How To Roast A Whole Pumpkin

My children have fallen in love with Butternut squash soup. It’s our ‘winter’ of rain and cold so we’re lapping up soups with crusty bread.

I prefer to buy Nigerian pumpkin that’s well-priced over expensive, imported Butternut squash.

Prepping it is easy. I wash well and then try my best to cut it down the middle with a serrated knife.

With a spoon, I scoop out the centre of strands and pulp and seeds. I discard everything but the seeds which are delicious roasted. But you knew that. {The seeds get roasted in the final few minutes of the pumpkin cooking – I separate them from the other innards, toss them in oil and salt and set them on a tray where they get turned every few minutes till they are golden. Note – they burn pretty quickly so keep an eye on them. PS – they never make it into any dishes because my people – myself, friends, fam eat them straight outta the oven. They never stood a dinner table chance}.

I’ve learned that one of the best ways of roasting pumpkin is to set the halves cut-side down on a tray.

I roast the pumpkin at 180 degrees C for about an hour. Then I remove it from the oven, let it cool down and peel the skin off.

The end result gets portioned into containers and frozen until I’m ready to use.

Rustling up a soup is no more than sauteed onions in a pan, with a splash of olive oil, followed by the pumpkin, some water/ stock, herbs, turmeric, ginger…yes fresh ginger is perfect and voila, cooked, pureed, lapped up like golden juice.