At this time of year we regularly check the pumpkins that we have stored, particularly as it has been so cold. Once they start to go soft in the middle it doesn’t take long at all, only a few days, for the whole thing to go rotten. And so it was that during one of our regular inspections, we found this pumpkin to be soft where the stem joins the fruit. This photo was taken of it in the autumn, shortly after it was harvested. Because we knew it wouldn’t keep much longer, I cut it, peeled it and chopped it up along with a small onion. Junko then made the whole lot into chunky pumpkin soup. Delicious.



And here is the result, lovely chunky pumpkin soup, fit to warm any soul on a cold winter’s day. It was made without a liquidiser and with just pumpkin, a very small onion (about the size of a golf ball) and seasoning (salt and pepper). No cream or coconut milk, only pumpkin. Junko just smashed the whole lot up with a potato masher. The result was so sweet that I couldn’t believe it hadn’t had sugar added to it. The whole of this pumpkin was made into soup, so there is quite some volume of it! Now we just need a rustic loaf of nice fresh granary bread.



Quiz 372
……………… was a famous detective in Victorian London.
a) Inspector Morse
b) Miss Marple
c) Sherlock Holmes
d) Hercule Poirot

Yesterday’s was a)