In the Kitchen - Soup

Last fall, with all the cans of pumpkin on sale, I kind of went maybe just a little crazy filling my pantry.  Pumpkin is one of my favorite foods.  I'm trying to use up some of the stuff in my pantry, so I made this vegetarian pumpkin curry soup the other day.  I even measured my ingredients and wrote the recipe down as I went along, so I could share it.

Start by sauteing 1/2 cup chopped onion with 1-2 diced, fresh jalapeños, depending on your own spiciness factor.  I sauteed these in 1 tablespoon of butter, but you could substitute another oil.  Cook them until the onions are soft and translucent, then add 1 teaspoon ground turmeric, 1 teaspoon ground coriander,  (as I type this I'm discovering I have some very creative spelling when it comes to spice names!) 1 teaspoon ground cumin, and 1 teaspoon salt.  Oh and I added just a dash of asafetida.

Pick over and rinse 1 cup of red lentils.  Add these to your onion and spice mixture.  Then add 5 cups of water.  Put a lid on and let it cook until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.  I may have wandered off and forgot to pay attention at this point;)

When the lentils are cooked, add 3 cups of cooked pumpkin.  I had a large size can that I had used part of the pumpkin for some bread; the rest went in the soup.  In fact, that's actually why I made the soup; I needed something to do with the rest of the pumpkin!  Using an immersion blender, blend the soup to a smooth consistency.  Immersion blenders are indispensable for making soups; they are inexpensive and so quick and easy to use and clean up after.  Add a little more water if it's thickened beyond your liking.  Heat the soup through again.

We like to add sriracha sauce to everything; that's why this soup turned red!  We also added a dollap of yogurt.  For the bread, I modified a recipe from Baking With Julia.  You can find the recipe here.  I used half whole wheat flour, and left out the sugar, raisins, and cranberries.  I used olive oil instead of butter, and hazelnuts in place of walnuts.  It was a yummy bread:)

Here's another recipe I made this week, for roasted radishes.  It got ate before I could get a pic, it was so good!  Now I'm even more excited about being able to plant my radish seeds next week.  I'm not overly fond of raw radishes, but I plant them because they grow so fast and give me almost instant gratification!  Now I will make a point of planting more so I can actually eat them!