Roasted Pumpkin Vegetable Soup

Vegetable is one of the important food that we need to prepare for our family. Although we are not vegetarian, I always love to prepare vegetable based food. Especially, made from fresh seasonal vegetables. The taste and freshness and especially the feast of colour, always excite me.

My children always love different type of fruits and vegetables. Last weekend, we went to apple picking day. It was a nice sunny autumn day and at the gate of the orchard, we saw a man selling bio pumpkin. I did try to grow my own, but we did not get any pumpkin until now. And since my first born boy loves pumpkin soup so much, we decided to buy one. More than enough for a big pot of soup.

He was very happy early this week, when I finally cooked the pumpkin. He even refused to eat the rice that I also served that day. His brother, also loved the soup but not as much as him.

The making process is surely not fast, but it is quite easy. But despites the process and time required, I think the taste worth the effort. It is also quite healthy and promotes eating more vegetable.

Ingredients
Around 600 gram pumpkin
1 medium orange colour sweet potato
1 medium potato (you can subtitute this with sweet potato)
A handfull of cauliflower floret
3-4 carrot
1 onion
300 ml chicken stock diluted into around 2-2.5 litre
125-150 ml creme fraiche/heavy cream for cooking
1 -1.5 tsp of salt
1 tsp of pepper (I used aromatic pepper with orange)
a dash of lemon juice
Basillicum leaves

How to make
1. Cut the pumpkin, clean from the seeds, wash and cut. If it is a bio pumpkin, you do not need to cut the outer skin, just scrap it clean when you wash it.
2. Peel the skin of the sweet potato, wash and cut.
3. Roast the pumpkin and sweet potato in the oven for around 40 minutes or until it is soft enough.
You will cook it again with the soup later.

4. Meanwhile, peel the potato, carrot and onion and cut them. Cut also the cauliflower.
5. Boil the chicken stock and water (2-2.5ltr)
6. Add into soup the onion, carrot, potato, cauliflower, sweet potato, pumpkin.
7. Boil until the vegetables become softer. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let it cool.
8. Using the hand blender, blend the soup until smooth.
9. Take a spoonful of the soup and mix it with the creme fraiche to make a smooth mixture. Add the mixture into the soup and blend it again a bit with the hand blender.
10. Boil it again a bit before serving. Serve it with basillicum leaves and a dash of lemon juice, if you like.