Roasted Pumpkin Soup
Well, folks... the kitchen is officially broken in. With the onset of fall, we've been doing lots of cooking with the bounty of rustic, autumnal produce stockpiled for the season. We're talking root vegetables, gourds, apples and pumpkins. Here's a quick peek at what else we've been making besides pumpkin soup.
Chicken over butternut squash risotto
Scallops over lambs lettuce, goat cheese, and roasted beets with a walnut vinaigrette
Homemade sweet potato gnocchi, criminis, and fava beans in a sage cream sauce
Chocolate croissant bread pudding...
...and pumpkin soup! People always seem daunted by working with pumpkins because of the skin and seeds. What they don't realize is that "skinning" a pumpkin is actually just like peeling any other vegetable. For this soup, I skinned a medium-sized pumpkin with a vegetable peeler and threw the whole thing in the oven for a little less than an hour and went to read the paper. It's not as easy as using canned pumpkin, but I wouldn't call it labor intensive either. Why not give it a try while pumpkins are on sale.
Roasted Pumpkin Soup
Serves 2-3
2 Tbsp butter or olive oil*
1-2lb pumpkin, skinned and seeds removed (or 1 can 15 oz. pumpkin puree)
1 large sweet onion, finely chopped
4 carrots, finely chopped
3 Tbsp honey
1/3 c light cream
4 c vegetable stock
1/4 to 1/3 c brown sugar
salt and pepper
cinnamon
nutmeg
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Rinse pumpkin and skin using a vegetable peeler. Poke a few holes in its flesh using a knife or fork. Place whole pumpkin on a small baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Massage with olive oil, salt, pepper and bake for about an hour until soft, checking once or twice to drizzle more oil as needed to prevent it from drying out.
2. Melt butter or olive oil in stockpot over medium-high heat. *Instead of butter or oil, I actually used reserved grease from three sweet Italian sausages I'd prepared earlier in the day. Add onions and carrots. Toss occasionally until they start to caramelize. In the meantime, remove pumpkin from oven, cut open, and scoop out seeds. Discard seeds, top and bottom.
3. Roughly cut up the pumpkin into 1-inch chunks and add to stockpot along with honey and vegetable stock.
4. Stir and season with nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 45 minutes.
5. Puree with an immersion blender or in batches until smooth. Stir in cream. Season to taste with brown sugar, salt, and pepper. Serve.
Labels: pumpkin, vegetarian-option, whatnot
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posted by adrienne at 11:04 PM
5 Comments:
Sounds yummy! Although what I really want is the recipe for the chocolat bread pudding! We've been in soup making mode lately. Naomi made an amazing borscht that was to die for. Plus, beets are the new blueberry.
I was thinking about making a borscht, actually... b/c for the first time in my life I've actually been on a beet kick. If you've got any good recipes let us know! Our next one or two soups we've already got lined up, but beet will be on our list for sometime this winter.
Oh, and I'll email ya about the bread pudding! Hope your turkey day is fabulous!
I am hosting a dinner party on sunday and this is just what I had in mind to start with but...can I cheat and use the pumpkin from a can? It would simplify things a good deal since there will be numerous items underfoot. Can you give me a sense of how much pumpkin I'll need?
dc365, YES, I'm sure you can use the canned pumpkin puree.
Generally 1 cup of puree is equivalent to 1lb raw untrimmed pumpkin.
I haven't done this myself, but I may try a can on Friday. I'll let you know how it goes.
According to Libby's...the 15 oz can = 1 3/4 cup puree, which would mean 1 can should be enough.
My plan is to buy two 15 oz cans. I'll use one can and see how it tastes as I go. If it's not enough, I can simply add the next can or a portion of it.
Again, I'll let you know how it goes on Friday. It's been a busy week and I haven't been home much! But thanks for the very practical question!
dc365, I tried substituting the roasted pumpkin with 1 can of pumpkin puree and that seemed to work, although you do have to counter the slight bitterness of the puree with something sweet.
This time I was also low on honey so I ended up using the brown sugar as a substitute as well...about 4-5 T instead of the 3 T of honey did the trick, but you should always season to your taste and liking. Just experiment with the amount of honey or sugar until you get the right flavor for you.
But, yes--1 15 oz can of the puree should suffice.
Hopefully this helps! Good luck!
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