Tuesday, September 25, 2018

It's Fall, so time for pumpkin soup

When the Gorman's were kids, mom used to grow pumpkins, rhubarb and other things we thought were fairly disgusting, until the rhubarb pie or the salted pumpkin seeds were ready. But she also made a pumpkin soup, in the pumpkin, that I'd never eat as a kid but love today. And it's getting time for it, so here goes:
Take a good sized pumpkin with a flat bottom and evenly round or fairly straight sides. Figure 4-6 pounds.
Cut the top off one inch below the stem.
Clean the seeds out of the pumpkin and set aside or wash and salt them and put into the oven at about 300 degrees until baked dry and edible.
On the stove, saute 4 cloves of garlic, chopped, with one sweet red onion, chopped, in a bit of olive oil. When the onion and garlic are nearly done, add three diced roma tomatoes, sea salt and black pepper to taste.
In the empty pumpkin put one pint of heavy cream, two quarts of organic vegetable broth, and the garlic/onion/tomato mix.
If the pumpkin shell is not near full, add more broth.
Stir all ingredients in the pumpkin.
When the pumpkin seeds are done, raise oven temperature to 350 degrees
Place the pumpkin on a baking tray and place it in the oven.
Bake for about 90 minutes, or until the pumpkin meat is soft.
Add minced parsley or thyme or basil — whichever you like — to the pumpkin mix and allow to cook, with the oven off, for another 10 minutes.
Remove pumpkin from oven and allow to cook for 20 minutes.
Gently scrape the meat of the pumpkin into the mix, pouring it off as necessary and blending it.
Continue scraping until most of the pumpkin meat is blended with the stock and cream mix, then put onto the stove. Bring to a simmer for 10 minutes. Add sea salt and cracked black pepper as desired.
Serve soup with a spoonful of sour cream.
Bon appetit!

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