Soup and jam

Well....I hope that in the dark winter months when the world has collapsed and we are all huddled around the Rayburn counting our few remaining blessings that the marrow and ginger jam that I sweated and worried over today is one of those blessings..what a faff! Very, very nice but from trying to split a large marrow with a quite large but clearly not large enough knife through removing seeds from the marrow to all over the kitchen floor and beyond and then steaming it until it is actually tender enough to jam it it was...well a faff! Quite a long process which involved quite a lot of equipment which despite washing has retained a sort of sticky patina...or maybe it is me that has remained slightly tacky. The last straw was having half a marrow left over (this is as well as the four or five complete ones I still have in the utility) which I just could not waste (or "waist" as I continually see it being spelt on facebook but that is another rant entirely)and so made into spicy pumpkin soup only without the pumpkin but with a medium sized squash. This very welcome abundance of vegetables is from John, the deerstalker, after exhibiting them, and winning at his local agricultural shows. So any more marrow ideas...bring them on!! PS we have done stuffed marrow.....