Pumpkin soup

Pumpkin soup with Asian flavours

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

Hi there, I hope you’ve had a good week. Mine has been massive. While I don’t write too much here about what I do, I’ll use the words; COVID-19, winter infection planning, Japanese encephalitis, floods, and Ukraine. One of the blessings of my job is diversity. I love my job and the people with whom I work. While there is always some work on weekends, I hope the people I work with won’t be overwhelmed with the volume of work they need to manage.

A few people who read the blog have mentioned from time to time a desire to see if I can write about a meal that doesn’t have meat (including bacon or speck).

I’m not the most imaginative cook. I like routine because it’s easy to live a life that way. Living alone also means there is no need for sophistication in my cooking. I think of myself as an elementary cook. My gadgets make cooking more manageable and exciting, but I’m a simple soul with simple tastes.

I was chatting with my girlfriend, who also suggested I consider some meat-free options on the blog. In my mind, the most leisurely and most delicious meal to make with enough to keep me going for a few meals is soup. I mentioned bacon a couple of paragraphs above because I often add some bacon to what may essentially be a vegetable soup. So the challenge for me this weekend is not to add meat to any meal.

Pestle and coffee tamper

Ingredients

  • Kent pumpkin
  • Crème gold washed potato
  • White onion
  • Root ginger (noun not verb)
  • Vegetable oil
  • Iodised salt
  • Vegetable stock
  • Coconut cream
  • Laksa paste
  • Lemongrass stalks
  • Coriander
  • Jalapeño sourdough bread
  • Lime juice
  • Olive oil based butter substitute to spread on the bread with plant sterols to allegedly lower serum cholesterol

Instructions

  1. Turn on the oven and set the temperature to 180 °C (fan forced).
  2. With a large Chinese meat cleaver, cut the pumpkin and potato into rough chunks. If your meat cleaver isn’t sharp, sharpen it first. There’s nothing like the feel of a cleaver in hand. If you don’t have one and can afford one, a Chinese meat cleaver also makes a fantastic pizza cutter, especially if it has a curved blade.
  3. Pour a little vegetable oil into the palm of your non-dominant hand and then rub your hands a little so you can rib some oil over the surfaces of the pumpkin and spud chunks, including the skin.
  4. Season the spuds and pumpkin with some salt, rubbing the salt over the surfaces.
  5. Put the pumpkin and potato onto a lubricated baking sheet and cook in the oven until the flesh is soft and if you poke the skin it breaks apart.
  6. Pour some vegetable oil into a large saucepan and turn on the heat.
  7. Cut an onion into quarters and put them into the saucepan and begin the long patient process of caramelising the onions.
  8. Keep gently sautéing the onions until the have turned the colour you lust after. Keep moving them to avoid the onions from sticking to the base of the saucepan.
  9. When the roasted and caramelised pumpkin and potato are ready add them to the saucepan over the onions and then add some vegetable stock. Use your favourite spatula to rub out the fond which has formed on the stainless steel base of the saucepan.
  10. Add a generous tablespoon of laksa paste and a couple of bruised lemongrass stalks. Add the root ginger too. If you’re at a loss for how to bruise the lemongrass, I’d suggest using a heavy stone pestle or a heavy stainless steel coffee tamper. I’ve included a photo for you to see. I basically give the lemongrass stalks a good whack up and down the shaft.
  11. Simmer the soup so the watery stock reduces.
  12. Pour in a tin of coconut cream and chopped roots, stalks, and leaves of a bunch of coriander.
  13. When everything looks like it’s been incorporated and well mixed and thickening like the consistency of thicken cream turn off the heat, remove the lemongrass stalks, and use a stick blender to process the soup. Towards the end squeeze in some lime juice for a little sourness.
  14. With a bread knife, cut a thick slice of jalapeño sourdough bread and spread some of the “fake butter” on it.
  15. Ladle some soup in a bowl and serve with the bread.
  16. Give thanks to the LORD for the food as well as all the great things in life like friends, work, and family.
  17. Enjoy the soup with a spoon and soaked up in that bread.

How was the meal?

The soup and the bread were good. I’m a happy camper. I’m also excited because my youngest child turns 21 this week.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like soup? Do you ever add Asian flavours to ingredients which traditionally aren’t Asian?
  • How has your week been? I hope it’s been fulsome and full of joy.
  • Do you like coriander? I heard a YouTube cook call coriander “Satan’s lettuce”. My Mum doesn’t like it and I have a few friends who also thinks it tastes soapy.
  • What are you planning to make next week? I’m thinking of nude wonton soup.
Pumpkin soup with jalapeño bread
Pumpkin soup with jalapeño bread
Pumpkin soup with jalapeño bread

Pressure cooker speck three-ways

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

Happy Saturday. I hope you’re well and you’ve enjoyed the past week. I’ve enjoyed a brilliant week apart from the worst week of hay fever so far this year. Praise God for antihistamine drugs 🙂

During the week, a member of the Facebook group “Cooking meals for one,” Merryn suggested I write a post about the speck I’d cooked.

