Awesome Pumpkin Soup!

Its a cold, rainy night sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving and you're wondering what to have for dinner.  How about something hot, spicy, creamy, baconey, scrumptious?  How about some curried pumpkin soup?  After all, you might have an uncarved pumpkin laying around somewhere, or you've been to the market and you see all these cans of pumpkin ment for pumpkin pie in the isles and it planted a seed (a pumpkin seed?) in your mind.  So I'm going to show you how to make a delicious pumpkin soup from scratch.  

   First of all, lets touch on for a minute, the history of the pumpkin.  Pumpkins are in the squash family and are in fact, winter squash.  They are planted in Spring and are harvested in the fall.  The arrival of pumpkins is a sure sign of changing weather, the colors of Fall and Halloween.  As far as is known, pumpkins originated in Mexico and pumpkin seeds have been carbon dated as far back as 5,000 BC.  Who knew that 7,000 years later we would be using them to carve funny faces, make pies and chuck them out of catapults? They also make a fabulous soup and the seeds can be roasted in butter, olive oil, spices and salt.  

   Now you don't need to use fresh pumpkins to make pumpkin soup, you can simply use canned pumpkin.  However, there is something rustic and satisfing to fire up the oven and roast fresh pumpkin. And the roasting gives it a toasty flavor that adds another dimension to the soup.  So here is how to do it.

                                                Curried Pumpkin Soup: 

1 medium pumpkin

1 can pumpkin 

4 cans low sodium chicken broth

5 slices bacon

2 teaspoons curry powder

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 yellow onion

1 large shallot

2 cloves garlic

salt and coarse ground pepper to taste

                                                           Roasted Pumpkin Seeds:

The seeds from medium pumpkin

1/4 stick of butter

drizzled olive oil

sprinkled curry powder and salt to taste

   Remove the seeds from a small to medium sized pumpkin and put aside.  Cut it half and split the one half into 8 chunks.  Heat the oven to 400 degrees.  I would recommend microwaving the chunks until somewhat soft.  Place on cookie sheet and into the oven.  If microwaved, bake for a hour or until tops brown.  Meanwhile chop the onion, shallot and garlic medium fine and put aside.  Remove the pumpkin from the oven and using a glove to hold them, scrape the meat into a large pot.  Turn heat to medium.

   Place pumpkin seeds on cookie sheet and slice butter on top, drizzle olive oil, and sprinkle salt and curry powder on top.  Place into oven and roast until brown.

   In a pan, cook the bacon until it begins to crisp and put aside.  Add the chopped onion, shallot and garlic and sauté in the bacon drippings.  When just brown, add to the pot of pumpkin.  Add 1 can of pureed pumpkin.  Add 4 strips of bacon, saving the last one to garnish the bowls.  Pour in 4 cans of low sodium chicken broth, add salt and pepper and stir.  At this point you either blend it in a blender, or using an immersion blender, or wand blender, puree the mixture until smooth.  Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.  At the very end, pour 1/2 cup of heavy cream and stir, turning the heat down.  Turn heat off after 1 minute.  Do NOT boil the soup after adding the cream or it will curdle.  Ladle into bowls and top with roasted pumpkin seeds and crushed bacon, sprigs of Italian parsley or basil.  Serve with chunks of French bread or baguette and a crisp fruit forward wine like a Sauvignon Blanc.  Or if you prefer on a cold night, a nice mellow Merlot.  Recipe serves 10 or of course can be saved and enjoyed for a few nights or frozen for later.   

   Pumpkin soup is a delicious and satisifing crisp Autume night's dinner.  Enjoy!

3 Essential Kitchen Items

   Ok, you're stranded on a desert island and you're allowed three things, what would they be?  Well that's easy, a hot girl (if you're a guy), a case of scotch and a copy of the Kama Sutra, and/or a box (big box) of condoms!  NO, NO, NO!  Kitchen things, or we'll call them items. Might have taken a bit more thinking, but here's what I came up with.  A microplane, an immersion blender, and an 8" chef's knife. Hmmmm, what about electricity?  Oh, forget the dang desert island, lets say for every urban kitchen, and leave it at that.  

