Pumpkin and Tarragon Soup

October is the time that seemingly everyone rushes to their local shop or pumpkin patch to track down their perfect pumpkin.

In fact a couple of weekends ago my gal pals and I had a great day out together, driving out into the country to a place called Algys Farm Shop where we spent a good few hours trudging through the mud, laughing and tracking down our perfect pumpkins. Even if my friend Chloe did announce “what lovely pineapples!” when we arrived... bless her. 

Like most people we carved our chosen pumpkins in various ways. The others went down the traditional jack’o’lantern route, and I tried something new this year by turning my pumpkin into a floral centerpiece.

One thing I’ve done every year in the past, which I didn’t want to do this year was waste the inside of the pumpkin. I’ve never had the time, or really known what to do with it so everything I’ve removed from the pumpkin has gone in the bin. This year I was determined not to be wasteful, so I’ve come up with a soup recipe for the pulp and even a use for the seeds!

First things first, you need to separate the two. I did the majority of this with my hands, putting the seeds in one bowl and the pulp in another. I set the seeds aside to focus on my soup.

I started by gently cooking chopped onion in a pan with a glug of garlic infused oil. Allowing the onion to soften but not brown. As the onion started to get soft I added half of my pumpkin pulp, bearing in mind I had collected from two reasonably sized pumpkins. 

I cooked the pumpkin and onion together for 7-10 minutes before then adding my chicken stock. I used two stock cubes rather than one in 750ml of water. Which the then let simmer on a very low heat for  about 5 minutes. 

The mixture was then transferred to my slow cooker, which was set to a low heat and I left it for the day to let the contents get completely cooked through and soft.

When I returned around 4 hours later, the mixture had broken down to a very soup like texture, without having been blended yet. I added a touch of black pepper, and three tea spoons of dried tarragon. Once that was stored in I added around 100ml of double cream, stores and left for another hour.

An hour later I gave the mixture a quick blitz with a hand held blender, and served myself up some steaming soup with some buttered toast.

There is a great level of satisfaction when tucking into a meal you’ve made from scratch, but even more so when it comprises of ingredients you’ve had to go and search for. I’d spent hours in a muddy field tracking down my favourite pumpkin, and I’m so glad it didn’t go to waste this year. 

I’m fact, I loved it so much, my friend has offered me the insides of her own pumpkins when she comes to carving them, so I can make myself more delicious soup! 

Do you use the inside of the pumpkin when you’ve done carving it? If so, what do you do with it?