For readers who don’t know, speck is smoked pork belly. I usually describe it as fancy bacon.

The easiest way to cook it is in a pressure cooker. I cut the block of pork into three thick longitudinal strips. If you didn’t use a pressure cooker, I’d recommend stripping away the rind, which can be a little chewy. Because speck is pork belly, it feels fatty and dense in your hand. I use a sharp knife to slice it safely due to the denseness of the pork. For example, I use my Dick butchers knife.

For flavouring and to balance the nutritional value, I usually add some lentils, whole peppercorns, Chinese-five-spice powder, star anise, and master stock.

For a small block of speck, I cook the meat for 30 minutes under pressure.

The three strips make a minimum of three meals for me. This week, I got four meals out of the three strips.

Pressure cooker speck and pork belly with lentils, peppercorns, potato mash, and baby green peas.

Wednesday evening’s meal.

Pressure cooker speck and pork belly with lentils, peppercorns, potato mash, and baby green peas.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns wrapped in puff pastry with a salad.

Thursday evening’s meal.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns in puff pastry with a salad

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns wrapped in puff pastry with smokey barbecue sauce.

Friday’s lunch.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns in puff pastry with smokey barbecue sauce

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup.

Tonight’s meal consisted of a pumpkin soup made with roast Kent pumpkin, coconut cream, along with the lentils and peppercorns blended into a soup. I broke up the speck and added it to the soup.

Ingredients

  • Leftover cooked speck, lentils, and peppercorns
  • Kent pumpkin
  • Olive oil
  • Iodised salt
  • Dark brown sugar
  • Coconut cream
  • Vegetable stock

Instructions

  1. Lovingly sharpen your cook’s knife (as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend Proverbs 27:17 NLT).
  2. Remove the seeds and the connective tissue of the core of the pumpkin.
  3. Carefully cut the pumpkin into chunks approximately 8 cm³. Leave the skin.
  4. Gently rub oil over the pumpkin chunks with your hands.
  5. Rub in some salt and then rub in some of the dark brown sugar.
  6. Place the pumpkin pieces onto a baking sheet and place them into a hot oven until the pumpkin is soft enough to pierce with a sharp probe. The aim is to penetrate the pumpkin’s flesh, and on withdrawing the instrument, no pumpkin residue should be on the metal surface. It should go in and out smoothly. Ideally, the caramelisation of the surface of the flesh with the aid of sugar will have occurred.
  7. In a saucepan, add the cooked pumpkin, coconut cream, stock, lentils, and peppercorns. 
  8. Bring the soup to a simmer and cook until the coconut cream begins to thicken.
  9. Puree the soup with a stick blender.
  10. Continue simmering the soup and drop in pieces of your pulled speck gently while stirring.
  11. Serve the soup into a bowl and garnish with whatever herbs you feel desirable.
  12. Give thanks to the Lord for the meal.
  13. Take a large spoon and enjoy the soup.

Takeaways

The soup is good. It is thick and spicy. The peppercorns in the soup are like a party in my mouth. The speck is tender, succulent, and moist. The coconut cream gives the soup an Asian feel. To augment that, I should have added some curry paste, perhaps, a laksa paste.

Final thoughts

  1. How was your week?
  2. Are you a fan of bacon? I went out this morning and enjoyed eggs benedict with bacon. It’s the first bacon I’ve eaten in months.
  3. I reckon if you like bacon, you’ll love speck. Would you please give it a go and let me know what you think?
  4. Do you have plans for Christmas? I’m looking forward to summer.
  • Eggs Benedict with bacon from Stella’s by the lake
  • Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup
  • Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup
  • Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup

Saturday lockdown dinner. Laksa flavoured roast pumpkin soup.

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

Last week I was chatting with a friend at work. She’s a “grad”. “Grads” are part of a workplace graduate program common across government departments in states, territories, and the Australian Government.

We were talking about cooking meat dishes, and she mentioned the cost of meat. It’s true; meat is expensive, and I know not everyone can afford to buy it often. 

We got to chatting about meat-free options and shared how we both like pumpkin soup made with roast pumpkin.

Saturday lockdown dinner. Laksa flavoured roast pumpkin soup.

