Pumpkin Soup

As much as I love endlessly searching for recipes on blogs across the internet, I always feel slightly guilty. I worry about food magazines and cookbooks feelings. Do they get jealous? I mean I wouldn't say the are obsolete, but with the blog world out there to give instant feedback about a recipe and include pictures that show a real result, it's hard not to go there first for a recipe. It's a sad situation.

When my mom and I are at the grocery store, we don't mind getting stuck behind a line of people when checking out. Why? We get to read food magazines. Duhh. Rachael Ray, Fine Cooking, Taste of Home, Bon Appetit, and all the greats. Every once in a while, there's one magazine that really sticks out to us and we just have to get it. This past time: Fine Cooking. There were some great desserts and main dishes and we said we would force ourselves to make them!

One recipe I knew I wanted to try was the pumpkin soup. I make so many sweet pumpkin recipes that I need to balance them out a bit with some savory ones. If I only stuck to desserts, I would be disrespecting pumpkin. I mean, pumpkin has so many diverse uses that I have to give them all a chance! Yes. I love pumpkin that much.

This recipe was super easy. Piece-o-cake. I really enjoyed the end result. Warm nummy (yummy) pumpkin soup is just perfect for a cold Fall day. It was suggested to make homemade croutons with it, and I had every intention to. But, I enjoyed the ciabatta bread as is, so I just ate it plain hehe. My mom was slightly sad since she wanted to try the croutons, but maybe another time.


Pumpkin Soup
from Fine Cooking Magazine

2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, sliced
6 cups 1-inch-diced peeled, seeded pumpkin
2 medium cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 cup dry white wine
8 medium fresh sage leaves
4 to 6 cups lower-salt chicken broth
1/4 cup packed grated Gruyère
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a heavy-duty 4- to 5-quart pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir in the pumpkin and garlic and cook, stirring, 1 minute more. Add the wine and the sage leaves and cook, stirring, until the wine evaporates, about 5 minutes. Stir in 4 cups of broth, cover, and simmer, adjusting the heat as needed, until the pumpkin is very tender, about 25 minutes.

Add 1/4 cup of the Gruyère and using a handheld or standard blender, purée the soup (in batches, if necessary). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Return to a gentle simmer, stirring constantly and adding more broth as necessary to achieve a thin soup with the consistency of heavy cream.

Garden Zucchini Bisque

I'm so behind on my blog posting, which saddens me as I'm sure it saddens you. Lots of things are happening and I'm slowly settling into a new summer routine.

At the beginning of summer, the month of June, I kept an uber-lazy schedule. Wake up whenever (which usually was still early-ish since I'm not much of a late sleeper), watch the Ellen Degeneres Show, check Facebook, read food blogs, blog, eat (and eat and eat), bake (some days), attempt my summer reading, ... and other lazy activities followed by possible plans with friends for the evening. Nothing real structured here people.

So after the crazy spurt of vacationing in early July, I've come back with somewhat of a scheduled summer.

6:45- Wake up and sleepily get ready for volleyball
7:05- Leave house for YMCA
7:30- Volleyball practice starts
9:30- Leave YMCA for home
OR (most days as of late)
9:30- Leave YMCA to go babysit at my aunt's
10:00- If at home, watch Ellen and eat breakfast
-If babysitting, watch shows on Hulu and eat breakfast
11:00- 3:00- Blog, read blogs, Facebook, settle disputes among little cousins and their neighborhood friends, BAKE
3:00 or 4:00- Return home and relax for a bit. Read.
6:00- Plans with friends or nap time.
9:00- Read a bit and SLEEP. Waking up super early makes me especially tired.

Then throw in college visits, random Student Ambassador events (a society which I am the president of), and other stufffff.

So in spite of all this free time or lack there of, here are some unappetizing photos I took of a soup that was actually rather delicious. I would liken it to that mushroom soup you get at the beginning of your 50 course meal you receive at any Japanese steak house or place where they cook your food in front of you. However, this isn't that. It is zucchini, with a good deal of mushrooms mind you, and flavorful onions, that isn't anything over the top, but simply delicious if you happen to have extra zucchini lying around. It can be made in a snap to. It's mostly all ingredients you should have on hand anyway.


Garden Zucchini Bisque
from Land O Lakes: Treasury of Country Recipes

Ingredients:2 tbsp butter
2 c sliced zucchini (1/8' thick)
1 c mushroom (1/4' thick)
1/2 c onion chopped
1/4 c chopped parsley
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
10 3/4 oz chicken broth3/4 c whipping cream
pinch of pepper

In a 3 quart saucepan, melt 2 tbsp butter; add zucchini, mushrooms, onion, and parsley. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are crisply tender (6 to 8 mins). Meanwhile, in a 2 quart saucepan melt 3 tbsp butter over medium heat; stir in flour until smooth and bubbly (1 min). Add chicken broth; continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until soup is thickened (5 to 7 min). Stir in cream, pepper and zucchini mixture. Continue cooking until heated through (5 to 6 mins, I let mine go a little longer).

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Weeks before Thanksgiving even began, my mom and I visited our first Williams Sonoma store. It was so much fun. That probably sounds funny to 'non-foodie' people. But to us 'foodies', going into a cooking store is definitely our idea of a fun weekend activity. We spent a ton of time there and right before leaving and just to our luck, they put out some samples! One of which was there seasonally inspired roasted butternut squash soup using their canned butternut squash puree. We were sold by the taste and took home that organic puree immediately. On the down side, we had to wait over three weeks before we could try it, as it was to be our Thanksgiving appetizer.

More sad news: The recipe for the soup was on the side of the jar. Which we recycled before I could blog about it. My memory isn't so great that I could remember all that you'd need to do. I am scouring the internet, however. No luck so far.

More sad news: Why didn't I take a picture of this bowl of heaven? I guess we'll never know...

Good news: This soup is honestly to die for. It's reminescient of tomato soup with the creamy yet hearty factor you get from it. And for my family I put a little more onion in and loved it. This is a super super healthy dish that's sweet and savory at the same time.