Butternut Soup

Method

Butternut soup with nothing more than a couple of onions, a few cloves of garlic and a good helping of black pepper to enhance its flavour, made a delicious supper that evening. Since then, I’ve begun to add a grated cube of fresh ginger to the squash, onions and garlic as they are “sweating” in some olive oil, and a couple of fluid ounces of orange juice to the (pint of) vegetable stock.

Once it’s all softened (about 25 minutes) and blended, I swirl in some plain yoghurt, then reheat and serve.

Admittedly my kitchen must be the most disorganised in all of Whitstone. I’ve seen what some of you talented cooks can conjure up at the produce show in Carnival week, and I just marvel at how your Victoria sponges rise to perfection and your meringues assume that subtle texture and colour, not to mention the mysteries of your wonderful saffron cakes. I guess that you plan your culinary week with care and shop accordingly, well in advance. I suspect that you would never just go to the Village Shop “to see what there is”, without any idea of what you’re going to dish up that day. I do it all the time – what’s new on the shelves in the shop is my inspiration. Usually I’m spoilt for choice, but on a snowed up day, when all of you had got to the shop before me, there was nothing but a lonely butternut squash to be seen in the veggie section. What seemed to be a disaster in view of my typically poor planning and sparsely stocked larder, actually marked a turning point in my kitchen

Mrs Trewhitless