Moroccan Roasted Pumpkin and Red Pepper Soup

A really easy pumpkin soup I whipped up tonight. Takes just over an hour from start to finish :)

• Half a pumpkin, deseeded and chopped into really large chunks
• 4 medium size red peppers
• Olive oil
• Onion, chopped
  
• Garlic, chopped
  
• Approx 500ml Chicken or Vege stock (don't use powdered stock - it is too salty)
  
• Can of Moroccan Spiced (or Indian Spiced - its up to you) Tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 180-200C. Put the pumpkin (skin at the bottom) and red peppers into a baking tray. Brush the pumpkin with olive oil. Put the tray into the oven and roast until the peppers are blackened and the pumpkin is nicely browned and cooked through (about 30 min). Transfer the peppers to a bowl and cover with gladwrap. Once they are collapsed, remove the skins, stalks and seeds (keep the juices that come out of the peppers - you'll add it to the soup too)
Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a large saucepan. Saute the chopped onion and garlic until transparent. Remove the skin from the roasted pumpkin and add to the saucepan. Add the tomatoes and the stock and bring to a gentle boil. Add the red peppers and their juices and heat through for another few minutes.
Take soup off element and check for seasoning. Use a stick blender to smooth the soup out a bit (leave some chunks). Serve in big bowls with nice chunky fresh or garlic bread on the side. Yummy!

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Lemon curd

Lemon curd
Originally uploaded by mellopuffy

Here's a piccie of the lemon curd I made this weekend with Sue's lovely lemons (golly I love homegrown lemons - makes the anaemic lemons from the supermarket look verily poor): very easy to make using the Jo Seagar recipe (which is very similar to the Edmonds lemon honey recipe but with a little less butter), but a word of warning - it will take you a good hour to an hour and a half as you have to bring the mixture to the heat quite slowly.

you need:
4 large lemons
100g butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten

Scrub and grate the rind of the lemons, then squeeze the juice. Put the strained juice plus the lemon rind into a small saucepan (I recommend one with a pouring lip). Add the butter in wee cubes, the sugar and finally the eggs, and stir together. Heat gently over a low heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Continue to stir until the mixture thickens (this will take a long time), then pour into hot sterilized jars. Allow to cool, put the lids and store in the fridge until needed (ie on your toast, or perhaps some yummy tarts or even a lemon meringue pie). Its quite important not to heat this up too quickly as then the eggs will curdle and you will have sweet lemony scrambled eggs! When the butter is melting into the mixture it does take on a strange slightly eggy look but don't worry - keep stirring and eventually the butter will melt entirely into the mix.

PS to sterilize your glass jars - heat with lids in 120C oven for 30 min or boil in water on your stove for 15 min.