Here’s Part II of the results for November's Cooking Club Challenge: Jamie Oliver’s Pumpkin Soup . (Don't miss Part I ) From Peter K. who stayed true to the recipe: I made Jamie's butternut squash soup last night and everyone enjoyed it. I did not follow the recipe verbatim but I stayed true to the recipe. When roasting the squash, I tossed the pieces in olive oil and seasoned them with salt, pepper, sage, cinnamon, nutmeg and fennel seeds. Afterwards, I followed the recipe (save for the chilies) right up to the end, where I used hulled toasted pumpkin seeds so they could be easily eaten with the soup. The addition of chestnuts and pancetta give the soup a nice earthiness which everyone enjoyed. From Farah who suggests blending all of the soup for better results: It was a combination of the cold, constant rain outside and my fixation with Jamie Oliver that made me try this recipe. I have mixed reviews of this dish. I omitted the crispy sage leaves and squash seed topping, and used a little dollop of sour cream mixed with some sage and baby spinach. Though the soup was quite flavorful, I didn’t really like the half smooth half lumpy consistency (as I normally do love different textures). I think I would blend the entire thing next time. I did add smoked paprika to the mix and man did it go well with the soup! It really complemented the pancetta and added so much more flavour. The extra chilies I added were nice and spicy. Overall, I would try this recipe again, but maybe blend it all. From Sean who is a fan of fried squash seeds: I made the soup, minus the pancetta. My wife and I really liked the spice. Really easy to make, but during the process of frying the seeds I had several pop and zing around (deep-fried squash seeds are really tasty, with our without soup!). By the way, I made it again, added some chipotle powder and it was even better than before. From Fred who was pleased with the end result: It was a really easy recipe, although for this area of the world some of the ingredients were difficult to acquire. The pancetta, while available in very thin slices, had to be found at a specialty shop at premium prices. The real obstacle was the butternut squash itself. Dear ol' Jamie didn't really give a quantitative amount, rather a qualitative amount, such as "two squash" as opposed to saying "four pounds of squash." Squash vary in size dramatically. However, I used experience and good judgement and...
