How to Make Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin soup is a hearty addition to any autumn meal, and an especially nice first course for Thanksgiving dinner. It's also low-fat. Yields about 8 cups.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 1 small pumpkin
• 1/2 lb. peeled and chopped turnips
• 1/2 c. heavy cream
• 6 tbsp. butter
• 1 large parsnip
• salt
• 1 med. onion
• 6 c. reduced-sodium chicken broth
• pepper
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1. Cut the pumpkin in half. Scoop out and discard the fiber and seeds.

2. Cut the pumpkin into large pieces.

3. Peel the pumpkin pieces with a vegetable peeler, and trim any remaining fiber so that all you have left is pumpkin flesh.

4. Cut the flesh into 1-inch pieces.

5. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and saute, stirring often, until softened.

6. Add pumpkin, turnips, parsnip and chicken broth to saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.

7. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer one hour.

8. Remove soup from heat and cool about 15 minutes.

9. Strain the vegetables from the soup and put in a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade. Add 1 1/2 c. broth and process until smooth.

10. Add the rest of the broth and process again. (If your food processor isn't big enough, do this in batches.)

11. Rinse the saucepan and put the pureed soup in it. Stir in the cream and cook over medium heat, stirring, until heated through.

12. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve.

Tips & Warnings

• You can also puree the soup in a blender.
• Jack-o'-lantern pumpkins usually don't taste the best. Try to get an eating, or pie pumpkin, such as the Sugar Pie variety.

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on 11/22/2005 A favorite tip of mine when making pumpkin or squash soup is to add about a teaspoon of curry powder to the onions when you are sauteing them. Make sure to saute the curry for at least one minute then carry on with the recipe as usual.