Pumpkin soup with a southwest twist

Can I keep blaming chemo brain? The other day, I confidently reached my hand into the cupboard, hauled out a big can of whole tomatoes and opened it. Something just felt wrong. It took me a second, but when I finally looked at the can in my hand, I realized it was a can of pumpkin. Pumpkin!? Seriously? Crap. I put it to one side and carefully bent over, looked in the cupboard and pulled out the intended can of tomatoes. As I opened all I could think was, "What the heck am I going to do with pumpkin."

Soup. Of course soup. My husband was voting for pie (my family does a kick ass pumpkin pie - seriously, take a step back if you think yours is even close) but I knew there was no way pie was happening in the middle of a busy week in March. So soup it was.

I don't have a go to pumpkin soup recipe so I decided to take a quick scan on the web. I couldn't find an interesting one...too many curried versions. Then I happened upon a conversation thread for a recipe in Epicurious. That and a couple of turns around my kitchen cupboards and I came up with the following:

Pumpkin soup with corn and black beans

Ingredients:

3 tbs olive oil

2 tbs butter

2 medium to large onions, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 ½ tbs brown sugar

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp chilli powder

¼ tsp nutmeg

6 cups vegetable stock

1 cup milk or cream

1 large can pumpkin

2 cups frozen corn (or more depending on taste)

1 can black beans, rinsed

Salt and pepper to taste

Optional toppings: 

  Chopped cilantro

  Sour cream

  Salsa

  Diced avocado

  Mexican hot sauce

Instructions:

1. Heat oil and butter in a dutch oven or heavy bottomed stock pot.
2. Add onions and cook on low, approx 15 minutes.
3. Add garlic, cayenne, brown sugar, cumin, chili powder and nutmeg and cook another 15 minutes or so, until the onions are caramelized.
4. Increase heat to medium. Add stock and milk or cream and allow to come to a simmer.
5. When hot, whisk in the pumpkin.
6. Puree either in batches in the blender (remember to take care when blending hot liquids) or with an immersion blender.
7. Add in corn and beans. Heat through. Taste and add salt and pepper.
8. Serve warm with optional toppings of chopped cilantro, sour cream, salsa, diced avocado and/or hot sauce.

 Serves 6 to 8.

Yum. :-)