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Autumn comfort eating – Instant Pot Butternut squash soup

October 1, 2016 by

Today was a good day. E is almost 5 weeks old and it’s still very much a round-the-clock job looking after her. So days like today, when I’ve grabbed 15 minutes here and there to tick a few jobs off the list, feel like a triumph.

In the days straight after E was born, hot meals were hard to come by. My mum came to the rescue with stew and soup, and kept us going until we found our feet.

I’m still finding my feet, but making a concerted effort to start a routine, and part of that is home cooked food and a decent meal each night.

A timesaver and somewhat of a God-send has been the Instant Pot. If your food has finished cooking, then it automatically goes onto a keep warm mode – no cold food, and no burned saucepans!

Today E decided to have a quick 15-min nap after we’d been out for a walk, so I took advantage and threw together  some ingredients to make an earthy, autumnal soup. Perfect for these cooler days, and something I can store for a couple more lunches this week:
Cheap meals - Autumn Butternut Squash soup

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 butternut squash, chopped & cubed roughly
  • 1 large floury potato (eg Maris Piper), chopped & cubed
  • 2 large onions ( I also added a few small homegrown banana shallots), diced roughly
  • 2 medium carrots, chopped & cubed
  • 2 – 2.5 cups of water
  • About two heaped dessert spoons of Marigold vegan bouillon
  • Liberal dash of cayenne pepper

METHOD

1. Dice onions and add cooking oil (I use a mild olive oil mix). Press Sauté on the Instant Pot. Cook until soft, stirring occasionally.

2. Add the rest of the chopped veg and continue to sauté for a few mins, sweating down veggies.

3. Add water and bouillon, then cayenne pepper to taste.

4. Place lid of Instant Pot on, set to Manual for 15 mins.

5. Once the manual programme has finished, allow steam to vent. Open Instant Pot and blend down ingredients to a smooth consistency.

6. Serve with crusty bread!

 

Filed Under: foodie, recipes, veg, vegan Tagged With: , , , ,

Bertha the pumpkin

October 20, 2015 by

I didn’t have much joy with my munchkin pumpkins. Actually… scratch that. I didn’t have *any* joy with my munchkin pumpkins this year. I had visions of the tiny pumpkins merrily hanging from my arch amidst the fronds of Spanish flag flowers… but after a slow start and an (apparently) cooler summer, the fruits just withered and went soft.

Lucy, Tortoise the cat & Bertha the pumpkin

Lucy, Tortoise the cat & Bertha the pumpkin

Luckily all was not lost in the pumpkin department. Bertha the knucklehead pumpkin was romping away of her own accord. I’m not sure why I decided to give my pumpkin a name, and a gender. It just happens like that sometimes.

She grew well despite minimal attention from me – I unceremoniously shoved the pumpkin plant on an old compost site around June (I think) by the blackthorn hedging, and watered sporadically.

Knucklehead pumpkin growing in September

Knucklehead pumpkin

The vine scrambled and grew and grew, flowered when it was about 6 metres long, and grew more to about 10 metres, and Bertha was born.

Bertha my knucklehead pumpkin

Bertha my knucklehead pumpkin

I harvested Bertha at the weekend because my fingernail could no longer puncture the skin of the pumpkin, and the stem from which she was growing was rock hard. These are two great indications that pumpkins are ready to harvest, so I took a sharp knife and cut the cord, giving her plenty of stem to encourage a healthy cure process (where the skin hardens, goes orange and makes the pumpkins perfect for storing).

Tortoise is not so impressed...

Tortoise is not so impressed…

I was pretty pleased with Bertha. She’s not large by any stretch of the imagination, but I grew her from seed (thanks Marshalls Seeds) and she’s the biggest pumpkin I’ve grown in eight years of my journey to the good life. My previous record was an 8lb butternut squash. Bertha will be left to cure for now, and I’ve got visions of pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup next month. At the weekend I went to the Bromham Apple Day festival in Bedfordshire and bought a small pumpkin loaf, which was incredibly tasty! So now pumpkin bread is also on the menu too.

Knucklehead pumpkin

Filed Under: foodie, seeds, sustainability, veg, vegan Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Lucy’s Spicy Parsnip Soup Recipe

September 30, 2015 by

Bedfordshire in Autumn

Crisp sunny but damp mornings, chunky knits, burnished and crimson leaves fluttering down from the trees. An abundance of apples, sloes, raspberries, potatoes and crunchy salad leaves. That’s what’s going down at The Smallest Smallholding this week. Autumn is also the season of root vegetables, which is partly why I love this time in the growing season.

As I mentioned in my last post, I love soups. I really do. I could eat soup for lunch and dinner at least five days a week (alternating with my three other favourite food groups – curry, chilli and beanburgers). I’ve already previously written about my leek and potato soup recipe, my garden soup recipe (courgette and pea) and my spicy autumn sup recipe. Here’s a new one for you that’s sure to warm the cockles on a chilly Autumn day – spicy parsnip soup.

I’ve never really been a fan of creamy soups, and as a vegan it’s a little bit of a hassle finding a suitable creamy alternative (though absolutely do-able). I’ve always eschewed the likes of cream in soup for creamy veggie alternatives – I find it’s easy easy as just picking the right variety of creamy, floury potato. So here’s my creamless but smooth, spicy and, above all, hearty spicy parsnip soup recipe.

Spicy parsnip soup recipe

Spicy parsnip soup recipe

Quick and Easy Spicy Parsnip Soup recipe (vegan/vegetarian)

Prep: About 10 minutes, less if you’re a fast chopper!

Ingredients (for a fairly large batch)

3 medium onions, diced
Vegetable oil  (rapeseed) or mild blend of cooking olive oil
3 large carrots, chopped roughly
2 medium floury potatoes (such as maris piper, desiree or picasso), diced
3 medium-large parsnips, chopped and diced
Vegetable stock (I use Marigold Vegan stock)

Spices:
Cumin
Garam masala
Ground cayenne pepper

Method
1. Sweat the onions until soft in the vegetable oil and then add the chopped carrots, potatoes and parsnips. Sweat for a further for 5-10 minutes making sure the veg doesn’t stick to the pan (a liberal dash of oil after you’ve added the veg will help prevent this)
2. Add boiling water, making sure to cover the veg by about 3/4 inch, followed by the veg stock powder. Add in a level dessert spoon or so of cumin and garam masala (mixed), and add a dash of cayenne pepper if you like an extra spicy kick. Add more spice to taste if you’re like me and love a heavily seasoned soup.
3. Bring to a rolling boil and then simmer until the veggies are soft and the potatoes are breaking apart easily.
4. Take off the heat, leave to cool for a few minutes and then whizz up with a hand blender. Add more boiling water from the kettle if you need to thin off the soup. I like mine hearty and thick.
5. Serve with crusty bread.

 

Filed Under: recipes, thrifty, veg Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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