Soups are warming, filling and nutritious! Soups are quick to prepare, great for using up all your spare vegetables and can be eaten for lunch or dinner. Soups can also be dressed up for a fancy starter with a sprinkling of toppings, stashed into a flask for a low key lunch or eaten as a main meal with a few salad or carb sides.
What’s not to love! 🙂
Okay, so I know recently we’ve had a few pumpkin recipes! We had pumpkin gnocchi and pumpkin latte, but there’s no harm having a few more right?! 😛 This is the season for those vibrant fleshy vegetables (or technically ‘fruit’ if you want to be precise!), full of all those wonderful vitamins, minerals and antioxidants including absolutely loads of Vitamin A – great for fighting infections and improving immune system health! 🙂
So here we have two soup recipes, both using pumpkin as the star (feel free to use any type of orange coloured squash or indeed sweet potatoes if that’s all you can find!) Both recipes have some extra protein in the form of chickpeas or lentils and of course, you could just add everything together and make one giant pumpkin lentil chickpea soup! Yumyum (of course we have done that already)!
For lunch we usually just eat soup, maybe with some fresh bread, but for dinner we might add a salad or a grain dish such as vegetable rice for example. The soup will store once made for up to five days (it might get thicker on standing and the flavours will develop fully), or can be frozen once cold for up to three months.
Two seasonal soups for Autumn made with pumpkin as the base.
- Splash or spray of oil (we used an olive oil spray)
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 2-4 x 400g tins chickpeas (with liquid) OR 1-2 cups of washed red lentils
- 1/4 – 1/2 medium pumpkin cooked and chopped into small chunks (we used Kabocha)
- 1-2 litres water
- salt to taste
- 1/2-1 teaspoon black pepper
- Pinch of nutmeg
- *Pinch of red chilli flakes (optional)
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In a small pan, heat your oil, then start frying the onion. You want it brown and starting to go crispy. Set aside when done.
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In a large saucepan, add either the chickpeas or the lentils. If using chickpeas, add the whole tin including the liquid, then top up with about a litre of boiling water. If using lentils, add three times the amount of water as lentils (i.e. 1 cup of lentils and 3 cups of water).
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Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg. Heat until just starting to boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the chopped pumpkin, stir and leave to cook for 20 minutes. Check the liquid regularly and add a bit more if needed. The pumpkin should begin to break down and turn your soup a gorgeous golden colour.
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If using lentils, the soup will need cooking a bit longer than the chickpea version, but just keep checking (and adding water if required) until you have the desired consistency. Sprinkle red chilli flakes over if using in the last 5 minutes of cooking.
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Do a taste check and adjust seasonings as necessary. Serve and enjoy!
This is a Spaghetti Squash bowl!
Make your soup, settle down with a big bowl and a hunk of bread, then come back and tell us which version you made! 🙂 We love receiving your comments, seeing your photos and listening to what you have to say! Oh, and shall we do chocolate next week instead of pumpkin?! 🙂
Feel free to share our recipes if you enjoy them (and if you make your own variations of them)! Use the hashtag #LifeDietHealth or tag us @LifeDietHealth. We can be found on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and have a look and see what we’re liking on Pinterest too! Thank you! ?
Have a fantastic weekend… the sun’ll come out tomorrow, tomorrow… ! 😛
Speak soon!
Laurena x
