Velvety Pumpkin Soup

It's a good thing this soup tastes so good.  Slicing, seeding and peeling a pumpkin is no small task.  I'm not gonna lie.  It's a royal pain in the patooty. At one point, as I was covered in sticky, orange strings and nursing a minor knife cut on my finger, I considered throwing in the towel and ordering pizza. 

I'm so glad I didn't.

Earlier in the week, my mom mailed me a handmade book of pumpkin recipes from an old Victoria magazine.  She's so good at "snail mail" and often sends me homemade cards and little surprises, just because.   I had a couple of pumpkins on hand from our CSA, Great Country Farms, so it was the perfect time to try out several pumpkin recipes.

I made a few recipes, including sweet and spicy toasted pumpkin seeds and a vegetarian chili with chunks of pumpkin.  Hands down, though, my favorite recipe was this pumpkin soup.

Once you get past the nasty peeling, seeding and slicing bit, the soup really is pretty simple.  You start by finely chopping the base flavors -- lots and lots of shallots and leeks.  These wonderfully mild onion-cousins (yes, I made that up...) are added to a large, heavy-bottomed pot with a few tablespoons of butter.   Sounds good already, right?

After the shallots and leeks have softened in the butter, add vegetable stock and then...forget about it.  Well, sort of.  The pumpkin simmers in the stock for about half an hour until it softens.  You'll just need to stir it a few times.  When the pumpkin is soft, toss it all into a blender to puree.  Better yet, if you have an immersion blender, you can puree it directly in the pot.

If you stopped there, you'd have a deliciously simple soup.  The recipe calls for adding a fancy shmancy wild mushroom garnish and an apple cider reduction.  I'm not a huge fan of wild mushrooms, so I made my garnish with crimini (baby portobello) mushrooms.  The cider reduction, mixed with cream, was fine, but I think not really necessary.  The cooked mushrooms added some nice textural contrast, but could be left out as well.  Whether you decide to go fancy shmancy or not, I think you'll really enjoy this velvety fall soup.

Here's the proof.

Cheese Stuffed Fried Pumpkin Blossoms

I've been dreaming about making this dish for a while -- ever since I saw a version of fried zucchini blossoms featured in a food magazine last year.  Mind you, I'd never actually eaten stuffed blossoms of any kind, but I could immediately tell that it would be one of those "love at first bite" dishes.  The magazine promised me that these various squash blossoms were often sold at farmers' markets.  Once summer arrived, I immediately set out in search of these edible flowers. 

I searched...and I searched...and I searched.  Now with October settled upon us, I had all but given up on finding these elusive treats.  (One day, several weeks back, I did spy a lone squsah blossom in a stranger's yard and almost plucked it for myself...almost.)

There's a small bit of prep involved before you can eat the blossoms.  It feels a bit invasive as you pull out the stamen, but it has to go.  Poor guy.

Today we visited Great Country Farms in search of a few perfect pumpkins.  I was pretty excited.  As I confessed to Ryan on our hayride out to the fields, I had never before actually picked a pumpkin.  My previous pumpkin picking experiences consisted of choosing the best pumpkin from the grocery store.  (I don't think we even had pumpkin patches in Florida.  That's my story, at least, and I'm sticking to it!)

As we tumbled out of the hayride, I immediately saw them! Little children ran to claim their pumpkin prizes and I began plucking the pumpkin blossoms with equal fervor. They were just like the squash blossoms I'd been searching for -- delicate and yellow and just plain beautiful. 

I gathered all the blossoms that I could hold in one hand and then rejoined Ryan to help choose a pumpkin.  We did take home a couple of pumpkins today -- one for decoration and one for eating -- but it was the blossoms that really made the trip a success.

Stuffed.

This fall, if your family makes a trip out to the pumpkin patch, make sure to take home some blossoms and try this dish!  Just make sure to use the blossoms on the day you pick them.

Homemade Apple-Pear Sauce

This recipe was originally going to be an apple crisp.  It's been one of these weeks, however, when nothing has gone quite as planned.  After several days of neglect, the lovely gala apples on my kitchen counter had begun to look a bit homely.  Since the apples were turning to mush, I decided to just go with it and make applesauce instead.  Spying some equally neglected Asian plums, I threw them into the mix as well.

The result was a simple, wholesome delight.

Now that we are in the throws of apple season, I encourage insist that you make your applesauce.  It's quick, easy and super versatile.  You can use any kind of apple (or a mixture) andt can adjust the seasoning and sweetness to your own preferences.  Best of all, picking your own apples and making apple sauce makes a great memory!

The recipe below can be easily doubled.  It will keep about a week in the refrigerator or up to six months in the freezer.

Chunky -- just the way I like it!  Feel free to mash it up more or run it through a food mill to get a smoother sauce.

Homemade Apple-Pear Sauce

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You'll need...

3 pounds total of apples and pears  (I used about 2 pounds of apples and 1 pound of pears)

1/2 cup of water

2 Tbsp lemon juice

pinch of salt

sugar, to taste (I used about 2 Tbsp)

cinnamon, to taste (optional) -- I used just a few shakes

Directions...

Peel, core and roughly chop the apples and pears – sprinkling with the lemon juice as you go, to avoid browning.

Add the water and apples/pears to a large pot on the stove.  Bring them to a boil over medium-high heat and then simmer for 10-20 minutes, until the apples/pears are soft.   (If you're using only apples, the time may be closer to only 10 minutes.  I found that the pears took longer to soften -- depending on how ripe they are.)

Once the apples and pears are soft, add the salt, sugar and cinnamon.  Stir to allow the sugar to dissolve and then mash the apples/pears, using a potato masher.  I like my applesauce a little chunky, so I didn't mash them too much.

Taste the sauce and add more sugar and/or cinnamon if you think it needs it.

That's it! So easy.

Now that I've picked apples and  made applesauce I feel like fall has officially arrived.  Let the leaf color changing begin!