Monday, October 26, 2009

Sweet and Savory Pumpkin Cauliflower Soup with Cinnamon Sugar Croutons

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This is the inspiration for this recipe:


My daughter loves this book and we read it every night. The other night she asked me if we could make pumpkin soup, and since I couldn't think of a good reason why not, I said sure. I thought for a few days about how I would make this soup and then bought the ingredients on my last shopping trip.

It's very easy and can be made very healthy (use olive oil instead of butter and skim milk instead of whole). And it's fall so of course pumpkin stuff is all the rage, yes?

What you need:

Soup

1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 stick of butter
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup diced onion
3 cups chopped cauliflower
3/4 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp herbs de province
1/2 tsp dried mustard
4 cups chicken broth or vegetable stock (5 if you like it thinner)
3 cups of whole milk (4 if you like it thinner)
1 large can (29 oz) of pumpkin

Croutons
1/2 stick butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sugar

What you do:
1) Saute the onion, celery, and chopped cauliflower in the 1/2 stick butter until soft.
2) Add in thyme, sage, herbs de province, ground mustard and salt
3) Simmer for 10-15 minutes on LOW stirring often.

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4) Add in the chicken/vegetable broth
6) Simmer for another 10 minutes.
7) Add in the canned pumpkin, all spice, and cinnamon. Simmer another 10 minutes.

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8) Add in the milk and then blend using an immersion blender. (Worst case, if you don't have one of these, you can blend the soup in batches)

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9) Simmer for another 10 minutes or so to let the flavors meld.

To make the croutons:
1) Get a loaf of bread of your choice and cut a 6-inch piece.
2) Soften 1/2 stick of butter, and add cinnamon and sugar and mix.

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3) Spread onto bread, cut into cubes, and bake low on 250 for 20-30 minutes until crunchy and crouton-y. Yes, crouton-y IS a word, spellcheck.

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Voila!

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*Sorry these pictures kind of suck. I had my camera on the wrong setting and didn't even notice until I was done.

2 comments:

Rougeneck said...

Your pictures do NOT suck because OMG...am salivating like Pavlov's dog.

Marcella Brown said...

that looks quite complicated. nice inspiration, by the way! next time i look at cartoons, i'll pay more attention.