Spiced Pumpkin Soup with roasted pepitas

This soup is a current favourite of Mr B & I. It’s a really nice thick soup for a cold winters day – we love it for lunch. It keeps and reheats really well if we make a big batch.

1 tablespoon of oil of choice (we use sunflower or coconut)

1 brown onion

1 garlic clove, minced

1 long red chilli, roughly chopped

1kg kent pumpkin, peeled and cut into 3cm pieces

400g can organic cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

4 cups home-made vegetable stock

2 tablespoons pepitas

coriander leaves, to serve

Step 1 – Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Put oil into saucepan and heat over medium-high heat. Cook onion, chilli and garlic for 5 mins, or until onion softens.

Step 2 – Add pumpkin and cannelloni beans. Stir to coat with onion mixture. Add stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes or until pumpkin is tender.

Step 3 – place pepitas on a tray lined with baking paper. Drizzle with a little oil and bake for 10 minutes or until toasted.

Step 4 – Mash pumpkin and beans until soup is nice and thick. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and pepitas, then serve.

** Another nice trick is to mix in some breadcrumbs. Gives the soup a really nice texture.