Fall is my favorite time of year for so many reasons. Not only do I finally get to stop melting in the heat of my air conditioning-less apartment and wear sweaters and scarves, the trees change to gorgeous yellows and reds and we are this much closer to Christmas. Pumpkin, to me, is one of those flavors and smells that just epitomizes fall. As such, I’ve been taking advantage of the prevalence of canned pumpkin in the cooking aisle and making all kinds of delicious pumpkin goodies (…or at least I plan to). One of my favorites is pumpkin soup, which I posted about last year. I made a few changes to it this year, and it was even more delicious than before. Even Shannon loved it! Here’s the recipe:
Pumpkin Soup
Sautee 2 Tbsp. butter and 1 white onion (chopped) in a large saucepan and then add 1 can chicken broth. Simmer and stir for 15 minutes. After simmering, puree in blender and then return to saucepan. Add 1 (15 oz.) can pureed pumpkin, 1/2 additional can chicken broth, 8 shakes of salt, 8 shakes of black pepper, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/8 tsp. ginger, cloves and nutmeg to taste, a TINY shake of cayenne powder (if available), and 1/4 cup (add more to taste) of brown sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add 1 cup heavy cream, stir. Serve immediately.
So delicious. I also was for some reason craving a pumpkin smoothie while I was at work today, even though I’ve never actually had one before…it just sounded really good. Instead of getting one from Jamba Juice (since the advertisement posters have been taunting me…) I came home after work and looked up a pumpkin smoothie recipe on my favorite recipe site, allrecipes.com. Here’s the recipe I made, with a few minor changes based on what the comments said.
I’m excited to make pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie and to make pumpkin soup again…mmm. Pumpkin.
P.S. I’ve decided “pumpkin” is a really cute word.
But how did the smoothie turn out?
Also, is it okay if I link to this post from my blog (the food one)?
Yum! Going to make the soup ASAP!
Thanks for posting the pumpkin soup recipe! It sounded so yummy when you posted about it last year.
Ooh… that sounds yummy! I’m interested in trying the pumpkin smoothie too. When i worked at Stan’s I would put chocolate chips in my pumpkin shakes. I wonder how a squirt or two of chocolate syrup would taste in that?
mm… I think I might want to try this sometime. All we’ve made is those pumpkin chocolate chip cookies… cause we’re cookie people.