Pumpkin tahini Soup

A perfect recipe to “root” yourself into autumn

The sights, sounds and smells of fall stir the soul while leaves are starting the rebirthing process, as they start to die, in an astonishing range of colours that puts their spring birth to shame. For many, the fall is a time of excitement with the leaves bursting into colour, the air growing crisper, and the holidays just around the corner. But for others, it’s a time of dread. Whether it’s the sadness of the greyer days, or the loneliness of seeing the kids leave the house, autumn often brings unwelcome changes and a drop in mood. If you feel lost in your blues it is very important to ground yourself with the right and balanced diet. Root vegetables help you to ‘root’ yourself to the ground avoiding the mind to drift away to unknown places. Chestnuts, pumpkin, beets are all helpful vegetables to bring to your daily diet. Today I wanna share with you a warming soup, perfect for those foggy days. It is mainly made with pumpkin, and I decided to pair it with some tahini sauce which enhances that nutty flavour that everybody loves.

Ingredients (4-5 persons):

WHAT YOU NEED

• 1 Kg pumpkin
• 1 leak (the core)
• vegetable stock (as needed)
• 30 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 80 ml oat (or soy) cream (store bought)
• salt & pepper to taste
• 2 Tbsp tahini sauce 

WHAT TO DO

Cut the pumpkin into chunks and boil it. When ready take it out and in a separate pan stir fry the leak together with salt & pepper in olive oil till golden brown. Add the pumpkin together with oat cream and keep cooking for few minutes. Now transfert to a high speed blender and process with some hot vegetable stock and 1 tbsp of tahini sauce till it gets creamy. When creamy it’s ready to be served. Add some black sesame seeds and remaining tahini to garnish. 

This soup its one of my favourite and usually everyone loves it. You can also try to use belly-button mushrooms instead of pumpkin together with some potatoes if you like the taste of them to get a different soup. A tip to get the best result in term of taste and texture is to blend it really well till silky smooth. At last, do not exceed with vegetable stock or it’ll get too watery. This soup has to be thick and smooth as a cream. Enjoy and share your feedback!