Soup for dinner

I found some chicken stock in the bottom of the freezer (unlabelled of course, but I was pretty sure......), and soup seemed very appealing. Pumpkin is cheap at the moment, and when roasted takes on a lovely nutty sweetness, which is delicious in soup(another brilliant Delia idea). It also means I dont have to risk life and several digits hacking off the pumpkin skin, instead it peels of f easily when cooked.
Combine with your stock, some sweet browned onions and just a couple of sage leaves (don't go mad or you will have a liquid more akin to tonic than soup) Simmer gently & blitz with a stick blender, for a rich creamy soup with very little cost or effort, yummy.
We are having it with some cheese & chili rolls I picked up at Bakers Delight last week & popped in the freezer, and a Joy Bar for afters....................yes I know, JOY BARS?! Like an Eskimo Pie but with that Jelly Tip stuff through the middle, sooooo good. Don't even look at the ingredient list, just unwrap in the privacy of your own home, preferably with another consenting adult & enjoy:)
If you have a decent cinema nearby go along and see Coco avant Chanel, it is about the life of Gabrielle Chanel from her poverty stricken beginnings as a seamstress to her rise to couture glory in Paris. Audrey Tautou is wonderful as always, and it is fascinating to see how the ideas for Chanel's simple, beautiful clothes (she is credited with creating the LBD no less), when most wealthy women at the time sported more lace & frills than an 80's wedding dress.....tres bon!

How long!?

Ok, I have been very naughty with my posting, the last one was so long ago it is nearly ancient history.........shameful. I am now combining work with studying French & History (one is tres difficult, I'll let you guess which....), and I am BUSY. Which means prep time is shorter, and I have a whole new view of preparing dinner. I have so often heard people complain about not having enough time or energy to prepare a meal at the end of the day, but for the most part I have always enjoyed it as a wind down , with a yummy treat at the end.....
However when five chapters on the Ming dynasty await, plus ample practise required of my appalling french accent, suddenly a lazy 25 minutes stirring risotto seems like wanton extravagance.
So, after a few weeks of thrown together dinners (those plastic pots of flash soup & a pre cooked chicken can only go on for so long....) I have realized a little more planning is in order.
So please bear with me while I find my muse, and come up with yummy treats for the end of the day (and lunch, the student cafe isn't exactly health food) that appear in less time than it takes me to massacre the french alphabet......