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.