Thrifty pumpkin soup

one of the great things about halloween is the fact that everybody wants to carve pumpkins. well its good for me but it is a shame that the people who are carving them don't also want to eat these beautiful autumn vegetables.

it's good for me because it means with such a demand the supermarkets sell them at such a cheap rate. the ones that tescos are selling for 99p are probably those that they can't normally sell as food because they fall outside the food grade/size, which is silly really because they are perfectly edible and probably very handy if you have a large family or are having a dinner party.

so for me it is the perfect chance to make a batch of soup for the freezer, which is exactly what i did with this one! i halved, deseeded it and cut it into wedges - with a carving knife and meat cleever due to its size! after 45 minutes roasting in the oven at 180 degrees celcius (well, maybe a bit more as i was upstairs and didn't hear the timer going off and by the time i realised and went downstairs it had stopped bleeping, so it must have been going a while.....) it was falling off the skin beautfully.

i had enough to make two batches in the blender and still have a wedge left over. so out of one pumkin for 99p i had enough for 7 lunches. thats just over 14p a portion! with my left over wedge i reheated it at lunch time, peeled and chunked and put in a hot toasted pitta bread with some lettuce. and the 6 portions of soup went in the freezer ready for a cold day - not that isn't cold already but i'm sure it will get colder!