Pumpkin Soup - perfect for a cold Thanksgiving

It's potluck time for work and I signed up to do one of my favorite dishes to make, Green Bean Casserole, but another coworker signed up for it too. Well, no point in having the same dish twice, so I thought really hard about what else I could make. PUMPKIN SOUP!!! It's gonna be a cold day (relatively speaking, here in Los Angeles) and that seems like a very comforting type of food...so, I was excited thinking about it all day.  Thinking about spending time in my kitchen cooking this up and then I got this notion in my head - I don't want to make from a can of puréed pumpkins...I want the real deal!

So, after work, I went to Fresh and Easy down the street from my work and saw they sold some Sugar Pie Pumpkin, perfect for my soup! They are much smaller than the average jack-o-lantern pumpkins, but I may have gone overboard when I got 5! Yes, portion control has always been my problem...I always cook for the size of an army and it's usually actually for a handful...oh, well! I love to cook!

Anyway, here's the full list of Ingredients I used (forgive me, these are guesstimates - I am bad at keeping track of ingredients, but I'm trying):

5 Sugar Pie Pumpkins

18 cups chicken broth

1 tablespoon of olive oil (I ran out)

8 tablespoons of butter (would have only used 6, but I ran out of olive oil)

2 bay leaves

1 large onion, finely chopped

1/2 a celery (about 6-8 ribs), finely chopped

6 tablespoons of flour

5 teaspoons of ground thyme

Hot sauce, to taste

4 cups heavy cream

3 teaspoons of ground nutmeg 

Making Pumpkin Purée:

Bring a big stock pot little more than halfway filled with water to a boil. A little salt goes a long way.

Wash the outside of the pumpkin thoroughly with warm water, NO soap!

Slice in half and take out the seeds and stringy middle crap! (You can save the seeds to grow or roast - I threw them out, ain't nobody got time for that! Well, I don't this week. I tried saving spaghetti squash seeds last week and they got moldy on me because I got busy and forgot about them. Anyway, I digress...) place in stock pot of hot water. Repeat until all pumpkins are done. Each time, I try to push the newest pumpkin to the bottom with my wooden spoon. Add more water of needed.

I let boil for about 25-30 minutes and I turned off and draine the water and let cool. I'm impatient, so I threw some ice in there and added more water. That turned into hot water pretty quickly, so I pulled them out and let then sit.

Scoop out the inside into a blender. It came out pretty easy, but the skin would fall apart too and rip into pieces. I added some of the chicken broth to help purée it and let it rip.  Took me about 3 batches and maybe yielded about 12-15 cups? I'm so sorry I can't remember, but it was around there!

Time to make the soup:

I heated my stock pot over medium heat and added oil and butter to melt. 

Add bay leaves, celery, and onions. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until soft, about 8-10 minutes. Add flour and thyme, stir up and cook flour for about a minute or so.

Start stirring in the chicken broth and bring to a boil.

Stir in the pumpkin and mix into soup. Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure nothing is burning at the bottom. (I have partial videos of this on Instagram, but I forgot to take pictures because I got so into cooking - boyfriend had to take the video)

Add in the cream, nutmeg and hot sauce to taste. Reduce heat to low and and keep warm until you serve, or in my case. I cooked for another 10 minutes and transferred into my crockpot to take to work.

Soups are rarely photogenic, huh? I'll try to take a better picture and post later!

Better, but not really pictures...

Beef Stew

Beef Stew 

3 lbs boneless chuck roast cut into 2-inch pieces 
3 tbsp vegetable oil 
2 tsp salt 
1 tbsp freshly ground pepper 
2 yellow onions, cut into 1-inch chunks 
1/4 cup flour 
3 cloves garlic, minced 
1 cup red wine 
3 cups beef broth 
1/2 tsp dried rosemary 
1 bay leaf 
1/2 tsp dried thyme 
4 carrots, peeled, cut into 1-inch slices 
2 stalks celery, cut into 1-inch slices 
3 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut in eighths 

Directions: 

On medium-high heat, add the vegetable oil to a large heavy pot (one that has a tight fitting lid). When it begins to smoke slightly, add the beef and brown very well. Do in batches if necessary. 

Add the salt and pepper as the beef browns. Once
browned, remove the beef with a slotted spoon set aside. Add the onions and sauté for about 5 minutes, until softened. Reduce heat to medium-low, and add the flour and cook for 2 minutes stirring often. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. 

Add wine and deglaze the pan, scraping any brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. The flour will start to thicken the wine as it comes to a simmer. Simmer wine for 5 minutes, and then add the broth, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, and the beef. Bring back to a gentle simmer, cover and cook on very low for about 1 hour. 

Add potatoes, carrots, and celery, and simmer covered for another 30 minutes or until the meat and vegetables are tender. Taste and adjust seasoning. Turn off heat and let sit for 15 minutes before serving. 


This tastes best if it's made the day before and all the flavors have a chance to really meld together.

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

I've been sick the last few days and wanted chicken soup...as per my usual, I altered a recipe I found to suit my needs.  It tasted really good and was a great comfort soup for when I was feeling really sick!  Hope you like it as much as I did!

 

Ingredients:

2 Chicken Breasts or 4 Chicken Thighs 
4 cups Water 
4 cups Chicken Broth 
4 Carrots - cut (I bought the pre-crinkle cut ones)
4 stalks Celery - cut 
1 can Diced Tomatoes 
1 package quick cooking Long Grain and Wild Rice with seasoning packet 
Salt & Pepper 
3/4 cup Flour 
1/2 cup Butter 
2 cups Heavy Cream 

Directions:

Boil chicken in 4 cups of water - add salt, pepper, garlic, onion, garlic powder and chicken bouillon until almost cooked. After it boils for a bit, I lower the heat to control the cooking. 

Pull chicken out and put in carrots and celery. Add the chicken broth. 

Cut chicken into bite size pieces or do what I do and take two forks and pull it apart - put back in soup. Bring to a boil, stir in rice (leaving seasoning packet out), cover and turn off heat. 

In a small bowl, mix flour, salt and pepper. In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat and stir in seasoning packet until mixed and bubbly, reduce heat to low and start mixing in the flour mixture little by little to form a roux. Slowly whisk in heavy cream little by little until mixed and smooth. Cook until thickened - about 5 minutes. 

Add cream mixture into soup pot and bring to a boil and reduce to medium heat and cook for about 15 minutes - stirring occasionally to prevent rice from sticking to the bottom.