'Pumpkin soup, the best you ever tasted' - a tasty recipe for those pumpkins

'Pumpkin Soup' by Helen Cooper. Picture credit: Caroline Hennessy. 

This time of year, shops and supermarkets have piles and piles of pumpkins lying around, on special offer and almost everyone tempted by a bargain is looking for a way to use these wonderfully orange and tempting looking pumpkins. 

In this article, food blogger Caroline Hennessy gives us a delicious recipe for those pumpkins and also a fun story about Halloween, the joy of eating pumpkins and how there is much more to a pumpkin than a carved scary face. 

'Pumpkin soup, the best you ever tasted'

BY CAROLINE HENNESSY

"Deep in the woods there's an old white cabin
with pumpkins in the garden"

There's a suitably sinister start to Helen Cooper's superb picture book 'Pumpkin Soup' that's perfect for this time of year. Even though the five-year-old Small Girl and Little Missy, now seven, have graduated onto the more sophisticated scares of Roald Dahl's 'The BFG' and 'Matilda', there's something about Halloween that has them scrabbling through the bookshelves for this old favourite.

Frights aside, the worst thing you'll be left with after reading 'Pumpkin Soup' is a rumbling tummy from Cooper's evocative descriptions of the nightly supper enjoyed by the bag-piping cat, banjo-playing squirrel and small singing duck. They are friends who live together, make music together and cook pumpkin soup together. 

Each of them has a defined job:

"Made by the cat who slices up the pumpkin.
Made by the squirrel who stirs in the water.
Made by the duck who scoops up a pipkin of salt, and tips in just enough."

But one day, duck decides he wants to stir the soup. It all goes horribly wrong and he storms off in a huff, although not forgetting to bring along a pumpkin in a wheelbarrow. 

'Pumpkin Soup' might be about sharing and squabbling and making up, but it's the descriptions of the soup that get me every time.

"Pumpkin Soup.
The best you ever tasted."

How could anyone resist a siren call like that? When we see the first pumpkin of the year, it's dragged home to be – firstly – admired by the girls, then butchered, roasted and blended to make a cauldron of a gently spiced pumpkin soup.

Irish grown Halloween pumpkins. Picture credit: Caroline Hennessy. 

We've tried this with the monster orange pumpkins that are piled high in a threatening manner this time of year, but they are bred for looks and jack o'lanterns, rather than for flavour.

If you do manage to get your hands on a handsome grey crown pumpkin – the kind of one that looks fit to bring Cinderella to a ball – it works beautifully, but otherwise go for any pumpkin marked edible. Or even – whisper it – use butternut squash (just don't tell the kids).

But don't despair; not all of that king-sized pumpkin will go to waste.

When the children disembowel their jack o'lantern pumpkin, make sure they don't throw away the guts.

The joys of scooping out the pumpkin and getting it ready for carving. Photo credit: Caroline Hennessy. 

Get them to wash the fibrous strings off the seeds, toss with olive oil and chosen seasonings – salt is obligatory and smoked paprika works well, as does cinnamon – and roast in the oven (180C, 10 minutes) while the edible pumpkin cooks. They're the kind of pre-dinner snack that you'll have to stop yourself from eating and the smallies will be charmed that their pumpkin has more to it than just a pretty scary face.  

Pumpkin Soup
Roast pumpkin gives this soup a great depth of flavour. Feel free to use leftovers or to pop the pumpkin into a hot oven when other baking is going on. Vegan? Use vegetable stock instead of chicken and abandon the finishing yoghurt. Serves 4.

What you will need

1kg pumpkin, deseeded and cut into wedges.
2 tablespoons olive oil.
1 onion, roughly chopped.
3 cloves garlic, sliced.
1 teaspoon turmeric.
2 teaspoons ground cumin.
2 teaspoons ground coriander.
2 teaspoons garam masala.
1kg roasted pumpkin.
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock.
125g red split lentils.
1 x 400g tin coconut milk.
1 lime.
Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper.
Natural yoghurt to serve.

·         Preheat the oven to 180C. Brush the pumpkin wedges with 1 tablespoon of oil and spread out on a  baking sheet. Season with salt and pepper then roast for 40 minutes or until tender.

·         Heat the other tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan and, over a medium heat, fry the onion and garlic for 8-10 minutes until soft and sweet. Add the spices to the pan and stir, cooking for a minute, until the mixture smells fragrant.

·         Scoop the roasted pumpkin from its skin and tip it into the saucepan, along with the chicken stock, red lentils and coconut milk. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are cooked.

·         Purée with a hand-held blender or use a potato masher for a more textured soup.

·         Season to taste with lime juice, salt and pepper. Serve with dollops of natural yoghurt and lots of hot buttered toast or naan breads for dipping.

Why is bending down to your child's level to be shunned?

The perfect picture, as three generations of the one family all get stuck into figuring out a new toy. Copyright Sandra Quinn, Quinn's Quandries 2016. 

Yesterday morning, I read an article about Kate Middleton being potentially shunned by the Queen for bending down to her son George during a Royal tour in Canada.

A similar 'incident' if you can call it that, happened to Prince William when he bent down to George at another engagement and the media interpreted the Queen, or so they think, telling him to stand up immediately.

To give you the backstory, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had just arrived in Canada with their two adorable children George and Charlotte. They were greeted by the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie.

At one point, Kate bends down to speak to George, as she has Charlotte resting happily on her hip. I shall refer to her as Kate, as I think using the term, 'The Duchess' is a bit highfalutin - I had to Google how to spell this, rest assured that there are no airs, graces or notions of grandeur here.

What we saw was a picture of a real family, despite the Royal titles, if you ask me, and yet the picture is plastered all over the papers and Kate is being chastised for doing something, which the Queen 'may' not approve of.

