Easy Pumpkin Soup

Halloween has come and gone and you may have extra cans of pumpkin left in your pantry for pumpkin pie (or stocked up on them when they went on sale).
Here's a great, tasty, and FAST recipe for pumpkin soup using that canned pumpkin. You can also substitute sweet potato puree or butternut squash puree for the pumpkin. Grating the onion will make the final soup smoother in texture and you won't have to use an immersion blender.
Many of the ingredients listed are traditional fall grocery sale items so you can make this on a budget.

 Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium onion, grated
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 29 oz. can pumpkin puree
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup cream
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 3/4 tsp salt

DIRECTIONS

1. In a saucepan on medium heat, saute the grated onion in olive oil for 3 minutes or until soft.
2. Stir in the pumpkin puree, chicken broth, cream, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.
3. Bring to a simmer stirring for 3 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and divide into 4 soup bowls.
5. Serve.

Recipe: Sweet Simmered Kabocha

I stopped in at Whole Foods to see what they had on sale and saw that Winter Squash was selling for $1.29/lb (although it rang up as 79¢/lb). I bought a nice sized Kabocha Squash (Japanese Pumpkin) since I've had it before in Japanese restaurants and it's so tasty but never cooked it myself. The cooked texture is creamy and starchy almost like a sweet potato, not stringy like a common orange pumpkin. Nice thing about Kabocha is that you can also eat the skin after it's cooked so no need for peeling it..

Here is a recipe courtesy of About.com's Japanese Food Guide, Setsuko Yoshizuka.

Kabocha is commonly simmered in Japan. Kabocha amani (simmered sweet kabocha) is the most popular kabocha dish. It's often served in a Japanese-style meal as a side dish.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 kabocha (1 lb.), seeds removed
• 1 cup water
• 4 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. soy sauce

Preparation:

Cut kabocha into about 1 and 1/2 inch cubes. Peel kabocha skin around the edges. Put water, sugar, soy sauce, and kabocha in a medium pot. Heat on high heat and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low. Put a drop-lid or a sheet of aluminium foil on kabocha and cover with lid. Simmer kabocha for about 15 minutes, or until the liquid is almost gone.
*Makes 4 servings