Curry Pumpkin Soup

In early October my mom brought us a pumpkin and some mums to give the house a little fall flare.  Thanks, Mom!  I didn't have a chance to make a jack-o-lantern before Halloween and honestly felt a little silly doing so after.  But, roasted pumpkin seeds are one of my favorite things about the holiday (and the chocolate, of course), and I just couldn't throw out a perfectly good pumpkin.  So, come mid-November, it was time, I made my first attempt at Pumpkin Soup.

Even though logic tells me that pumpkin is a squash, I still expected the soup to taste at least a little like pumpkin pie.  The recipe below really doesn't taste like what you envision pumpkin tasting like at all.  But, lucky for you, this pumpkin was rather large - so the second half I will be trying my hand at a more traditional pumpkin soup, with allspice and other fall spices...  

But for now, here's my pumpkin curry soup!

What's in the fridge:

1 medium sized pumpkin (I used half of this large-ish pumpkin)

1/2 purple onion, chopped

1 TBSP curry (or to taste)

1/2 TBSP cumin (or to taste)

3-4 Cups chicken or vegetable broth

1/2 Cup light cream

Directions:

- Cut the pumpkin in half and take out the "guts" and seeds.  Set the seeds aside for roasting later!

Pumpkin cut in half

Cleaned out pumpkin

- Bake the sucker!  Again, this was a large pumpkin - and it wouldn't fit in the oven.  Aka, an excuse to use the double oven!  I baked at 350 for 45 minutes, putting the pumpkin directly on the grates, open side down.

Baking

Out of the oven

- Meanwhile, chop the onion

When you can easily pierce the meat of the pumpkin with a fork, you know it is done.  Give it a few minutes to cool then take off the skin and chop into approx 1 inch cubes.

Remove the skin

Left over squash!

- Saute the onion in olive oil for about 10 minutes or until soft. 

- Add in the squash and spices, mix, then let cook for about 5 minutes on low

onion, squash and spices

- Add in the broth.  Bring to a low boil and cook on low for about 20 minutes.

...and broth

- Put in in the food processor until it is the consistency you are looking for.  You'll need to do this in batches.  No pictures were taken, but believe me, a mess was made.  Don't overfill the food processor ;)
- Return back to the pot and mix in the cream

If there is one thing that soup is not, it's photogenic!  Not to mention that I forgot to take the end product photos before digging in!  Gotta get back into fridgespiration mode, pronto!

Look for the traditional pumpkin soup recipe after this weekend :)

Bon appetit!