A Plethora of Pumpkin, Part 2!

This post is a continuation of "A Plethora of Pumpkin, Part 1, posted yesterday.  If you haven't read that yet, you should probably start here.

When I chopped up and baked my pumpkin, you may have noticed, I had quite a bit leftover.  What to do with it?  Pumpkin soup!

I actually made this soup while I was making the pasta dish, and then heated it up the next day.  It was super quick, super easy, and amazing.  Best of all, it kept well.  I made this on Sunday, had it for dinner Monday, and have been eating it for lunch every day since.

I was surprised, because even Jeff liked it, and he generally does not care for soups without "stuff" in them.  He's a stew kind of guy, and there are few of this style of soup that will appease his manly appetite.  But this he seemed to really like.

I agree.  This soup may not have any "stuff" in it, but it's still very thick and filling.  In fact, I've been surprised at how little I need to take to work for lunch in order to get full (especially if I drop a few fancy mushrooms in it!).  I would have loved to have had this recipe at this time last year, since it's a smooth soup and feels like a real meal!!

(For those of you who don't know me personally, last winter I had jaw surgery.  I wasn't able to eat any solid food for 6 weeks.  I lost 15 lbs.  I also watched a lot of Food Network/Travel Channel and spent many a lazy afternoon on the couch shouting violent, albeit muffled curses at Adam Richmond through a wired shut jaw!  Man vs. Food is not the best TV programing choice when you are starving...)

This is not a lunch portion, nor is it a mushroomed portion.  I did
cut up a few sage leaves and sprinkle them on top, which added a
nice additional layer of flavor.  The sage was from my windowsill
spice garden. 

Curried Pumpkin Soup

•  4 Tbsp butter (L)
• 2 medium onions, minced (L)
• 4 cloves minced garlic (L)
• 2 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander 
• pinch cayenne pepper
• 6 cups chopped, seasoned, roasted pumpkin (See recipe here), pureed (L)
• 5 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth (L)
• 2 cups milk (L)
• 1/2 cup buckwheat honey (L)
• Up to 1/2 cup heavy cream, as needed (L)

 Melt butter in a 4 quart saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 4 minutes.  Add spices and stir for one additional minute.

Add pumpkin and chicken broth and blend well.  At this point you could transfer to a blender or use a immersion blender to blend up the onion pieces and get a completely smooth soup.  I chopped mine small enough that I wasn't worried about it and skipped this step.

With the soup over low heat, add honey and mix.  Slowly add milk while stirring to incorporate.  Taste, and if the soup is too spicy for your taste, add cream to reduce the heat. 

You could top this with toasted pumpkin seeds, sage, sour cream, a sprinkle of nutmeg, or any other number of things.

A Plethora of Pumpkin, Part 1

Pumpkin: It's not just for pies and Jack-o-Lanterns!

Really.

I like looking at the recipe slide shows and featured recipes on sites like epicurious.com and foodnetwork.com.  Recently, obviously, they've been featuring a lot of fall foods and flavors.  Like squash.  I am a fan of squash in all of its forms, so I am not complaining, but I was surprised at how few recipes there are for pumpkin that aren't dessert recipes.  Pumpkin is just a kind of squash.  It is not sweet on its own and, in my mind, is not any more suited for pie than any other squash.

Okay, I take that back.  I guess it's a little less stringy than some other squashes, so maybe it's a consistency thing.  I guess a spaghetti squash pie might be kind of disgusting.  Or excellent.  If it were a savory pie...

That's a try for another day!

Anyway, my point is, pumpkin is good for anything that you might use another kind of squash in.  Pumpkins themselves also have kinds - just ask anyone who has ever made a pumpkin pie from scratch.  You don't want to cook with the same kind of pumpkin that you make a jack-o-lantern with.

I believe this is either a Blue Lakota pumpkin, or a Jarrahdale pumpkin.  I'm not in any way positive about either, but it matches both of the descriptions I found online.  The shape leads me to think it's a Jarrahdale, because the Blue Lakota are supposed to be pear shaped, however the Jarradales are grown in Australia, and the Blue Lakota's are supposed to be grown in the Midwest...
 

Either way, this pumpkin is excellent.  The thick flesh means that you get more to work with, and it's smoother than the Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins.  It also has an exceptionally thick skin, which means they should keep well in storage.  This was my only one, so I'm going to see if I can find another one (and maybe find out for reals what it was).

This is a Jack-o-Lantern.  These kinds of pumpkins have names too, but I don't know what I had.  Big orange.  I made a Cylon from BSG because I'm a big nerd:

Anyway, so I cut up the peeled and chopped up the pumpkin (the blue one, not the Cylon) into 1 inch cubes, and coated the cubes with salt, white pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.  I also tossed in a full head of garlic, separated into its individual cloves, peeled, and slightly crushed.  I then baked it for 30 minutes, until the pumpkin was nice and soft.  In theory, you could easily just eat the pumpkin like this as a side dish.  If I was doing that, I probably would have added a bit more salt at the time of roasting.

But instead, I decided I wanted to make a pasta sauce.  I took six cups of the pumpkin and threw it in the food processor, and turned it into a puree. It was really good at this point, too. Kind of like smooth mashed potato pumpkin.  I added 1/2 of a container of mascarpone cheese, and blended that all together.

For the record, this was way too much for two people.  If I made this pasta again, I would probably use half as much or even less.  However, I did save the pumpkin/mascarpone mixture that I didn't use, and do have a plan for it if I get to it before it goes bad.

Meanwhile I made up some pasta, and chopped up some chanterelle and shitake mushrooms and sauteed them in butter.  I also chopped up a bunch of kale and steamed it.  Once everything was done, I added the pasta and sauce to a big frying pan, and stirred until the pasta was well coated.  It was a little thick, so I ended up adding a few splashes of half and half as well.  I stirred in the kale and mushrooms, and when it was all mixed together I topped the whole thing with a few nice sized flakes of smoked trout from Rushing Rivers.

Overall, 100% local, except the spices.

I absolutely loved this, and thought it was even better heated up the next day which is rare for pasta.  Jeff, however, did not care for it at all.  Because of this, I had more leftover than I could eat on my own before it went bad, so I picked out all of the mushrooms (I'm not letting chanterelles go to waste!) and added them to my pumpkin soup.

What's that?  Pumpkin soup you say?  Better wait for "A Plethora of Pumpkin, Part 2!"

According to my friend/co-worker who is sitting behind me and reading over my shoulder, this should have been actual pumpkin pasta, not a pumpkin pasta sauce.  Direct quote: "uh, I want to be eating that, so you should probably get on it right now."  Check.  Don't make her angry!

That will have to be a "Plethora of Pumpkin Part X."