[food] plausible pumpkin soup

[kaberett]

Okay, I have found a way to eat non-butternut winter squash that I don't actually spend going "... I'd enjoy this more without it": SOUP. (Courtesy of having knocked over a pumpkin in the Forty Hall Farm shop display, thereby knocking off its stalk, thereby being morally obligated to buy it on the basis that I'd damaged it.)

Loosely inspired by Ahead of Thyme (mostly in the sense of "oh good, the internet doesn't consider this a terrible idea"). Wound up as soup I was actively pro eating more of, with objections to neither flavour nor texture.

Ingredients
one pumpkin, halved and gutted
some onions, finely sliced
one leek, chopped
few sticks of celery, chopped
one small parsnip, chopped (will absolutely try this again with parsley root if I ever manage to grow any)
several carrots, chopped (it doesn't hurt for this to be a volume approximately equal to that of squash...)
vegetable stock
nutmeg, pepper, parsley, cream etc to taste
oil/butter/etc

Method

First drizzle a little oil and sprinkle a little salt over the cut sides of the pumpkin, then roast skin-side-up for Some Time. I do this when I have the oven on anyway for bread (bonus steam for the sourdough!), so at around 220 °C for around 35 minutes. Apparently I actually wanted to roast it for even longer, until the skin was more blistered and blackened, to make it easier to get the flesh free once it's cool enough to handle...

While you are doing something else in the kitchen, caramelise the onion in a pan that is big enough to eventually contain your soup. (This will take longer than fifteen minutes.)

When both squash and onions are Processed, add leek and celery to the onion pan. Over medium-low heat, continue to cook gently until softening.

Add the carrots and parsnip, and continue to cook gently until they are starting to soften or you've got bored.

Add pumpkin flesh, stock, and anything else like bay leaves that seems like a good idea. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer for around twenty minutes, until the root veg are soft enough to blend.

Blend the soup.

Add nutmeg, pepper, and the like to taste.

Serve, garnished with cream, parsley, and the like, also to taste.