Our church had a harvest party last Sunday, so Hubby and I signed up to bring pumpkin soup. Obviously I had to make a post about it.
We braved the public market Saturday to get this pumpkin. It was very cold and rainy, and I could barely feel my fingers by the time we got back to the car. If you're not like us and don't like braving the public market in the cold, you have my complete and total blessing to just use unsweetened pumpkin puree in place of the pumpkin for this. Or if you just don't have 15.8 hours to bake the pumpkin. Either way.
Let's get down to it:
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 1 hr-1 hr 30 minutes
Serves: 5-8 large bowls depending on size of pumpkin
Ingredients:
1 medium or large sugar pie pumpkin
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
2 cups soy milk
5 tbsp butter
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
2 pinches nutmeg
Salt and pepper, to taste
Directions:
1. Take care of that dang pumpkin.
If you're using puree, skip this and congratulate yourself on saving time.
If you're using a whole pumpkin like me, slice it in half. P.S., pumpkin skin is really hard so find the meanest knife in your kitchen and/or nominate a man in your household to do it for you, if you are not in fact already a man. Hubby was busy at the moment so I went for the giant knife option. See that knife in the photo up there? It wasn't mean enough, so I had to switch it out.
Why is that so crooked? I don't know. Why do you ask so many questions?
Scoop out the guts, making sure to scrape the inside well so that it's nice smooth flesh all the way around.
Save the guts for roasting pumpkin seeds, if you feel so inclined. Otherwise, toss 'em.
2. Set you oven to about 400-415 degrees F. If you have a cookie sheet large enough, place the pumpkin halves face-down so they can steam themselves. This is the much easier way to do it, so ignore what the photos look like.
My biggest cookie sheet was dirty and I was in a hurry, so I used the next size down. The pumpkin halves wouldn't fit, so I sliced them and put them on the sheet, assuming all would be well.
It wasn't. The skins overcooked while the rest was slow to follow, so I had to peel every single one of them all the way around, not just the outside skin. That was quite a process.
Anyway!
Since you will use the whole pumpkin, unlike me, cook for about 45 mins-1 hr or until the flesh is soft when poked with a fork, and then peel away from the outside skin.
This is what mine looked like. The shredded ones on the left were what the slices looked like once they were useable again.
3. Chop your onion.
And your garlic.
4. Melt your butter in your soup pot and add your onion and garlic. Cook over low heat.
Let that sit for a while until the onion is tender.
5. Add the stock.
And the soy milk.
Bring that to a gentle boil, then add the pumpkin flesh.
6. Bring down to a simmer and add the garlic powder, onion powder, nutmeg and salt.
This only needs to cook for about 5 more minutes, since the pumpkin was already roasted. Transfer it to a blender, blend the heck out of it, and there you go!
Check the flavor at this point and add a little more of any of the spices as you taste a need. Since every pumpkin is different, every pumpkin requires different spicing.
Since I made this a day ahead of time I have no nice photos of a single bowl of it...whoops. Here's a photo of it travel-ready instead.
Enjoy!
Kitchen hacks for less time/money:
-Substitute 6 cups unsweetened pumpkin puree for whole pumpkin
-Substitute cow's milk for soy milk
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