With the shorter days and cold winter nights drawing in, there’s nothing like a comforting bowl of soup to warm the soul. As pumpkins only seem to be readily available around halloween in the UK, I’ve made the most of it this year and made a large batch of delicious pumpkin soup to share with family and freeze to enjoy well into the winter months.

Using my own twist on an old Jamie Oliver recipe, I kept it simple on ingredients to let the pumpkin flavour do the work. You will need:

• 1/2 large pumpkin
• 1 large onion
• 1 large carrot
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 750ml of vegetable stock
• 200ml of soya milk
• 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

The first step is to cut the pumpkin into large segments, keeping the seeds for roasting later, before placing the chunks on a baking tray and drizzling with a generous glug of olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the oven at 170celsius for about an hour until soft and the skin caramelises.

Meanwhile chop the garlic, onion and carrot and cook in a large saucepan until softened. Once the pumpkin is ready, add to the pan along with the stock, chilli flakes, salt, pepper and soya milk before blending with a handheld stick blender.

Continue to blend and combine the ingredients until a smooth, creamy consistency is reached. Add a little more stock if required and taste to adjust seasoning accordingly. I made this batch with a little kick as I decided to add more chilli at the final stage also.

I served my soup up in a coconut bowl for that wholesome aesthetic and finished it off with a swirl of light yoghurt and more chilli flakes. Other extras you may want to try are crispy kale, toasted pumpkin seeds or even just fresh sourdough bread on the side for dunking.

Using the ingredients as listed above made a very large batch of soup enough to feed the family and freeze leftovers for later. There is so much more you can do with the rest of the pumpkin too; roast the seeds for snacking and topping salads, add the chunks of flesh to a curry, or roast up in large steak size pieces and enjoy in a wholesome salad perfect with quinoa, feta and hummus. Colourful, sweet and nutritious, I only wish pumpkins were in season all year long!