Ingredients

  • Kent pumpkin (¼)
  • Red Royale potato (1)
  • White onion (1)
  • Coconut cream (270 mL)
  • Vegetable stock (1 cup)
  • Laksa paste (2 tablespoons)
  • Sourdough bread (1 slice)
  • Lurpak butter (1 nudge)

Instructions

  1. Take your cook’s knife and honing steel and hone the blade as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend (Proverbs 27:17 [NLT]).
  2. Turn the oven on and set the temperature to 180 °C.
  3. Cut the pumpkin and potato into large chunks. I leave the skins on.
  4. Cut the onion in half.
  5. Spread the pumpkin, potato, and onion on a baking sheet and season with salt. I always used iodised salt because so-called exotic salts like Himalayan pink salt probably contain toxic heavy metals. Iodine is also healthful. Pregnant people and children must have sufficient iodine in their diets to avoid cretinism and intelligence deficits. I also drizzle a little golden syrup over the vegetables to assist with the caramelisation process.
  6. Put the vegetables into the oven for about an hour. Monitor the vegetables to avoid burning them.
  7. When the vegetables are soft, put them into a large saucepan with a cup of vegetable stock, the laksa paste, and bring them to a boil.
  8. With a stick blender and process the vegetables until the soup is smooth.
  9. Add the coconut cream and gently heat it through.
  10. Toast the sourdough bread and apply lashings of Lurpak butter with a trowel of some sort.
  11. Serve the soup in a bowl with the toast. If you wanted to, you could add some cheese to the toast for a cheese toastie which would be a lovely accompaniment.
  12. Give thanks to the Lord for wages to buy food and skills to cook food.

Final thoughts

Feel free to leave a comment in the comments box at the end of this post. I’d welcome your comments.

  1. Is meat too expensive?
  2. How often do you eat meat?
  3. Do you enjoy meat-free meals?
  4. Do you talk about food much with your workmates?
  • Saturday lockdown dinner. Laksa flavoured roast pumpkin soup.
  • Kent pumpkin and coconut cream
  • Cut Kent pumpkin, Royale Red potato, and a white onion.
  • Saturday lockdown dinner. Laksa flavoured roast pumpkin soup.

If you’re interested in a Facebook group I administer feel free to take a look.

Celebration Pumpkin soup

Posted by Gary

What am I celebrating? 

My last head cold was in February 2020. I’ve been boastfully rejoicing that the pandemic has proven that if we as a community, if we as a society, observe some simple hygiene principles, we can reduce the number of circulating respiratory infections.

There is so much evidence now for the truth behind the importance of physical distance, hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette, and staying home if unwell.

As a society, as a community, we must encourage business owners and leaders to begin the next task, which is changing infrastructure to be safer. By that, I mean increasing the number of no-touch approaches to our everyday lives, such as using sensors for doors, taps, toilets, and lifts, making better use of smartphone apps to avoid touching things.

Anyway, as we’ve opened up more and people are relaxing their observance of the mechanisms for reducing communicable respiratory infections, we see more upper respiratory tract infections. I’ve been trying to maintain my observance of physical distancing, hand hygiene, and respiratory etiquette as much as possible. But success relies on everyone doing the right thing.

This week I was infected with a respiratory viral infection. I developed nasal congestion and rhinorrhoea, and then a cough. I didn’t have any fever or headache. Given the advice I freely share with everyone, I went to the local drive-through collection centre to have specimens collected by sampling my throat and nasal mucosa for SARS-COV-2 RNA RT-PCR in ACT Pathology. 

I received my result by text message within 12 hours of the collection time, which is excellent.

COVID-19 SARS-COV-2 RNA RT-PCR result

Ingredients

  • Butternut pumpkin (1 diced)
  • Potato (1 diced)
  • Extra virgin olive oil (a good number of glugs)
  • Clive of India Curry powder (1 tablespoon)
  • Mapuche spice Chilean spice blend (1 tablespoon)
  • Cream (1 cup)
  • Sour cream (1 tablespoon)
  • Onion (chopped)
  • Bacon (diced)
  • Rye sourdough bread (1 slice)

