Cor blimey it’s cold! I understand that it’s a bit of a blogging cliche to talk about how the time has flown, and ‘is it November already?!’ but I honestly don’t know where the time has gone. I seem to have blinked and missed most of autumn; one moment summer was clinging to the tails of September, but now winter has come back with a vengeance. I had two scarves on last night to shut out the cold, and I’ve put my heating on in honour of the nippy weather. Winter is well and truly coming.

To combat the parky weather outside, I harnessed all my autumnal powers to make a true winter warmer – this simple pumpkin and butternut squash soup. I inherited my awesome soup-making skills from my mam, she does a mean leek and potato, and I reckon this soup could be my signature dish.

Soup is super easy to make, and you can quite literally use whatever you’ve got in – frozen veg, leftovers, even tinned tomatoes. I happened to have a little pumpkin and half a butternut squash to hand, so I rustled up this guy to warm up a cold afternoon.

You will need (serves 2-3):
– small edible pumpkin, cubed
– 1/2 butternut squash, cubed
– a few cloves of garlic
– olive oil
– 750ml chicken stock
– an onion, sliced

Step one: cut up your butternut squash and pumpkin, nestle some garlic cloves in there, sprinkle over some salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Pop it in the oven at 200C for about 45 mins. It will come out all charred and delicious, a bit like this!

Step two: Fry your sliced onion in a bit of olive oil until soft. Take the cloves of roasted garlic and squish them into the pan as well. Peel the skins off the roasted veg (be careful, it’s hot), chuck it in the pan and fry that off for a bit too.

(I’m aware this is probably the worst photo I’ve ever taken, but it was pretty steamy)

Step three: Top up with chicken stock, and leave to simmer for around 20 mins.

Step four: BLEND BLEND BLEND. You can either use a stick blender or a liquidiser, but remember to let it cool down a bit! You don’t want to get splashed by hot soup. Not nice.

Step five: Apply to face, preferably with a big slab of bread and butter, and watch the horrible weather outside lashing against your window. Alternatively, pop it in a Thermos and go for a walk in the woods. Either way, it’s sure to warm your cockles and make you feel all autumnal. Lovely.

Hey winter, you can stay. We’re over summer, anyway.