Roast Pumpkin Soup

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Nothing beats a warming bowl of soup on a cold winters day, it’s great to have for lunch or for a light evening meal.  This recipe is one of my old favourites and was originally from a 1985 cookbook written by two wonderful flamboyant chefs, Hudson and Halls.

For the past twenty years or so I shunned using the amount of oil and butter recommended in the original recipe.  Even though the soup tasted great with the scant spray of oil that was allowable to me under the old way of eating, being able to go full fat gives the whole dish not only richness and depth, but an honesty to the original creators.

 

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Roast Pumpkin Soup

  • Servings: 4 - 6
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

2 or 3 large onions, peeled and sliced thickly
1 medium sized crown pumpkin or a large buttercup pumpkin, sliced and seeded
3 tbsp olive or coconut oil
50g butter
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
5 cups of *chicken stock
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp curry powder (depending on preferred level spice you can use less or more)
Sour cream – about 1 tbsp per serving
Salt and pepper

  • Preheat oven to 190c
  • Slice pumpkin into 8 pieces, de-seed and place in a roasting dish.
  • Coat pumpkin with 2 tbsps olive or coconut oil.
  • Roast until soft.
  • Remove and leave to cool a bit, then remove the skins.
  • In a large saucepan heat the butter and remaining oil.
  • Add the onions and cool gently until soft but not brown.
  • Add the sliced garlic and cook another minute.
  • Add roast pumpkin and stir fry for a minute.
  • Add the curry and cook until the flavour has burst – another minute or so (the curry will smell great!).
  • Add chicken stock and bring to the boil.
  • Finally add bay leaves, salt and pepper.
  • Lower heat, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is very soft and mashable.
  • Remove bay leaves.
  • Whizz in blender or food processor until the soup is as smooth or as chunky as you prefer.
  • Return to pot and stir well.
  • Check seasonings adding more salt and pepper if needed.
  • Reheat until hot.
  • Place in bowls and swirl in sour cream.

* It is easy to make your own chicken stock and gives a huge nutritional boost to the soup. You can do this ahead of time and freeze.  However, if time is short use a good quality store bought chicken stock, but check the ingredients carefully.

Spicy Wraps – Grain & Gluten Free.

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Living Primal style is mostly a no brainer, yes you do get strange looks and mutterings from friends and colleagues as you pour cream on everything. But that’s not really a problem is it?  However many of you will agree that when you don’t eat grains it’s darn hard to find something to wrap your lunch stuff around. This spicy wrap sorts out the problem nicely and in addition, like all primal/paleo food, has a number of healthy bonus points to add to it.

The recipe uses plantain bananas.  Larger than normal bananas they are used in cooking in many tropical areas in a similar way to potatoes.  As they are very starchy they are perfect to bind together in a spicy wrap. 

Plantains and for that matter green bananas have some very interesting health benefits as they are a fantastic source of Resistant Starch (RS). In essence, RS is indigestible and it travels through us pretty unscathed. When it reaches the colon however, our gut bugs (colonic flora) eat it up. Marks Daily Apple nicely describes RS as top-shelf food for our colon bugs. This makes for a truck load of very happy good bugs!

Add to all of the above and with a big thanks to Paleo Secret for the original recipe, these wraps are awesomely simple to throw together.  In no time at all you can stuff them with your favourite fillings and feast on their deliciousness.   

 

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Lemon Ginger Tea

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It’s winter here in New Zealand dark, damp and rather chilly.  Add to that I have a cold. You know, headache, sore throat and a teny, tiny cough.  I’m rugged up warm at home hoping to beat this in one day and save my work colleagues from my germs!

Coincidentally, I have a a tree full of lovely lemons.  For the first time in about six years the tree is totally laden. Maybe the reason is that this year it has shared its section of our yard with our rescue chickens. But that’s another story.  

So what’s is the best thing for a sore throat when you have lovely fresh lemons? You make some soothing Lemon Ginger tea.

 

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Lemon Ginger Tea

  • Servings: 1
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

1 lemon – organic, Meyer, or any you have on hand
Ginger – about a large thumb sized piece
1 tsp honey, or to taste, preferably raw
1 1/2 cups water

  • Peel lemon and juice.
  • Peel ginger and slice.
  • In a pot place lemon rind and juice, ginger, honey and water.
  • Bring to the boil.
  • Simmer for around 10 minutes until it is reduced slightly.
  • Strain into a cup and taste for sweetness.

Take your Lemon Ginger tea and climb back into a warm bed.