Roasted pumpkin soup with almonds and spicy dukkah oil a la Silvena Rowe

From the recipe archives, originally posted in October 2011. Totally worth making!!! 
PS Check the comments section - Silvena Rowe herself left a comment - how cool is that!?

I spotted this soup recipe in Silvena Rowe's beautiful Orient Express: Fast food from the eastern Mediterranean, one of my recent cookbook acquisitions. I've been making various pumpkin soups and certainly wasn't looking for a new soup recipe, but this one caught my eye because of almonds. There are almonds both inside the soup and in the dukkah-mixture (Not sure what dukkah is? You can read more about it here). We cooked four recipes from Silvena's book last Sunday (see the menu below, scribbled on our newly painted kitchen wall), and the soup was very well received. The almonds add a thickness and a lovely texture to the soup, the dark red pomegranate seeds are a true eye candy, and the dukkah oil is a wonderful flavour enhancer. I more or less followed the recipe, though I used a bit more pumpkin and less chicken stock, and used some coriander/cilantro for garnish.



You can either use any orange-fleshed winter squash here - butternut squash or a Hokkaido pumpkin (potimarron in French). Well, you could use any winter squash, but orange-fleshed one looks prettiest :)

More pumpkin soup recipes @ Nami-Nami:
Pumpkin soup with nutmeg
Pumpkin soup with thyme
Estonian pumpkin and semolina soup

Roasted pumpkin/butternut squash soup with dukkah
(Röstitud kõrvitsa supp mandlite ja vürtsiõliga)
Serves six



For the dukkah oil:
50 g while almonds
1 Tbsp coriander seeds
0.5 Tbsp cumin seeds
0.25 Tbsp fennel seeds
5-6 Tbsp olive oil

For the soup:
1.2 kg orange-fleshed pumpkin or squash
8 fresh sage leaves, chopped
2 onions, peeled and quartered
6 garlic cloves, peeled
4 Tbsp olive oil
750 ml chicken stock (3 cups)
100 g ground almonds
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To serve:
pomegranate seeds
fresh coriander/cilantro leaves

Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F.

Peel the pumpkin, remove the seeds and cut the flesh into 2-3 cm (1 inch) chunks. Place onto a large roasting tray alongside the onion quarters, garlic cloves and chopped sage leaves. Season to taste with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil:



Cook the vegetables in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, until the pumpkin is soft. Remove from the oven and cool.

Make the dukkah oil while the pumpkin is roasting. Place the spices and almonds onto a small dry frying pan and cook over a moderate heat until fragrant and slightly golden (keep an eye on them, as the spices burn easily!):



Using a pestle and mortar (or a small food processor), bruise the spices and almonds until you've got a coarsely ground mixture. Add the oil, put aside.

When the vegetables are cooked, place them into a food processor or a blender. Blend to a purée, adding a little of the vegetable stock if necessary. Return the pumpkin purée into the saucepan, add the rest of the stock. Bring into a slow boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the soup is smooth and slightly thickened. Stir in the almonds, season to taste.

To serve, ladle the soup into warmed bowls. Spoon some dukkah oil on top, sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and garnish with some cilantro/coriander.

Great comfort food: cold weather hotpot recipe

Now that I have five mouths to feed on a daily basis, I need to cook dishes that are easy to put together and suit all the members of the family, be they 11 months or 41 years. That means they must be flavourful and tasty, as I don't have the time, will or energy to cook separate meals for the still-toothless baby, two active toddlers and two food-loving adults. To be honest, I don't think it should even be necessary.

We've used the baby-led weaning* approach when introducing solids to our three kids, and that means our littlest has been eating family food from Day 1 (not the first day of her life, but the first time she was offered any solid food, e.g. when she was 6 months old). So much more convenient for the whole family and especially the cooking parent (that's me, at least on most days). This stew - enjoyed both by parents and the toddlers (aged 2 and 4), was perfect for the 11-month old as well.

The cold weather hotpot is a great comfort food and midweek dinner. The humble vegetables can be varied - you could add some turnips or parsnips as well, or even broccoli. Sometimes I've used gnocchi instead of potatoes, adding them at the end, so they'd have the chance to soak in the broth. The can of Heinz's baked beans you throw in at the end - well, this adds some protein as well as thickens the stew. Overall it's yet another dish that tastes much better than you'd expect from simply looking at the list of ingredients.

We love a spoonful of thick sour cream on top, but a crusty bread would be good, too.

* New to baby-led weaning aka BLW? Read all about it in Gill Rapley's book - see Amazon UK/Amazon US. I highly recommend reading it if you've got a small baby who's about to start solids soon! 

Cold weather hotpot
(Hakklihaga ühepajatoit)
Slightly adapted from BBC Good Food, March 2003
Serves six

2 Tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
4 small onions
4 good-sized carrots
8 medium-sized potatoes
450 g lean minced beef
1 l hot beef stock (you can use a stock cube or bouillon extract)
a good splash of Worcestershire sauce
a handful of chopped parsley

To serve:
some good sour cream (optional)

Peel the onions and cut into quarters. Peel the carrots, halve lengthwise and cut into thick slices. Peel the potatoes and cut into smallish chunks.
Heat oil in a heavy saucepan, add the minced beef and fry quickly, stirring all the time, until browned evenly.
Add the vegetables, give everything a quick stir. Pour over the beef stock. Bring into a boil, then partially cover with the lid, reduce heat and simmer for about 20-25 minutes, until the vegetables are cooked.
Season with Worcestershire sauce, pour in the baked beans. Stir gently and then heat through. Taste for seasoning, then scatter parsley on top and serve.
Ladle into bowl and enjoy with a spoon.

Green smoothie recipe

Recipe by Pille @ Nami-Nami. Above photo by Juta Kübarsepp for the September 2013 issue of Kodu ja Aed ("Home and Garden", an Estonian monthly magazine. I've been their food writer since October 2012)

Here's a recipe for a healthy and delicious pick-me-up smoothie for those days that kids have been driving you crazy, the to-do-list doesn't seem to get any shorter however hard you try, and you simply have no time to cook anything decent for yourself. It's the matter of peeling three fruits and throwing them into the blender (and rinsing the blender afterwards). I'll find time for that any day :)

The green smoothie - if the name didn't give it away already - is the one third from the left on the above photo. Feel free to guess what the other three are ;)

Green smoothie
(Roheline smuuti)
Serves 2

2 kiwis
1 banana
1 avocado
200 ml orange juice*

Peel the banana, kiwis and avocado. Place the flesh into your blender. Add the orange juice and process till smooth. Serve at once.

If you want your smoothie thinner, then add more orange juice, ice or ice-cold water.

* Ideally freshly squeezed, but any good-quality bottled juice will work as well.