Ridiculous if you ask me.

To me, children feel loved, respected and like equals if adults get down to their level (literally), sit on the floor to play with them and muck in, so to speak.

My parents used to always say that if an adult came into a room filled with children and didn't get down on their knees and start playing, that they were not to be trusted and it is a measure of trust that I have always used.

I come from a big family - I have five sisters and one brother, and growing up, we all had our own little groups of friends, so our house was a veritable hive of child activity, for a few decades to say the least.

I was also an aunt from a young age and did my fair share of babysitting as a young 'un, so I  am used to kids and they seem to like me (though not as much as they like my boyfriend - even with my own two young nephews, my boyfriend is the solid favourite).

If I walk into a room and there are children playing on the floor, you are far more likely to find anyone from my family kneeling down there with them and getting stuck into the wonderful imaginary game, rather than standing up chatting to the potentially 'boring' adults and drinking tea.

So, I ask you, are you the type to kneel down and start playing or are you the adult who tells the child to be quiet and play in the corner, while the 'grown ups' chat?

Go Gold for Childhood Cancer - parents will do anything for their children

Leighton and Judy with their darling children, Evan and Lily-Mae at the recording of Tiny Dancer, a Song for Lily Mae.

Judy - Lily-Mae's mother, is my mother's niece - the daughter of my late Uncle Tommy and when I found out her little angel was dreadfully ill, it broke my heart.

To be quite honest, our family is scattered generously across Ireland, the UK and a little further, so I hadn't even met Lily-Mae before she got sick, as they lived in Galway and at the time, I was living in Cork.

She may have been a tiny baby at a family funeral, but I did not know the little girl she had become.

I'm not going to pretend that we were all like peas in a pod, but for those of us who knew Lily-Mae and Evan and for those of us who met her after her horrible tale with wicked cancer began, her story and her plight touched all of her hearts and we wanted to do anything we could to help.

My sister's boyfriend organised comedy gigs in Kilkenny, others took part in marathons, runs and walks, others sold CD's for the charity single and we all did what we could to help out.

As part of her aggressive treatment, Lily-Mae, this tiny, fragile and adorable four-year-old, was travelling to Dublin regularly and it was my aunt's house where I first met her and really got to know her, both as my tiny cousin and the little darling the whole nation and most of the world were soon to fall in love with.

Lily-Mae's sweet nature, those eyes filled with wonderment and the possibility of tomorrow and her willingness to perform and take centre stage at every given opportunity - these were the traits, which endeared her to the nation.

With tubes coming out of her, tablets the size of marbles and more pain than any child should have to endure, Lily-Mae still wanted to perform, to have everyone smile at her and clap. To be the main attraction for the duration of her one-woman show (though sometimes Evan was given a token supporting role - as they have aged, their performances have become more like equal duets, as her little brother is coming into his own, both as a little boy and as a performer).

I remember it vividly, she sang a little song, which had terribly complicated lyrics, which I would struggle to remember and an accompanying dance. That night, she told her mother that her cousin could come in and say goodnight - even while feeling poorly, she was a formidable little lady, so I went in and was told in the sweetest and most hilarious way that I 'may kiss her good night on the cheek'.

From that day, she had a special place in my heart and as I read the updates from Judy on her own Facebook page and through the Tiny Dancer A Song for Lily-Mae page, I almost felt her pain, as I read about tests, infections, medication, treatment and how Lily-Mae would have to travel to America to have a true chance at fighting Neuroblastoma.

It was at this point that the strength, resilience and resourcefulness of Leighton and Judy shone through. With the help of Judy's family and particularly her brother Paul Hayes and their combined contacts in the world of show business, dancing, theatre, music, production and media, they soon had an army of people who wanted to do what they could to raise the funds to take Lily-Mae stateside.

Tiny Dancer A Song for Lily-Mae was recorded on September 30, 2012, just months after Lily-Mae's diagnosis, in The Black Box Theatre in Galway.  Countless people gathered together to add their voice to the song, which could help break down the barriers and raise awareness of childhood cancers like Neuroblastoma.

Despite how awful and harrowing each passing day must have been, Judy and Leighton were valiant in their efforts and in their fearless PR campaign. They went on television shows, they were in the news regularly, pictures of their family were scattered liberally across newspapers in Ireland and further afield and Judy's voice on the airwaves became a regular feature.

As a journalist in the print media, I know that it is no easy feat to talk on the radio and throughout my career, I have been on the radio many times (the first article on this blog about childhood cancer was followed by me speaking on Cork's 96fm with PJ Coogan), so I can only imagine how hard it is to open up your life to public scrutiny and let the media into your sitting room, all for the greater good of raising funds and awareness.

When a child is hurt or needs help, their parents will do anything they can to ease the pain or make the problem go away, but what Judy and Leighton did was amazing and went beyond all expectations. They put themselves out there and brought the plight of their little girl into every sitting room, office, school, creche and bus.

The stellar fundraising campaign raised 420,000 Euros. While Lily-Mae is now quite healthy, there is a 70% chance that she will relapse and if this happens, funds will be needed to bring the little girl to Europe or America and if she does not relapse, the money will go towards the Neuroblastoma Society.

Neuroblastoma is a rare an aggressive form of childhood cancer, which affects one in every 100,000 children in Ireland.

Many of you, my readers, will have seen Lily-Mae on television, on the news, in videos and have gotten to know her through social media, as we all went on the journey with her.

For those who don't know her, she is a little performer, she wants to be a ballerina when she grows up, she likes fairies, dinosaurs and the colour purple. One of the aims of the campaign for Lily-Mae was to raise awareness about Neuroblastoma, so that it would be a cancer that people wouldn't have to Google.