It’s now cold enough to start making soup again. Apart from peeling the squash, which is a pain, this is quick, easy and very tasty.

Slice an onion and saute it until soft. Add a couple of cloves of crushed garlic a cook for a couple more minutes. Add the roughly diced squash, then add a pint of either vegetable or chicken stock. I seasoned with pepper (not salt as there is usually plenty in the stock) and added some dried ancho chilli flakes, which gave it a lovely smokey, slightly spicy edge. Cook for about 20 minutes.

You can then either blend it or if you don’t have a blender, like me, get a masher and mash the big bits of squash to give a smoother texture.

I made the croutons by using some french stick left over from the weekend. I sliced the bread, grilled on one side, then spread with wholegrain mustard, topped with Raclette cheese and melted it under the grill. I guess any cheese and mustard would be fine, but dijon mustard and gruyere cheese is the best combination I’ve tried so far.