First Soup of Autumn

I came back from a week in Tenerife late Sunday night, and sitting down at my office desk on Monday morning a mere 20 hours after I'd been sunning myself was painful enough. Then I saw the tree outside my office window: orange. I appeared to have arrived back to face autumn, already.

The one plus-side to this seasonal change is that, having spent all summer pretending to enjoy salad whilst it rain, it is now acceptable to start making soup for lunch again. I wanted something that didn't feel entirely wintery, though, and had some peppers and squash in the fridge: ingredients that always make me feel slightly happier about letting go of summer.

When I say "roughly chopped" I don't mean *really* roughly. They need to be in 1-2 cm square chunks. It just doesn't really matter how precise you are, seeing as it's all going to be blitzed at the end anyway.


Squash and Pepper soup

1 onion, roughly chopped
2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 red or yellow pepper, roughly chopped
1/2 butternut squash, roughly chopped
2 tsp fennel seeds
500ml good stock (I used pheasant, but that's because that's what I had in the freezer - a cube would be fine here)
75g red lentils (the small ones which take c. 20 mins to cook)

In a large saucepan (do bear in mind you're just about to add a pint of liquid to it), heat a v generous glug of olive oil, then tip in the veg, chilli, and fennel seeds. Turn the heat down to medium, as you just want to veg to gently saute and give up some of their liquid, rather than actually browning them. Cook, stirring ocassionally, for around 10-15 minutes, or until the onion is softened and melting.

Tip in the stock and bring to the boil. Once it's there, add the lentils, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the lentils are dissolving and the squash is tender.

Blitz vigorously in a food processor/using one of those stick things. Eat.


This makes roughly two generous, or three meagre, lunch portions.