Pumkin...

October is Pumpkin month..  Last weekend at the farmer's market i found some nice and fresh and aromatic pumpkins and could not avoid them... What i do every year though is to buy some, clean and cut in pieces, blanch for a minute or two, drain and store them in little plastic bags in the freezer. Keep it like that for the duration of the winter. Also, a few weeks ago after talking to a friend, i finally figured out what i am doing wrong all this time and my pumpkin nioki are great for ping pong but not for eating. But that will be for another post.

So.. what better to do with it than a nice hot soup? Only problem is that come to think of it the pumpkin soup is nothing really special. OK, yes you can add some orange for extra flavor, some cinnamon and nutmeg to spice things up but really pumpkin soup is not really something. But then, baked beans came into the picture. Read in one of my favorite blogs (http://smittenkitchen.com/) about using baked beans to give some extra flavor, body and kick to the soup and decided to give it a try... Also instead of the usual spices in the recipe there is a lot of cumin... Overall it is a great dish that takes a normal and maybe even blant soup a bit further!

Ingredients for 6-8 soup bowls
550gr of chopped and cleaned and blanched pumpkin
celery, a couple of stalks chopped
one big onion chopped
a few fresh ones chopped
some garlic minced
a can of red beans
salt-pepper to taste
one tsp ground cumin
olive oil to saute the veggies
3 cups of stock, some water
Some yogurt and pumkin seeds for decoration

OK.. so.. saute the onions, celery and garlic, for a good 6-8 minutes in the olive oil. Add the pumpkin and saute it for another 8 minutes. Empty the can of beans without the liquid, and saute for another 4 minutes. Add the spices and after a minute the stock and/or water.. Be careful of the salt in beans and stock and not add salt before adding those ingredients..

Let it all boil till pumpkin is nice and soft (about 20 minutes). Take it off the fire and let it rest for 30 minutes before you mash it all together in a blender or chopper. Add more spices if you see fit. Serve hot with some yogurt and seeds...