Easy & Delicious – Seasonal Winter Soup (using ingredients from the garden & preserving pantry)

Here in our temperate climate, Winter provides us with few notable contributions from the garden. But we’ve been preserving our harvest, and we can still serve up a delicious and hearty meal. Using our preserved pumpkin, a little home grown garlic and a couple of perennial leeks, we can be dipping our sourdough slices in some gorgeous Seasonal Winter Soup in no time.

You’ll need:

1 quart/31 jar of diced pumpkin

1 quart/27 jar of chicken stock

1 bulb of garlic

1 leek

Salt & pepper to taste

Start by sautéing your garlic (crushed) with your leek (sliced) in a little oil or butter. Keep the temperature medium, you don’t want to cook it, just caramelise a little.

Drain and add your pumpkin. Allow to cook for a few minutes, to cook off any extra liquid and hopefully put a nice bit of colour on some of the pumpkin pieces.

Add your chicken stock. Leave on a low heat until the stock has reduced about a third.

Mash or blend with a stick blender, serve with a good, chunk of crusty sourdough! I like to add a little sour cream and a sprinkle of chopped parsley to mine, but a little diced bacon and cheese is also amazing!