….celebrating with a Southern flair
This year we substituted turkey and stuffing with deep fried chicken, BBQ ribs and macaroni and cheese. We started the meal with curried pumpkin soup, served in the pumpkin shell and freshly baked corn bread. Our daughter hosted the meal and because there were 14 of us we decided to share the work with a pot luck meal. I brought the soup and bread and plum cake. Gaelan and Brendan cooked the meats and the mac and cheese. Other contributions included roasted potatoes, pasta salad, coleslaw, wine and meat and cheese platters as appetizers.
As you can see from the photos our granddaughter loved the pumpkin but she loved the soup just as much. Even my Dad who normally dislikes pumpkin pie enjoyed this soup.
The recipe came from a cookbook that my friend Janice gave me as a gift last Christmas. Her church, St. Philip’s Lutheran Church, collected soup recipes from friends and members of the church and created the book It All Begins With Soup and sold the cookbook as a fundraiser. This recipe is dead simple.
Curried Pumpkin Soup
1 large can of pumpkin puree
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic
3 cups of chicken broth
1 Tbsp curry paste (more if you like spicy)
1/4 tsp. coriander, salt and pepper (adjust seasoning to your taste)
3/4 cup coconut milk (1/4 cup for swirls in the serving bowls)
Saute the onions and garlic in the coconut oil. Stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add chicken stock, paste and seasonings. Stir and cook until boiling. Cover and continue to boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add pumpkin puree and coconut milk. Whisk until smooth. Cook for a final 5 minutes before you puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Serve warm with a swirl of coconut milk in a bowl.
- if you are vegan you can substitute chicken broth with vegetable broth
- I doubled the recipe to serve 14 people – the bowls were small but some people had seconds
- my pumpkin was way to big – the soup filled just over half the pumpkin
