Pumpkin Soup - Slow Cooker Recipe

This is the perfect recipe for when pumpkins are in season - or if you’ve done some pumpkin carving and have the leftovers to use! I didn’t follow a recipe for this, I made it up so I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! Slow cookers are such a handy tool for anyone who is busy and doesn’t have a lot of time to cook meals at the end of the day. This prep took 30 minutes in total, and your chopping skills may well exceed mine.

Ingredients:

One medium pumpkin

One butternut squash

One sweet potato

One veggie stock cube in 500ml of water

Two garlic cloves (or two teaspoons of Very Lazy Garlic)

One onion

Method:

1. PUMPKIN

BE CAREFUL! I cut the top open by stabbing it with a very sharp knife – hence the facial expression. One the lid is off, you just have to scoop out all the guck and stuff, slice it and remove the skin. It’s the most time consuming part of this recipe and if anyone has a more efficient way of doing it, please let me know! But once this is done, it’s plain sailing. I put all the chunks in the slow cooker as soon as I’d chopped them to get them out of the way.

2. BUTTERNUT SQUASH

I’m just picking all the best faces for you guys. Similar method to the pumpkin, I chopped off the end and then sliced the skin off about half of the butternut squash so I could chunk it easily. I didn’t use the whole thing, because my wrist was aching from chopping the pumpkin. Let’s hope that doesn’t ruin the soup…

3. ONION

Yup, it makes me cry. Every time. Dice it as small as possible and as quickly as possible so you don’t cry all your make up off like I almost did.

4. SWEET POTATO, GARLIC AND VEGETABLE STOCK

Normal peeling technique for the sweet potato, which is going to feel so easy after tackling the pumpkin and butternut squash. Again, throw it all in the slow cooker for safe keeping (don’t switch it on yet! It just gets everything out the way.) For garlic I always use Very Lazy because I’m…efficient, and I don’t like my hands smelling of garlic for days no matter how often you wash them! One stock cube with 500ml boiling water.

5. VOILA

Actually I was premature with the voila – this is just the end of the preparation. I then put my slow cooker on HIGH for 4 hours before using a hand blender to make the soup smooth. And then, VOILA:

Perfect for an autumn evening Comment below if you’re going to try it!