It's soup season! Yay!
I've made a variation of this soup before, and I used a plethora of different ingredients in that batch - like a whole cheese pumpkin, butternut squash, a medley of gourds, radishes, carrots... you can use whatever you like, really, because it's all going to be blended up at the end - so your picky-eater-friends or family members won't have any substantial evidence that a whole bunch of healthy stuff went into it.
But seriously, cooking is really easy to adjust and tailor to your individual tastes! I hope to inspire + encourage all of you to start looking at recipes as a general guideline to keep you on track, but be adventurous about adding more of the things you like to it to give it your own personal flare!
Okay, enough gabbing... here's the recipe + instructions for what I did this go around:
From the PRODUCE section:
2-4 Large Carrots - Or more.
4 Small Sweet Potatoes - You can use anything you prefer - any kind of potatoes, radishes, turnips, cauliflower, more carrots- or a mix of everything!
4 Small Pumpkins - 2 were white, 2 were orange. They were in a netted bag at my local Piggly Wiggly. And by "small", I mean they each fit in the palm of my hand.
- I had initially planned to do this batch of soup with Butternut Squash, but "The Pig" is pretty darn BASIC and runs on a much smaller scale than the bigger grocery stores. - Additionally, I had my Little Man with me and honestly just didn't feel like making anymore stops, so I improvised with what they had on hand.
1 Small Yellow Onion
3 Cloves of Garlic or a Big Ole Tablespoonful of already minced Garlic
1 Small Piece of Ginger Root - Like a chunk about the size of your thumb.
1 Parsley Bunch (If you don't dig ginger or parsley, you do you, Boo - and leave it out.)
Other things from the Grocery that you'll need:
1 tablespoon of Coconut Oil
2 - 14.5oz Containers of Low-Sodium Chicken Broth (I used 1 full container + 1/2 of the other)
1 teaspoon of Cumin
2 tablespoons of Red Curry Powder
2 tablespoons of Hot Madras Curry Powder
1/2 teaspoon of Crushed Red Pepper to taste - optional
1/4 teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper to taste - optional
1/2 teaspoon of Salt to taste - you may use more or less salt - depending on the type of broth you choose to use.
1/4 teaspoon of Ground Black Pepper to taste
Steps:
1) Start with your broth in a large pot on med-high heat.
2) Prep your vegetables of choice: - This is the only thing that takes some work.
I'm SUPER lucky because my Husband loves to cook and has WAYYYYYYY better knife skills than I do. #Winning - The last time I made this soup, I did everything myself and it was a lot of work - mainly because I was trying to use everything that came in my CSA Farm Box from Green Door Gourmet. Ha! - Plus I didn't own a hand immersion blender at the time, so I had to do the pot-to-blender-blender-to-pot shuffle several times. That was a huge pain in the bum, but it was still worth it.
Wash + peel carrots and potatoes. Cut into chunks.
Cut + de-seed pumpkins, gourds, squash. Cut into chunks.
Put everything into the pot of broth.
Add 1/2 of Curry Powder + 1/2 of Hot Madras Curry Powder, Crushed Red Pepper, Cayenne Pepper, Salt + Pepper to pot.
Bring to boil.
3) While waiting for pot to boil, chop up onion, garlic, ginger + parsley.
Heat coconut oil in pan.
Add onions, garlic, ginger and parsley
Add the rest of Curry Powder + Hot Madras Curry Powder
Sautee until tender then add to pot.
4) Bring pot to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes - then start checking + stirring every 10 minutes after that. Total time I simmered was about 45 minutes.
5) Once the vegetable chunks are soft enough to go through an immersion blender, start blending away. If you don't own a hand immersion blender, it's okay! You can CAREFULLY transfer soup to a regular blender. You will most likely have to do several portions in the blender depending on your blender capacity and how much soup you've made. But this is the immersion blender we have. :)
6) If the soup isn't at your desired consistency, feel free to add any of the following to the pot and blend again.
. Water
. Coconut Milk - Or any milk, really.
. More Broth
. Heavy Whipping Cream
Ours was a little thick so we added 1 Cup of Water and 1 Cup of Coconut-Almond Milk.
7) Serve hot.
I topped our bowls with some pumpkin seeds and coconut slivers I had leftover from some baking we did during quarantine.
The Husband suggested toasting the coconut next time - but he's always a little extra when it comes to cooking. Ha!
Toasted up a nice baguette from Kroger and Voila!
We cleaned our bowls and have tons leftover! Score!
I usually put a container or two in the freezer to enjoy later without having to go through all the work of making another pot!
If you get inspired to try it, PLEASE share your version with the world and tag me so I can steal some of your ideas to make mine better! :)
Enjoy!
