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I went to a local pumpkin patch the other day – don’t you just love pumpkin patches? There is just something so enchanting about walking through a sea of plump orange pumpkins. I took home up a few carving pumpkins and a sugar pumpkin. Usually the smaller sugar pumpkins are the ones used for cooking, but I decided to try cooking one of the carving pumpkins just to see how it would turn out.

I sliced the carving pumpkin into large hunks, and scooped out the seeds and the stringy stuff. Then I put the pumpkin pieces on a lightly oiled cookie sheet and baked at 325F for about 90 minutes.

I scooped out the fleshy part and discarded the skin. Then tonight I made pumpkin soup! I love the Thai combination of coconut, chilis, and pumpkin, so I started with those ingredients and went from there.

Vegan Thai Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

• 2 T canola oil
• 4 shallots, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 2 Thai chilis, chopped
• 2 T chopped ginger
• 1 t cinnamon
• 2 1/4 C veggie broth
• 1 can lite coconut milk
• 4 C chopped cooked pumpkin
• 1/2 t Thai chili paste (for extra spice – optional)
• Fresh ground pepper to taste
• Salt to taste

Directions

1. Pour the oil into a large saucepan or stockpot, and heat over low heat. Add the shallots, garlic, chilis, and ginger and saute until the shallots are soft.
2. Add the cinnamon, veggie broth, coconut milk, pumpkin, and chili paste. Bring to a boil, and then lower heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the flavors have emerged.
3. Remove from heat and use an immersion blender to puree. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Here’s the finished soup, garnished with fresh basil:

I served the soup for dinner, along with thick slices of my homemade Multigrain Bread:

The bread recipe came from a book that Kat lent me, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart and Ron Manville. If you are into baking your own bread, this is a great book as it gives a lot of the explanations on how the recipes work. It’s so interesting and chock full of recipes, so of course I ordered my own copy so that Kat could get her book back! There was one time when I never made bread from scratch, but it’s actually quite easy and not as time consuming as you might thing. Oh and homemade bread tastes amazing . Now it just seems like such a waste to buy bread!

Do you cook with fresh pumpkin? What do you make with it?

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