Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Oven Baked Potatoes and Pumpkin Soup

Some times dinner just falls into place serendipitously. That happened today.


My friend Appu stayed with me for a couple of weeks and one of the things we'd planned to do was make pumpkin soup. She makes an awesome pumpkin soup and was to show me how she does it. Anyway, it was one more among the million things we didn't get around to doing. But the pumpkin was sitting there in the veg box making me feel guilty and so I made the soup myself - my own version of course.

Pumpkin Soup 

1 kg red pumpkin, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 large potato, peeled and halved
2 carrots, peeled and halved.
salt
pepper
butter
mixed herbs of your choice

Pressure cook the vegetables till they're all boiled and cooked through. Puree the veggies with a hand blender if you have one or use your liquidiser. Add salt and pepper and whatever dried herbs you fancy. Stir in a bit of butter, and you're done.

If you have fresh celery be sure to add some. Just wash the stalk well and cut into 1cm pieces. If you like the fresh crunch of celery add a few after you have pureed the soup and are heating the soup to serve.

The thing is that this soup, though quite nice, was not exciting enough.

And then I happened to see a post on a food group on Facebook. Oven roasted potato wedges with chilli oil. I read the recipe and it was so easy it called out to me!

Oven Roasted Chilli Potatoes 

4 largeish potatoes, scrubbed really well and cut into medium thick wedges. Leave the peel on.
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp paprika powder
salt


Soak the potato wedges in salted water for at least 30 mins. Be generous with the salt so the potatoes absorb enough.

Preheat the oven. Set it at 200C.

Line a baking tray with aluminium foil and spread out the drained potatoes on the foil. Drizzle liberally with the olive oil and scatter the paprika all over. Give it all a good mix with your hands so the potatoes are well coated with the oil and spice. Bake for approximately 20 minutes at 180C. Check for doneness and bake a few minutes more if required or if you want the potatoes to crisp more.

I served these fabulous potatoes with my pumpkin soup - a match made in heaven!

1 comment:

Pinku said...

Planning to make both... Lets see if I can get it right. :)