Bonfire Night Rehearsal

We've invited a few friends around for a Bonfire and Fireworks evening in 2 weeks time. We held a party like this a couple of years ago and had a lovely evening with a roaring bonfire, extravagant fireworks (provided by our good friends S and M) and warming food. This year's plans are to have the bonfire and fireworks as before supplimented by the christening of our newly constructed outside fireplace and a log fire.

Foodwise I'm going to provide a warming soup with crusty bread, homemade vegetarian and sausage rolls with assorted chutneys and pickles (see previous posts) and a pudding, yet to be decided on. I tried out the soup recipe last week and took samples to my son M's family - they loved it and A requested the recipe...so here you have it...

Butternut and Carrot Soup
Ingredients
1 small-medium HG butternut squash, peeled and chopped into chunks
4 large carrots - 2 peeled and diced and 2 peeled and grated
1 large onion, peeled and diced
1 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil
1 tsp ground cumin
half a nutmeg, grated
1 tin chopped tomatoes or 4 fresh tomatoes peeled and chopped
2 pts vegetable or chicken stock
2 ozs lentils
salt and pepper to taste

Method
Put the onion and oil into a large pan and cook gently until the onion has softened. Add the diced carrots and the squash and cook gently for 5 mins with the lid on, stirring occasionally. Add the grated carrot and the cumin and nutmeg and stir to combine all ingredients. Then add the chopped tomatoes and stock. Bring to a gentle boil and then simmer for 1 hour.

Remove the pot from the heat and, using a hand blender, blend the soup in the pot. Do this very carefully as the soup will be very hot. Add the lentils to the blended soup and stir well. return to the heat and simmer for another 30 mins to cook the lentils. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with warm, crusty bread rolls.