Instructions

  1. Turn on your oven to about 180 °C.
  2. Smear some oil on the inside surfaces of a large baking tray.
  3. Lay the pumpkin pieces into the baking tray.
  4. Add a few good glugs of EVOO over the pumpkin.
  5. Sprinkle the curry powder and spice blend over the oiled pumpkin.
  6. Mix everything with a wooden spoon or if you like scratching your baking tray, use a metal spoon.
  7. Put the baking tray into the oven for 20 minutes.
  8. Remove the baking tray and pray to the Lord that the pumpkin has started to colour without sticking to the baking tray.
  9. Move everything around with the spoon of your choice.
  10. Put the baking tray back into the oven for a further 20 minutes.
  11. Remove the baking tray and again pray. This time, add in the diced potato and mix everything around. By now, the pumpkin will be soft, and the spoon you choose will deform the pumpkin.
  12. Put the baking tray back into the oven for a further 20 minutes.
  13. While the pumpkin and potato are in the oven, sautée the onion and bacon pieces in a large saucepan on low heat.
  14. When the baking tray has completed a total of 1 hour in the oven, remove it and mix everything up. By now, the pumpkin will be mushy, and the potato will be soft. The beauty of this method is there is no excess water in the soup; this means the soup is rich and unctuous.
  15. Add the mashed up pumpkin and potato into the saucepan with the onion and bacon.
  16. Mix everything around and process with a stick blender.
  17. When the mixture is smooth, put the saucepan back on the hob and add the cream and sour cream. Stir until the soup begins to simmer.
  18. Toast the rye sourdough bread.
  19. Plate up the soup with some chopped chives, garnish with basil and serve with the toast.
  20. Sit down with your plate, give thanks to the Lord for all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Then enjoy your soup.

Final thoughts

I think this soup would have been nice with some anchovies stirred through during the oven phase.

  • Butternut pumpkin mixed with Clive of India Curry powder and Mapuche spice Chilean spice blend in a baking tray.
  • Curry and Mapuche spice roast butternut pumpkin soup with rye sourdough toast.
  • Curry and Mapuche spice roast butternut pumpkin soup with rye sourdough toast.

You cannot live on bread alone

Posted by Gary

At about this time of year, I see my American friends on-line going mad for pumpkin spice. According to Wikipedia, pumpkin spice is similar to what we might know as mixed spice.

Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter

Pumpkin spice usually contains cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and allspice.

What I find odd is that pumpkin spice is used to flavour all sorts of things from coffee to pumpkin pies.

Tonight, I’m making a pumpkin soup, but it won’t be pumpkin spice as my American friends might know it. Instead, this will be a pumpkin soup with a spicy Asian influence using ginger, coriander, and a curry paste. Rather than using dairy cream, I’ll also use coconut cream.

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”

Matthew 4:4 NIV
Pumpkin, streaky bacon, laksa paste, red onion, ginger, garlic, lime, coconut cream, and vegetable stock.

Equipment

  • Heat source
  • Saucepan
  • Stick blender
Coriander, red onion, garlic, lime zest, and ginger.

Ingredients

  • Bacon
  • Garlic
  • Ginger
  • Laksa paste
  • Cooking sherry
  • Butternut pumpkin
  • Vegetable stock
  • Coconut cream
  • Lime juice
  • Coriander leaves, stems, and roots
  • Red onion
  • Olive pane di casa
  • Butter
  • Ground cinnamon
Pumpkin, coconut milk, vegetable stock, streaky bacon, grated garlic, grated ginger, lime zest, lime, coriander, and red onion.

Instructions

  1. Slice the streaky bacon.
  2. Peel and dice the pumpkin.
  3. Grate the ginger.
  4. Grate the garlic.
  5. Chop the coriander leaves, stems, and roots.
  6. Finely chop the red onion.
  7. In a cold saucepan slowly heat up the sliced bacon until the fat renders.
  8. Add in the grated ginger and garlic and cook until soft.
  9. Pour in a little cooking sherry to deglase the bottom of the saucepan.
  10. Add in the diced pumpkin and laksa paste. Cover with vegetable stock.
  11. Bring the vegetable stock to the boil and gently simmer until the pumpkin is soft.
  12. Turn the heat off and blend the soup with a stick blender until it’s smooth.
  13. Turn the heat back on and coconut cream to the soup to make it silky smooth.
  14. Taste the soup and add some lime juice to enhance the sourness.
  15. Ladle the soup into a bowl and garnish with the chopped coriander.
  16. Serve with buttered toast that has had cinnamon sprinkled on it.
Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter

Questions

Are you into the pumpkin spice thing?

I think I’ve only ever had pumpkin spice in a pumpkin pie which I tried when I was a young fella. A lady at a church I used to attend made one, and it tasted good.

I’m not sure that I would be adding pumpkin spice to my coffee though. That said, I can appreciate how some ginger might go well in a frothy milk drink with some cinnamon and nutmeg.

Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter

What’s with the bread with an Asian soup?

Well, as per the quote, you can’t live on bread alone. 🤣😉

Why not have a little Italian bread with my Asian soup?

Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter

Final thoughts

  • Do you like pumpkin spice?
  • Do you like spicy pumpkin soup?
  • Have you ever had bread with an Asian flavoured soup?
Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter
It was a nice day outside