Pumpkin Soup

I'm no great cook but sometimes I stumble on something that really tastes good. Stumble I did this time. It is the end of November and my friend was going to toss out his Halloween pumpkins. One of them was starting to wrinkle with its top drooping into the center, but the other one was still firm. I took it home with the idea of making something with it. That old saw, people are starving in Europe, or China, or Africa (whichever one your parents used) - it's a shame to waste food. The pumpkin sat on my dining room table for a couple of days next to a wilting sunflower that I was given two weeks ago until yesterday when I had time and mood to cook.

I started to cut the “lid” off as I've always done with pumpkins - to make a jack-o-lantern. I let go of that inclination as I was going to chop the thing up anyway. I cut a slice into the side. My knives are so dull I ended up having to rip that section off after cutting a little more than the diameter. I intended steam pieces, but I didn't want to struggle that hard. I decided to put the two sections onto a cookie tray and bake them to soften them up a bit. I went to look for the tray and it wasn't where I usually keep it. Suddenly it dawned on me that I may have set something into the oven to dry and forgotten it. And so it was. I opened the oven and there was the cookie sheet with dried sweet basil, probably left over from the farmers market which has been closed for a month. But the basil was good! I crumpled it up and put it in a jar, setting it on the counter by the stove. By the time the pumpkin was baked soft enough I was visiting with a friend and didn't want to fuss with it, so I left it for the next day.

I had emailed my sister to ask if she knew of a recipe for pumpkin soup and she emailed back from work: Pumpkin, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, tamari, cayenne. Later she said something about steaming. All I remembered was the ginger and garlic. So here is the recipe that I made up - roughly. I wasn't measuring things so I tried to approximate after the fact. You can play with it.

Ingredients:

• 1 large pumpkin (not huge)
• 1 large onion
• 2 T. chopped fresh ginger
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 t. ground black pepper
• 1 T. fresh dried Basil
• 1 t. sea salt
• 1 quart chicken broth (organic best)
• Enough extra water to cover pumpkin chunks

Method:

1. Cut open the pumpkin and remove seeds for roasting
2. Bake at about 350° until soft enough to cut easily (40 minutes?)
3. Chop onion and sauté in the bottom of a large soup pot in coconut oil on very low flame.
4. While that is happening, cut pumpkin into about 2 inch squares, removing the skin
5. Put the pumpkin squares into the pot tossing with the onions and then pour the quart of chicken soup in. Add water to cover if needed and raise the flame a bit.
6. Add ginger, garlic, pepper, and basil and bring to boil.
7. Simmer over low flame for about an hour until pumpkin is very soft.
8. When cool enough, puree all in blender or food processor. Return to pot and add salt.

My uncle used to say he likes his coffee like a woman's kiss, hot and sweet. When I first tasted this I thought - ummm, it tastes like a kiss, hot and sweet. I'm having a mug of it right now. It's comfort food - healthy and warming for winter.