Roast Pumpkin with Rosemary

Let's be clear about one thing: I'm still on holidays, and I'm not cooking properly. But when you're on partial strike – barely cooking, barely shopping – and all your favourite take away joints have closed for a month, you still have to feed everyone somehow. So I'm finding easy ways to make three ingredients taste good. If I were a famous cookbook writer, I'd call it Take Three! – but then, somebody's already done that. Drat.

It's a good concept. The best food is often made of very few ingredients, cooked well. For example, everyone knows, I hope, how to roast a pumpkin. You chop it up, drizzle it with a little oil, and bang it in the oven. But does everyone know how to make it taste extra fine?

Lately, I've been stripping a long stem of rosemary into the baking tray so that it forms a thin layer. Then I cut the pumpkin into slices no more than a centimetre thick, toss it with a drizzle of olive oil and a good pinch of salt, and lay it flat on the rosemary. As it bakes, the pumpkin become infused with the flavour of the herb; it comes out absolutely delicious. We eat it hot for dinner; and any leftovers are divine the next day smooshed into sandwiches with avocado, hommus, or a bit of cheese.

Roast Pumpkin and Rosemary - 1 butternut pumpkin - 1 stem of rosemary, at least 20 cm long - olive oil - salt Pre-heat the oven to 240°C. Cut the pumpkin in half widthways. Halve the halves lengthwise, and cut the seedless quarters into 1cm thick half-moons. Set aside. Scoop out the seeds from the other quarters; then cut them into 1cm thick half-moons and crescent moons. Reflect upon the following by ee cummings: ! o(rounD) moon,how do you(round er than roUnd)float; who lly &(rOunder than) go :ldenly( Round est) ? Having recalled the beauty of the moon, come back to earth. Roughly strip the rosemary from the stem, and sprinkle it into your dish. Toss the pumpkin with a little olive oil (not too much) and a pinch of salt, then lay it over the rosemary. The more surface area that touches rosemary, the more flavourful the pumpkin will be. Pop it into the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the pumpkin is soft and beginning to caramelise at the edges. Serve tepid or cold. Poem by ee cummings, from 95 Poems, a book which I urge you to find and reflect upon. (Local: pumpkin, rosemary, olive oil. Not local: salt.)

Pumpkin Soup

Ah, Saturday morning. I'm in my pyjamas, the washing machine's on, the kids are happily drawing. Time to turn up the stereo and make soup.

For two weeks, I've been saving up pumpkin from the box. It goes well with red onions, which are softly sweet, and the delicate flavour of marjoram. If you need to use brown onions, consider swapping the marjoram for thyme, as marjoram can be overpowered by brown onions.

The soup is velvety smooth. As my family quoted sections of Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper, I added 'a pipkin of salt' a la the duck; and my toddler happily banged her spoon on her bowl shouting "More! More!" as she ate. Happy kids, warm soup and a good sourdough bread: now that's what I call Saturday lunch.

Pumpkin Soup - 2 kg pumpkin, peeled, seeded and roughly cubed - 5 tiny red onions, or fewer bigger ones, or even a brown onion - 4 cloves garlic, bashed with the flat of a knife and chopped - lots of marjoram, maybe 2 tbs leaves all up - 1 to 1½ litres chicken stock - olive oil Warm the olive oil in a large soup pot. Fry the onions gently until they are soft and translucent. Add the garlic and the marjoram, and fry for another minute. Add the pumpkin, and fry for a few more minutes, stirring from time to time. Add the chicken stock and a little water if you need; the liquid should barely cover the pumpkin. Simmer until the pumpkin is soft, about half an hour. Put it through a food mill or a food processor. It should be thick enough to leave a dent when touched with a spoon. Season and serve. (As you can see in the photo, there are times when I just leave it rough and ready, mashing it only with a stout wooden spoon; but for supreme smoothness, pass it through a food mill!) (Local: pumpkin, onions, garlic, marjoram, olive oil, and most of the ingredients of the chicken stock.)

Root Vegetable Soup

It was a grey old Saturday morning and I needed a little comfort food. Rolling around in our crisper were turnips, carrots, pumpkin, and a lone parsnip. What on earth could I do with a single parsnip, and a surfeit of root vegetables? Turn them into soup, of course!

The parsnip and carrots made it oh so sweet, balancing out the white pepper note of the turnips.

We had a little double cream leftover in the fridge and added a dob to each bowl – but the soup was almost as delicious the next day even without the cream.

This soup freezes well. Whenever I make soup, I freeze any leftovers in individual portions – there's nothing like soup for lunch on a cold day!

Root Vegetable Soup - 2 tbs unsalted butter - 1 large onion, chopped - 2 large carrots, chopped - 1 kg other root vegetables – parsnip, pumpkin, turnips, swede, celeriac, rutabaga – peeled and chopped - 1 large potato, peeled and chopped - 2 litres water, veggie stock or chicken stock (I used homemade chicken stock made from the carcass of a roast chicken, onion, celery, carrot, bay and peppercorns) - 1 bay leaf - ½ cup parsley, finely chopped Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and bay leaf, and cook gently until the onions are translucent. Add the root veggies and sauté for 5 to 10 minutes until glistening. Pour in the stock and stir carefully, scraping up any veggies stuck to the bottom of the pan. Bring to a simmer, then cover and simmer gently until the veggies are quite soft, 30 to 45 minutes. Remove the bay leaf. Process the soup in a food processor or large blender, and return it to the pot. Add the parsley, season, and serve. Adapted from The Ultimate Cook Book: 900 New Recipes, Thousands of Ideas by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. (Backyard: bay leaf, parsley. Local: onion, carrot, potato, other root veggies. Somewhere in Victoria: butter.)