The Casual Gardener

Chef Chris Perrin of www.blogwelldone.com and Shawna Coronado of http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com have teamed up to create the ultimate cooking and gardening lineup for the “2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative.”Yep, that’s right, it’s another installment of the 2009 Nude & Echo-Cheap Cooking Initiative. Today we’re making Pumpkin Soup. If you’re not familiar with the 2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative, that’s where I take the delicious veggies grown by the always awesome Shawna Coronado and turn them into a meal for a family of four that costs less than $11.50. Can I do it?

Yes I can with this easy, but delicious pumpkin soup.

I actually love pumpkin season. I think it’s kind of a shame that it only seems to be popular for about two months. Still, every year people go NUTS for pumpkins: pumpkin desserts, pumpkin soups, pumpkin coffee drinks, pumpkin pizza, and so on. Then even before the Thanksgiving leftovers are done…BOOM… everyone’s on to peppermint or sugar cookies or some other Christmas phase. Anyway, I’m ranting.

The good news is that for the next month or so we can continue to enjoy pumpkin recipes like this one.

Making Pumpkin Soup

This recipe is so easy, but it takes a little while to make because you want to cook the pumpkin before you put it into the soup. Boiled pumpkin sounds ridiculously unappetizing and the stuff would take forever to boil anyway. So, instead, you need to bake it first.  Once it’s ready, the rest of the soup is a breeze.

You will need:

• 1 pumpkin, halved and seeded (free from Shawna’s garden)
• 8 tablespoons olive oil, divided (free as part of the challenge)
• 1 loaf bread ($2.00)
• 1 clove of garlic (5 cents)
• 1 medium yellow (non-sweet) onion, 1/4 inch dice (free from Shawna’s garden)
• 16 ounces of mushrooms, cleaned and sliced ($3.50)
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 6 cups broth ($1.50)
• 2 cups heavy cream ($3.50)
• 4 leaves basil, thinly sliced (free from Shawna’s garden)

Total: $10.55 (cream is expensive, but still made it!!)

Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Cover both halves of the pumpkin in about two tablespoons of olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of salt. Bake for forty-five minutes cut side down or until the pumpkin is fork tender.

When the pumpkin is finished, let it cool and then cut into a small dice and set aside.

Next, cut the loaf of bread in half and then cut into 2 inch wide pieces. Rub with the cut clove of garlic and drizzle with olive oil.

In a soup pot, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil then sauté the onions until they start to turn translucent. Then add the mushrooms and cook them until the are brown and shriveled.  Add the black pepper and the broth and bring to a boil. (At this point, put the bread in the oven and keep an eye on it. You will want to remove it when it gets brown.)

When the broth is boiling, add the cream and bring the soup back to a boil.

Finally, add the pumpkin and let it get warm.

Serve with the basil on top of the soup and enjoy!

Get healthy today and follow the “2009 Nude & Eco-Cheap Cooking Initiative” with Blog Well Done’s Chris Perrin and the Casual Gardener, Shawna Coronado.