   The first item on my list, the microplane or zester, is an amazing little tool.  Its sort of like your mother's grater on steroids, or bumped up into the 21st century.  It almost has the feel of something created for space use on a Mars mission-all high tech plastics and razor sharp blades seemingly made of platinum or diamond but is actually high tempered stainless steel.  It zests effortlessly.  You can denude a lemon leaving it looking like a sheared sheep while in your pan or drink lies the essence of lemon zest, just the yellow stuff and not the bitter white stuff! I use it for grating the most feathery pillows of Parmigiano-Reggiano over my Penne pasta and sausages.  You can grate garlic, chocolate over your cappuccino and ginger for Thai food.  Its best to buy a name brand-I use the one called simply, Microplane.  Get one, you'll never go back to mom's big 3 sided grater again. 

        Next on my list is an immersion blender.  Have you ever made a soup and its consistency is not smooth enough but you don't want to pour this very hot pot of, say, squash soup into the blender?  Or you've added bacon in this soup but you don't want to serve up a bacon, chewy pumpkin soup, you just want it to have the bacon flavor?  Well, the immersion blender is the answer to your dilemma. For those of you who don't know what an immersion, or wand blender is, its simply a hand-held blender.  A motor with attachments like whisks, choppers and blades that enable you to blend sauces and drinks with a wand stuck right into the pot or beaker, as opposed to having to pour into a blender.  It is also a food processor, a motorized whisk, a chopper, and a grinder.  And chicks dig it.  So do I.  It makes heavenly guacamole, smooth-as-silk smoothes, and simplifies soup making saving a lot of burned fingers in pouring into a blender as well as a big fat mess.  The brand I chose was the Cuisinart Smart Stick.  There were others- KitchenAid, Sharper Image.  But I chose the Cuisinart because I liked its bad 200-watt motor and the way it felt in my hand.  Solid.  

   Last but certainly not least is the 8" chef's knife.  This tool is invaluable in the kitchen.  There clearly are many other knives that I use.  The carving knife, paring, boning, and I also like and use the Japanese Sudoku.  But I always end up going for my Henckel chef's.  Its heavy, its tip is sharp, I can deftly use the tip to slice down a garlic clove or use the broad weight of the blade flat side to crush a clove of garlic.  Either way to remove the skin.  I use it to chop parsley, onion, garlic, shallots-you name it-in a rocking motion utilizing the weight of the blade as I roll over whatever it is I'm cutting.  I can slice a clove of garlic into razor thin slices simply by feeding it into the line of cut and then letting the blade do the rest.  As you've probably surmised by now, most of what I'm saying is I use the knife's weight to do the work, never forcing or chopping per se, but in an almost zen-like way.  Plus it comes in handy for sword fights, one time...oh never mind.  The brand I chose is the Henckels.  I actually bought this knife over 20 years ago and with a few sharpenings, its as good as new.  One rule I have adhered to is never to submerge it in water, I simply wash the blade.  The reason is because you do not want water to seep into the wood and compromise the contact with the blade which is full tang, meaning that it extends to the end of the handle which is two pieces of hardwood affixed to it.  

   So these three gadgets are my choice for essential items for the Urban Kitchen.  Invest in them, I promise, you will not be disappointed.  And with proper care they will last a long time and make cooking easier, more enjoyable and the dishes you make will be delicious!  Oh bloody hell, I'll add one more item-WINE!  Enjoy.   

La Croix du Roy Sancerre. A delicious white wine!

You must check this wine out, La Croix du Roy Sancerre.  Sancerre is France's version of Sauvignon Blanc, or more accurately its the other way around.  Regardless, it is a very worthy example of the crisp, citrusy, minerally refreshing wine that this grape produces.  A terrific find indeed!  A new footnote, in today's New York Times, June 5, 2014, La Croix Du Roy was one of the 3 recommended Sancerres to familiarize novice, and not so novice, wine lovers to this varietal. It was featured in a monthly column titled "Wine School" by Eric Asimov. Here are some reader comments. 

  “It was delicious and paralleled what I detected by smell: delicate, fresh, citrusy and balanced by mineral notes. We had it with sushi and it was a lovely dinner companion. Slightly warmer temperature brought out nuances and balance to flavors.”

 

  “To me, the texture felt like a bunch of tasty white grapes instantly melting in my mouth. It was almost like a sweet-sour combination. The wine’s aroma and the taste had a somewhat powerful citrusy feel to it, smooth to the taste buds, with a quick, strong sensation, but not lingering. This wine definitely had a stronger citrus-like aroma and taste to it, as compared to other sauvignon blancs I have tasted. The wine was paired with some fresh goat cheese and some bay scallops, along with a small salad. It went well.” — 

Sex and toast, hey, why not??

The Perfect Fried Egg!