Seitan is My Motor Seitan is My Motor is a vegan food blog by Constanze Reichardt from Germany. Her blog is about cakes and cookies, about her own and other people's recipes, about vegan cookbooks and everything else that has to do with food.

Reprinted with permission from Constanze Reichardt.

Roasted Pumpkin And Parsnip Soup

I might have mentioned before, that pumpkins and winter squashes never have been part of my diet until I became vegan. I don't remember exactly what my weird excuses for not eating pumpkin were. It had something to do with it's orange colour and with the fact that this was a vegetable, which some people would put into a cake. I thought pumpkins were really sweet and that I couldn't put anything sweet (sweet as in sugar sweet) into my soup. I don't need to go into detail here, you get what I mean by "weird". Meanwhile I found out that pumpkins not only taste good. They are super healthy as well. Pumpkins and other winter squashes are full of vitamin A and C, potassium, fibre, manganese, folate, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B1, copper, vitamin B6, niacin, pantothenic acid, and not to forget vitamin E.
Since I know this I want to eat pumpkin all day. Here it is in my soup:

Directions

Place pumpkin slices, parsnip pieces slices, and pepper halves on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast at 200°C /400°F for 45 minutes or until the vegetables are soft. (The peppers and parsnips won't take as long as the pumpkin. You can remove them after 20-30 minutes.)

In a large pot, heat the oil, cook the spices for two minutes, stirring constantly, add onion and ginger, cook for two more minutes.
Add four cups of water and lentils, cook for 10-15 minutes until lentils are soft. Add roasted vegetables and cook for ten more minutes, purée with a hand held blender, decorate with black fennel seed and parsley leaves, and serve immediately.