Cooking with Abandon

I'm on the lookout for recipes to use tomorrow at our Halloween dinner party. I'm going to be pastry-ing it up tonight, but I also need to come up with some things for dinner too.

This soup comes from recipezaar. It was posted by a user called English_Rose from Cheshire, England. It is something I would like to consider if I can find a good pumpkin (and also learn how to prepare one).

SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 1/2 lbs pumpkin, roughly chopped
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
2 pints water or vegetable broth
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons cream

BROOMSTICKS

4 part-baked breadsticks
2 tablespoons olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1 Heat the olive oil in a large pan, add the onion and garlic and cook for a few minutes to soften.

2 Add the pumpkin and sweet potato and cook for a couple of mins, then add the water or stock. Season with salt and ground black pepper, cover and bring to the boil, then simmer for 25 mins until the pumpkin and sweet potato are really tender.

3 Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400°F Cut the breadstick dough in half lengthways, then make several cuts one third of the way up the length to look like broom bristles. Repeat with the other bread, put onto a large baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 5-8 mins until golden.

4 Stir the milk into the soup, whiz everything together in blender or processor in batches until smooth.

5 Return to the pan and gently warm through. Pour into bowls and finish with a swirl of cream.