Pumpkin Soup and the garden

So, I have a favorite Butternut Squash Soup recipe, as you well know if you've been reading this blog.

But what about pumpkin? I got a large pumpkin this year from the CSA. And it generated 7 cups of puree. Which I froze. I always seem to find pumpkin soup recipes this time of year. But when I want to find them? Can't.

So this recipe started with a recipe from SavingDinner.com. (I am on the mailing list...it's free!) It's made additionally awesome because I can use up some curry powder and pick some green onions from the garden. Which I planted myself. In April. Yeah, they were slow growers. We're about ready to rip out the rest of the 3x9 feet garden. (Two squares of 3x3). Except we have that stupid cherry tomato plant, planted from a single seed, that is still producing.

What I learned from this first mini garden:

Successes:

chard (the gift that keeps on giving)

parsley

tomatoes

cherry tomatoes

cucumbers (a little bit)

onions (eventually)

Dismal failures

eggplant

cantaloupe

cilantro

chives

Okay growers:

beets

radishes

Anyway, back to the recipe. When I googled the recipe to see if it was "out there" and printable, I realized that it comes from her book. And a couple of reviews on the book found it too mild. I then thought about one of my favorite blogs (fatfreevegan.com) for recipes and found HER recipe. And thus, combined the two. I'm not a big fan of creamy soups anyway (on occasion they are okay, but it's the recipes that call for 2 cups of heavy cream that kind of freak me out.)

Pumpkin soup:

3 cups roasted pumpkin: 1.50

4 cups chicken stock: free (homemade from the Thanksgiving chicken)

1 medium onion: 0.20

1 T. olive oil: 0.11

four green onions, sliced: free

1/3 cup orange juice: 0.09

3 cloves garlic, roasted: 0.15

3/4 tsp curry powder: 0.10

pinch nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

Total: $2.15 for about 8 cups, or $0.27 per cup

This was actually quite tasty and curry-licious. I think it would still be good with a little bit of milk or cream.