When someone mentions Halloween what pops into your head? Do you almost begin to salivate at the mouth such is the joyous prospect of decorating your house in the spookiest most autumnal way possible? Or does your heart sink in anticipation of fake blood on your sofa?
Halloween in my day was the entire contents of a medium sized tub of Sudocrem slathered on your face whilst wearing an old sheet from one of your siblings beds. Throw in some apple bobbing and a barnbrack and it’s game, set & match for all things ghoulish in the 80’s.
Nowadays though things are different. We’ve come over all sorts of American in terms of Halloween of late. Whilst once we drew pumpkins we now buy them and what’s more….carve them. I have had a fair few close calls over the past 10 years whilst attempting to carve but instead butchering pumpkins on my kitchen table.
I have researched preserving them (seriously who actually wants a rotten pumpkin by Oct 30th?), painted them with baking soda, sprayed them with bleach & sang to them at midnight. Ok I made the last one up but I would have….I actually would have at one point if it meant I’d get to November 1st with it intact.
I have struggled with what to do with the insides of it though. The 1st year I flung it into the food bin without much thought. But every year it just bugs me a little that it’s just a waste of good food.
It seems I am not alone. A new study commissioned by Knorr has revealed that almost three quarters of the nation bought pumpkins for carving or decorative purposes. However less than one third of these people cooked with the leftovers……aka the scooped out bits.
I’ve teamed up with Knorr Stock pots this Halloween – they have asked me to come up some recipes for the spooky season. They have also come up with a few themselves too which you can find here. Some of you will have seen Ollie’s Orange soup on my Instagram highlights. The stock pots feature heavily on my whole highlight reel if truth be told! This is Ollie’s Orange soup’s scary cousin.
So hold on tight – we are going in! It’ll scare the pants off you…..ok so it won’t. I just really wanted to write that. It’ll do quite the opposite – warm you up from the insides out. The scariest part will be the carving – that much I promise.
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 tbsp tomato pureé
Sea salt and black pepper
600g pumpkin
2 carrots sliced thinly
700ml vegetable stock or chicken stock
1 can coconut milk
