Dark evenings, squash and lovage

Clocks put back an hour today, the year's turning to winter properly now. I've always liked these early dark evenings: we even had some cocoa late on this afternoon as it got dark. It's soup weather - so I've included our recipe for squash soup below.

Mostly I love winter better than summer, even though having summer crops has been so great this year. We can still pop out for some things to cook - the beans are having a last hurrah now - but it'll be the greenhouse that'll come into its own soon. We've already moved in some more tender herbs, like parsley, tarragon and some little thyme plants. We may end up moving the lovage plant in there too.



It's a pretty unprepossessing plant, just stalks and leaves, tattered and a bit faded, but it has the most wonderful flavour. A sharp, savoury, celery-like tang, it's particularly good when it comes to making soups and stews.

Which is what we've been doing. We had a nice-sized onion squash in our veg delivery last week, which we decided would be best turned into soup, with a little help from our much-reduced lovage plant.

Soup-making's really easy. The key to it is to sweat down the vegetables for long enough before you add the water or stock. Even better if you have some good, home-made chicken stock to go in it, but for the strong flavours of this soup, you're fine with a light vegetable stock, or even just water.

A quick note on ingredients first. You don't really need lovage - a stick of celery chopped into a small dice and added to the onion would also be fine. Similarly, the fresh parsley's good, but not essential. However, the fresh grated nutmeg is, we think. Nutmeg's one of those great traditional ingredients that seems especially good at lifting hearty, warming foods in autumn and winter.

Squash Soup

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 tpsp olive oil

butter

1 medium to large onion, chopped
1 onion squash (you could use other orange-y squashes), diced
1 clove garlic, chopped
a generous pinch of lovage, chopped (or a celery stick)
1 good sized cooking apple, peeled and sliced
1 bayleaf
1 litre water or a light stock
squeeze of Lemon juice
fresh nutmeg, grated
fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

Method

In a large casserole, sweat the chopped onions (and celery, if using) in some olive oil and butter for 5 to 10 minutes, until the onion is soft.

Add the diced squash, the garlic, apple, lovage (if using) and a bayleaf and sweat on a very low heat, with the lid on, for another 10 minutes. Stir occasionally to stop it sticking to the pan.

Add the water or stock, bring to the boil and cook on a low simmer for 15 minutes.

Liquidise or blend until smooth.

Add a squeeze of lemon juice, a grate of nutmeg and salt to taste.

Serve & garnish with the chopped parsley.