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.

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?

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