Seasonal local food recipe No.127: Spiced squash (or pumpkin) soup

This warming, spicy soup is a great antidote to rich, Christmas food. It’s an adaptation of a couple of classic recipes, using the squash or pumpkin as well as chillies, carrots, onions, garlic and parsley from this week’s Christmas vegetable boxes.

Serves: 4

Preparation: 20 mins
Cooking time: 35 mins

Ingredients
750g squash or pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and diced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander 
1 fresh red or green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 onions, peeled and chopped
2 carrots peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
1.25 litres vegetable or chicken stock
Lemon juice
Flat-leaf parsley or chopped chives

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°c/gas 4.

Peel the squash or pumpkin, remove the stringy bits and seeds and discard them. Chop it into cubes and put in a roasting tray mixed with 1 tbsp of the olive oil, the garlic and the spices. Cook in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until soft and brown at the edges.

Place a pan on a medium heat with the remaining olive oil. Add the carrot, onion, celery and chilli and sweat until softened but not coloured. Then mix in the roasted squash or pumpkin and the stock.

Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes until all the vegetables are soft and cooked through.

Blitz with a hand blender or in a food processor until smooth. Taste and season with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, then sprinkle with some chopped parsley or chives.

Serve with a swirl of creme fraiche and a scattering of toasted pumpkin seeds or crispy bacon pieces.

Seasonal local food recipe No 63: Spicy roasted squash

From Jamie Oliver’s The Naked Chef.  Good to add to a risotto, in a bread, or just to have as a really tasty vegetable.

Serves 6

Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 30 minutes

Ingredients
1 medium/large butternut or other squash
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp dried oregano
½ tsp fennel seeds
2 small dried red chillies (or to taste)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 clove of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil

Method
Wash the squash, then cut in half. (If the skin on your squash seems very tough, it might be best to peel it.) With a large spoon, remove the seeds from the squash (try roasting these with a little touch of oil and some sea salt and have them with drinks – they’re really nice!). Cut the squash lengthways into quarters and then cut the quarters in half – you should have approximately 2.5cm thick, boat shaped wedges of squash. Put them in a bowl.

Put all the dried herbs and spices in a pestle and mortar and pound them up with the salt and pepper to make a fine powder. Once you’ve done this, add the garlic clove and pound it into the spices. Scrape out the contents into the bowl and add 1 tbsp olive oil. Toss the squash thoroughly in the herb and spice mixture, making sure that all the pieces are well coated.

Place the squash pieces in a line, skin side down, on a baking tray. Roast them in the oven at 200C/gas 6 for about 30 minutes, or until tender. The spicy flavour will cook into the squash and the squash will crisp slightly, the skin becoming caramelised and chewy.

Seasonal recipe No 11 – Squash (or pumpkin) and apple curry

This week’s seasonal recipe comes from 14-year-old Jenny Simmons, our Duke of Edinburgh’s award volunteer.  She often cooks it for her family.  It can be found in Joy May’s Vegetarian nosh 4 students. 

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: about 25 minutes

 Ingredients
1 tablespoon oil
1 onion, chopped
1 butternut squash – diced
4 large potatoes – diced
2 eating apples, cored and chopped into chunks
1 dessertspoon curry paste
2 mugs water
1 vegetable stock cube
2 tbsp raisins

Naan bread, rice and yogurt to serve

 Method
1. Fry onion, squash and potatoes in the oil for 5 mins until they begin to brown.

2. Add the apple, water, stock cube, raisins and curry paste. Bring to the boil. Turn down the heat, put the lid on the pan and simmer for 15 – 20 mins until veg are cooked.

Notes
Jenny says:

“This is double the quantities in the cookbook.   We like to give it a bit of a mush at the end till we get the texture we like.”   

Amounts may have to be adjusted depending on the size of the squash or pumpkin!

Click here to see all the recipes that Camel CSA members have recommended so far.

Light up with a Jack-o’-Lantern

Now we’re entering the season of mellow fruitfulness, we’ve got a beautiful pumpkin in each vegetable box this week.  They’re Jack-o’-Lantern variety from Mark Norman, one of Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s expert growers, who runs his own horticultural business on the edge of Bodmin.

Also in the small boxes:
*potatoes (Camel CSA)
*onions (Camel CSA)
*parsnips (Camel CSA)
*curly parsley (Camel CSA)
*100g salad bag (Jane Mellowship)
*pumpkin (Mark Norman)
*1/2 cucumber (Jeremy Brown)
*carrots (Jeremy)
cauliflower (Richard Hore, Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick)
tomatoes (Mr & Mrs Sanders, Polmorla Market Gardens)

Standard boxes are the same as above except:
*140g salad bag (Jane)
plus
*whole cucumber (Jeremy)
*runner beans (Jeremy)

* = grown to organic principles

Try Camel CSA’s Recipe No 11 – Squash (or pumpkin) and apple curry

They deserve a medal!

We’re having an extra mid-week volunteer session on Thursday as there’s so much work to do at Camel Community Supported Agriculture.  Charlotte, Kitty and Mike S have already put their names forward.

We need to plant out brassicas, celeriac, parsley and spring onion plants and, if we have time, sow sweetcorn and squash seeds.

If you’re able to give a hand, we’ll be on the site this Thursday 28 May between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.  Click here for directions. 

If you can’t make it on Thursday morning, why not give expert grower Jeremy Brown a ring on 07971762227 to find out when else it might be convenient to help out.

Medals all round

Last Sunday’s team deserves special praise.  Everyone got down on their knees and hand weeded. 

The onion, shallot and Swiss chard beds were comparatively easy to tackle, but weeding the carrots by hand was an exacting and extremely fiddly job. The air was blue at times.  We’ll savour every single one of those carrots when they appear in our weekly vegetable boxes!

Grateful thanks to volunteer expert growers Jane, Jeremy and Mark and to their willing helpers – Beverley, Cath, Carolyn, Charlotte, John, Kitty, Mike H and Mike S.

There’s so much effort going into preparing the first vegetable shares, which should start to be available in mid-June.  A lot of thought is being given to when and how they will be picked, packed and distributed.  

We’ll be working on the site as usual next Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.   Do come along and enjoy the fresh air and exercise.  It’s not all hard work.  It’s good company – and fun too.

Sunday jobs – Whitsun weekend

We need all the help we can get on Sunday.  The growing season has hit us with a vengeance at Camel Community Supported Agriculture .  Weeds are shooting up – they love this showery weather! 

Expert grower Jane Mellowship says: -

“On Sunday we have lots to get done. Brassica, celeriac, parsley and spring onion plugs need to be planted out, there’s sweetcorn and squash to sow and plenty of weeding too.

Hope to see you all then!”