Henry & Tilly went pumpkin carving the other day, and they brought home a couple of extra pumpkins they hadn’t finished - which was a bonus as I could make soup…

• Large pumpkin
• 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
• large knob of butter
• 4 large carrots
• 2 large onions
• cumin seeds
• ground cinnamon
• ground ginger
• nutmeg

Scoop the inside of the pumpkin with an ice-cream scoop. Keep the seeds to one side and chop the pumpkin flesh. Save the empty pumpkin either for use as a soup tureen or to make a lantern.

Fry the onions gently in the butter for 5 minutes with a few cumin seeds, taking care not to brown the onions. Add the chopped carrots, pumpkin and stock. Add salt, pepper, ground ginger and cinnamon to taste - I used about a quarter of a teaspoon of ginger & cinnamon - a bit more would probably have been even nicer. Simmer on a low heat, lid on for about half an hour. Whizz up with a hand blender or food processor and serve with crusty bread, grating nutmeg on top. Perfect after an autumn walk in the park!

For the seeds… put the oven on a low heat - no more than 125 centigrade. Wash the seeds removing any flesh or stringy bits, pat dry with kitchen roll. Place on a baking tray in the oven until quite dry - took about half an hour. You can then put them in salads, or do what I did - toss them in a little sunflower oil and lots of sea-salt - deeeelishous!

This is adapted from “Super Soups” - a tiny National Trust recipe book I picked up years ago in Northumberland.

- 1 head of celery.
- 1 large carrot.
- 1 large onion.
- 1 and a half pints (900ml) vegetable stock
- 75g grated cheddar cheese
- 100g grated stilton cheese

Trim the celery (optionally leave one or two stalks aside for later). Peel and chop the carrot and onion and place in a saucepan with the stock (I just use a veggie Oxo cube) and season.

Let it come to the boil and then simmer for about an hour.

Give the soup a whirr with a blender. Reheat in the pan and add the grated cheese.

If you decided to save some celery stalks now is the time to chop them into slices. Add them to the bowls when you serve to give the soup a bit of crunch.

This recipe comes from my Mum.

Lancashire Hotpot is traditionally made with lamb, but this hotpot variation calls for beef.

- Some diced stewing steak. About 500g.
- Potatoes - loads.
- One onion.
- Half a pint of red wine.
- Veggie stock cube (optional).

Preheat the oven to 170c.

Peel the spuds and cut them into chunks about the same size as the pieces of your meat.

Coarsely chop the onion.

Throw the meat, potatoes and onion into a large pot.

Pour in the wine and top up with boiling water. Add the stock cube if you want.

Put the lid on the pot and leave in the oven for three hours. I usually take it out and give it a stir once an hour, but there’s really no need to!

Serve while piping hot. You can garnish with beetroot, and it’s also really good with some biscuits of shortcrust pastry to help mop up the juice.

I think it’s a great dish for this time of year. It’s lovely to put on before going to see a fireworks display. When you come back home the delicious smell will meet you at the front door, and the meal will warm you all up again. If there are any left-overs it’s just as good reheated in a saucepan the next day!

This has evolved from a recipe on the side of a packet of Marmite stock cubes. I don’t think you can get Marmite stock cubes any more - it probably dawned on people that you could just use ordinary Marmite in cooking instead. It’s a basic vegetable stew, made with whatever we have to hand.

• Lots of root vegetables - potatoes, parsnips, turnips, carrots etc
• celery
• garlic
• olive oil
• large onion
• tin of tomatoes
• tin of mixed beans - kidney beans, borlotti beans etc
• mushrooms, if you have them
• tomato puree
• slug of red wine
• teaspoon of Marmite
• dried mixed herbs
• bay leaf
• 2 handfulls of small pasta (such as ditali lisci no. 58)
• teaspoon of vegetable stock powder such as Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon.

Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil. When well-cooked add the roughly chopped celery and root vegetables. Fry for a few minutes and add all the other ingredients, topping up with water as needed to cover the veg. Simmer on the stove or in the oven for an hour or so.