In our quest to eat healthier, we’ve started having light dinners. Usually soups and salads.
Being vegetarian kinda limits you as well, but I’m slowly building a huge recipe base of utterly delicious soups. Pumpkin soup is not what I gravitate towards normally, but with bloggers all over posting wonderful recipes of pumpkin-shaped cookies, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies , pumpkin seed brittle, pumpkin parfaits— I thought I’d keep to the Autumnal theme as well.
This soup was a combination of 3-4 soups that I looked up. I took elements from them all to create this.
Recipe:
1/4 cup pepitas or pumpkin seeds
3 cups of red pumpkin, cut into 2″ squares
2-3 tbsps vegetable oil
1 tsp black pepper, coarsely crushed
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 Thai red chili
2 cups of vegetable stock or water
Salt
Brown sugar (optional)
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 cup unsweetened yoghurt
Method:
Preheat your oven to 250*C. Spread a layer of foil on a shallow baking tin.
Coat the pumpkin cubes with 2 tsps oil and crushed pepper and spread out on the foil. Sprinkle with coarse salt.
Roast for 15-20 minutes until softened.
In a wok, toast the pepitas for 7-8 minutes until fragrant. Remove and set aside.
Fry onions, garlic and the chili in a heavy saucepan with 1 tbsp of oil.
When transparent and cooked, add the roasted pumpkin. Add 1/2 cup of stock/water and simmer with the spices.
Take off the heat and blend until velvety. Use an immersion blender if you have one, or cool slightly and purée in your blender.
Transfer back into the saucepan, add the rest of the stock/water and bring to a simmer. Add salt sugar and more spice to your taste.
Take the soup off the heat. Top with toasted pepitas.
Beat the yoghurt into a smooth mix.then pour into the soup. This step is done after the soup comes off the heat. If you reheat with the yoghurt, the soup is likely to split and go watery. So reheat small quantities in a microwave or on low heat on the stove.
Serve with focaccia or freshly made bread.
