New Meal Monday: Creamy Pumpkin Soup

While you may have had your first pumpkin latte two months ago, this time of year to me, is really pumpkin season.
Every fall you can find pumpkin everywhere! Whether it's pumpkin cookies, pumpkin donuts, or pumpkin spice tea, everyone loves a good pumpkin flavored treat in the fall.  This past weekend we went to a nearby pumpkin patch and let our daughter pick out some pumpkins to decorate.  We thought she'd like to help us scoop the seeds out, but instead we learned that she knew the word "gross".  Someday she'll learn that if she wants to share the roasted seeds with us, she's going to have to help, but that'll be a lesson for another year!
We somewhat recently started carrying Viatmix blenders at our store, and had been wanting to use one to make a soup and thought this would be the perfect opportunity.  We'll be writing another post soon about some of the amazing new technology available with Vitamix now, and how we used it, but this recipe we adapted a bit so you could make it with a blender, or an immersion blender.  We found the different spices blended nicely with the pumpkin and made for a creamy, delicious, fall soup!

What you'll need:

• 1 Pie Pumpkin*
• 1.5 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1.5 C Chicken Stock
• 1/4 C Sour Cream
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tsp olive oil
• 1/3 Onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp ginger root, chopped
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground Allspice

How you'll do it:

1. Preheat oven to 375*F.
2. Cut off ends of pumpkin, and cut in half. Using spoon (or a scoop), remove all seeds and stringy, gooey inside.  Lightly coat with oil or melted butter, and place skin side up, on a baking sheet lined with foil.  Bake until inside of pumpkin is soft and can easily be scooped out (about 20-25min) 
3. In a large bowl, mix together 1 C of pumpkin, apple cider vinegar, chicken stock, sour cream, & salt.  Set aside.
4. In a stock pot heat oil over medium heat, then cook onion, garlic, thyme, ginger, pepper and allspice. Cook stirring continuously for 7 min (or until onions are translucent).
5. Mix in ingredients previously set aside in large bowl and cook over medium heat until everything is cooked through (about 5 min)
6. All contents to cool for about 5 min, then either pour contents into a blender and blend until smooth and creamy or use immersion blender right in the pot.
7. If you'd like, sprinkling in some roasted pumpkin seeds is a nice addition.

*This is a lot more pumpkin then you'll really need for the proportions of this recipe. You need about a cup of cooked pumpkin so you can buy if already cooked, or save the extra cooked pumpkin and make the recipe again, or may your own pumpkin purree!