Spicy Butternut Squash & Sweet Potato Soup
(adapted from
GH Cookery Book)
1/2 a medium onion, peeled, diced
small splash (maybe 1 dessertspoonful) olive oil
1 red chili to taste, chopped, seeds in if you feel the need
1/2 tsp if that crushed coriander seeds
1/2 a butternut squash, peeled, deseeded, roughly chopped
1 peeled chopped sweet potato
1 peeled chopped tomato
750ml hot stock
Get the onions all nice and glassy over a medium heat then add the coriander seed and chopped chili, stir fry for about a minute. Add the squash, sweet potato and tomato and continue to stir fry for a few more minutes. Add stock and bubble away for about 20mins until the veggies are soft. Use a stick blender or blender to puree to desired consistency (mind out, it will be hot and hot soup in the cleavage ain't something you will be wanting, I should hope) and serve.
Makes 4 delicate servings/mugfuls at about 100cals each according to GH, who also recommend cheese straws as an side dish. Beautiful colour, tastes creamy but has no cream in it - marvellous.
So what can you do with the other half of the squash? Well roast it really. Then make squash and spinach lasagne. Roast the squash chunks at 200°C for about 40mins until done (I leave the skin on the chunks, it comes off easly when cooked, take the seeds out though) then peel. Make a basic white sauce (25g flour, 25g butter, a pint of milk say, relatively basic stuff) and enrich this with 250g pack ricotta cheese and a dash of grated nutmeg.
Pop the cooked squash into the bottom of a small lasagne dish, dot some frozen leaf spinach portion squares on top then add about 1/3 of the sauce plus no-cook lasagne sheets to cover. Cover that with a suitable amount of ricotta sauce, a generous sprinkle of grated pecorino or parmesan, in that 200°c oven for about 25mins and an easy dinner is yours. Pumpkin has become quite a favourite in Italian cookery, look out for it on menus as a pasta filling. It wasn't always that popular, as like the turnip in the UK, pumpkin is seen as a "poor people's food" and during WWII many lived on it and little else, as it is a very hardy growing plant. However, I love turnips as well, so what do I know?