pumpkin soup.

[belgo]

I have a pumpkin from mil's garden to make pumpkin soup - the only problem is - the pumpkin is too hard to chop up. Does this mean it's not ripe? It's been out of the ground for about two weeks.

We have a good knife, but I can barely get it into the pumpkin. I've told dh he'll have to take the saw to it when he gets home from work

Pumpkins and squashes are quite hard to cut, ime.

but it should still be ok to use for soup?

The last night I made it, I had no problems cutting up the pumpkin.

the last time, not night!

can you slice it in half? I find a good stab in the top and then cut down with a big sharp knife, you need to imagine its someones head

I'd shove a squash or sweet potato in too just in case

I dunno. If it looks and smells ok once you've actually managed to get into the thing, then cook it as normal.

I was planning on making butternut and pine nut soup today. [spooky coincidence emotcion]

How about bunging it into the oven whole for about half an hour. Then cool it down and it should be easy to cut open, scoop out the seeds and discard and then scoop out the flesh and use as you normally would.

rebelmum - that's what I've been trying to do (without the imagining it's someone's head part )

but I'm scared I'll break the knife, it's so hard. My hands are aching already from trying to cut it.

I normally use an ice scream scoop and scoop the flesh out.

thanks everyone. I might put it in the oven then and see

sunshine - good idea about the ice cream scoop - but at the moment, I can't get into the pumpkin at all.

Have you tried using a strong serrated bread knife to kind of saw through it? Possibly safer than trying to pierce it with a cooks knife.

I don't know if the serrated knife we have would be strong enough. I'll try it.

No, it's not strong enough. Barely makes a scratch.

Might have to get dh to get the saw out!

The wonder of electric knives - would go straight through it!

update: Dh managed to hack the pumpkin into smaller pieces, small enough to boil. Once boiled, I could scoop out the flesh using the ice cream scoop (thanks sunshile!).

It tastes great and has a lovely bright colour!

thanks all!