Happy meal #15: Comfort soups

Now that I am a responsible adult living in my own place, I can no longer whine and sulk when I am sick. Instead of the Matriarch making me a hot meal, I have to make my own food. Sobs.

Thankfully for leftovers then. One fine evening after work, I decided to make roasted pumpkin soup and as usual, being the great chef that I am, I overestimated our appetites and ended up with a large pot of radioactive orange pumpkin soup. Which would have been fine, except that husband is not a fan of pumpkin. (cue horror movie music)

It worked out fine though. Less than a week later, I came down with that dreadful infection and wanted something comforting: soup. Heated it up, mashed a potato that had been sitting in the fridge for a while, and blended some fruits (again, long-time residents of the fridge) and tadah! a meal for the sickly.

The soup was easy enough to make, it was the handling part that made me perspire and cuss. By handling, I mean skinning and chopping it to bits. It took all of my strength and a sharp cleaver to deal with the dratted vegetable. After I had roasted it, however, I realised my folly: the skin came off quite easily then. Someone say el stupido? (I just made that up, I don’t know any Spanish at all, can you tell?)

Roasted pumpkin soup
What you need:

• Pumpkin, about 500g
• Chicken stock, 500ml
• Butter, 1 knob
• Garlic, minced, 1tsp
• 1 onion, minced
• Salt, to taste
• Pepper, to taste
• Olive oil
• Truffle oil, a dash
• Fresh herbs like basil or sage (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 200 degree Celsius
• Wrestle with pumpkin and chop it down to bite-sized chunks
• Drizzle olive oil generously over pumpkin pieces and sprinkle some salt and pepper
• Bake for 20 minutes, until the pumpkin become tender
• Add some oil into a pot, followed by butter (so that the butter doesn’t burn) over medium heat
• Fry the onion until it becomes soft and translucent. Chuck in the garlic and fry till it becomes fragrant
• Throw in the pumpkin pieces and fry for about 5 minutes
• Add the chicken stock, cover the lid and let it simmer over low heat for 30 minutes
• Let the soup cool down for about 15 minutes and then puree it using an immersion blender
• Drizzle some truffle oil and add some herbs for that luxurious taste!

I can’t really tell you how much this soup will serve but let’s just say I had three servings and husband had two so it makes five servings, I think? Have never been good at Maths. The only thing was, I hate using cream in my food because of the FAT content so I threw in a potato, a trick I learnt from my friend The Apprentice Housewife. The soup ended up becoming a puree. If I am a baby with no teeth and just starting on solids, I would have loved it but unfortunately, I am not so the soup was a little too thick. Each time I heated it up, I had to add some broth or water to thin a bit.

You can make your own chicken stock too but I am lazy and rely on my Mum for stock. For this soup, I used Heinz ready-made chicken stock. It’s a little pricier than your Maggi stock cubes but I chose it because it had the lowest amount of sodium per serving.

And what can I say? Keeping it in the fridge just seems to enhance its taste. Not bad for a pretty cheap meal.