the ingredients at home already. If you don’t have pastry pre-made, just make your own. If you don’t have cream at home, or are watching the pennies or your waistline, it can be substituted for milk. Same with the egg, some of the warmed butter will have the same effect! If you’re so inclined, you can make your own vegetable / chicken stock in large batches and freeze it for future use. This is really cost effective, but is time consuming. I buy premade salt-reduced liquid stock (when it’s on sale) but you can equally make up your own from stock cubes, which will cost you less than a dollar (just watch the salt content of these). If you don’t have paprika in the house, try cummin or cinnamon. Finally, I use butternut pumpkin because it’s sweeter than your regular pumpkin, but you can really have fun with the flavour by experimenting with different pumpkin types! It’s cheapest, healthiest and tastiest to buy whichever is in season.
Remember to put whatever is left over into a container and into the fridge or freezer.
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