Creamy pumpkin soup with blue cheese and sage toasties

50 MINUTES | SERVES 8 EASY | LC

Serve this in big mugs with fat fingers of melty cheese toasties for dipping.

olive oil 2 tbsp onions 2, roughly chopped carrots 2, diced celery 2 sticks, diced garlic 2 cloves, roughly chopped pumpkin or butternut squash 1kg after peeling, cut into chunks chicken stock 1.2 litres double cream 150ml nutmeg for grating (optional) TOASTIES dolcelatte 150g, rind removed mozzarella 1 ball, drained and grated sage leaves chopped to make 1 tbsp bloomer 8 slices butter

• Heat the olive oil in a pan and fry the onions, carrots, celery and garlic until soft. Add the pumpkin and cook for 5 minutes, then tip in the stock and simmer until the pumpkin is soft and you can mash it with the back of a spoon. Add the cream and cook gently for 2-3 minutes. Put everything in a blender and whizz until smooth (or use a stick blender). Gently reheat to serve, grating over a little nutmeg, if you like.

• Meanwhile, to make the toasties, mash together the blue cheese and mozzarella with the sage. Divide the mixture between the bloomer slices to make 4 sandwiches. Butter the outside of the sandwiches then fry on both sides in a non-stick frying pan until golden and the cheeses have melted (if you need to do this in 2 batches, you can keep the sandwiches warm in a low oven). Cut into fat fingers then serve with the soup.

PER SERVING 526 KCALS | FAT 27.8G SATURATES 15.7G | CARBS 44.4G | SUGARS 7.4G FIBRE 5.6G | PROTEIN 21.8G | SALT 2.4G