Recipe; Roast Pumpkin Soup.

• 1 Parsnip 
• 2 onions 
• 2 potatoes
• 1000g – 1500g of your choice of pumpkin (I’ve used Butternut, Jap & Kent – all taste great!)
• 2 garlic cloves
• A little bit of olive oil
• Stock (it is up to you whether it be chicken or vegetable) I use 2 tbsp of the Quirky chicken stock paste & 1 tbsp of Vegetable stock paste. 
• 500g of water or until the consistency is to your liking – we like a thicker soup.
• 100g of pouring cream. 
• Seasoning of your choice.

Steps;

1. Peel and cut all vegetables (I leave my onions and garlic whole), space out on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and some seasoning if you like, but DO NOT OVER SEASON, it is better to season at the end when you can taste and adjust. It is very easy to over salt this dish especially if you are using a Thermomix with stock pastes. I do a very light sprinkle of roast vegetable salt on my veggies.
2. Roast vegetables at 180-200 degrees for 1-1.5hours (until veggies are soft) make sure to turn veggies occasionally. You may have to remove the onions & garlic early so they don’t get too roasted (burnt!).
3. Once the veggies are soft & nicely roasted start adding them in small batches to the Thermomix (or pot) and blend until smooth, then add more – blend and keep repeating until all veggies are smooth and combined. I start by blending the onion and garlic first so it is chopped up very fine, then the parsnips & potatoes & finally the pumpkin.
4. If using a Thermomix add 3 tbsp of stock paste of your choice (I use 2 of quirky chicken and 1 veg) and 500g of water. 
5. For non Thermomix users; 1 Tablespoon of Veggie stock is apparently equal to one stock cube. Basically if I wasn’t using the Thermomix stock paste I would add in my favourite stock in stages, stir & taste – if the taste was to my liking but the consistency was too thick I would perhaps add water, but try to only use stock. The water added in the TM recipe is because the water & stock paste = liquid stock. Sorry I can’t be more helpful in this step! The stock paste made in a Thermomix is hard to compare to anything from a shop, it is amazing.
6. Cook soup for 15-20mins at 80-90 degrees, speed 2.5 (I cook mine on speed 3 sometimes but be aware that it can get hot and a bit splashy sometimes) 
7. If on stove top heat soup for 15 minutes and stir occasionally.
8. Blend on speed 4-5 for 10 seconds after it has been heated. (Be careful of splashes!)
9. Add cream.
10. Blend for 30 more seconds gradually increasing speed from 1-8.
11. If your Thermomix is too full to safely blend at speed 8, just blend at a speed you feel is safe. Sometimes mine is a bit full and I only go to speed 5 because soup splash burns don’t sound like fun to me! 
12. Season to your liking. I find if I use the Quirky chicken paste stock it adds a lovely flavour & it also adds enough saltiness. Cumin is a nice addition to soup but add it in slowly and carefully because if you season too much it’s hard and pretty much impossible to fix. Trust me! As mentioned above I also like roast vegetable salt. Onion salt can also be added.
13. This recipe can be frozen, we freeze half the batch to have as a quick & easy dinner when Trent is on days off. I freeze it in a ziplock bag so it can freeze flat in my freezer. I just slide it out of the bag and into a microwave safe bowl to reheat (you could also reheat it on the stove top). Trent said this meal is the only meal that tastes as good reheated as it does freshly made and I agree!

If you make this soup I would love to see your photos or hear what you think! Tag me in your photos or leave me a comment on social media!
Stay warm & have a lovely weekend!