Pumpkin Soup!

[blaze]

So. I have been tasked with bringing pumpkin soup to the Thanksgiving Feast this year and after a bit of searching, have settled on this recipe: http://www.applecrumbles.com/2011/10/31/pumpkin-and-honey-crisp-apple-soup-with-gorgonzola-and-toasted-walnuts/

I was able to source some honey crisp apples, but the Long Island Cheese Pumpkins... not so much. I guess I'll just go with a number of the small pumpkins I can pick up at my local grocery store... unless the fine cooks here have some better suggestions!

[Denninmi]

1. Well, a pie pumpkin would be OK.

Long Island Cheese is actually a Cucurbita moschata variety, in other words, a kind of Butternut, so to speak. It has the very deep orange, fiber free, and sweet flesh typical of butternut type squash.

Regular field pumpkins (the Jack-O'Lantern type) are far inferior in flesh quality -- watery, stringy, flavorless, pale. I wouldn't try using one of those.

Pie pumpkins would be ok -- flesh tends to be sweeter, less stringy, better color.

[blaze]

2. Hmmm... would the recipe be better with butternut squash?

Wiki says Australians call butternuts pumpkins, so I think I'd still be fulfilling the request. <g>

[Denninmi]

3. Better with butternut than with pie pumpkin?

In my opinion, yes it would be. I'm partial to the very rich, moist, sweet, deep orange, and low fiber varieties of squash like butternut, buttercup, black futsu, Dickinson select, and so forth. I think they make superior "pumpkin" products, from soups to curries to baked goods.

If you want the cute pumpkin look for a serving container, no reason you couldn't still bake that up separately from the soup, and then pour the finished soup into the cute pumpkin to serve.

[blaze]

4. Thanks Denninmi!!!!

Butternut squash it is!!!

And I'd already considered the pumpkin container thing... It really does make for a nice presentation. (Last year the pumpkin was filled will a wild rice, spicy sausage, dried fruit and mango chutney mix)

Thanks so much for your input!

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Allow me to second Denninmi's advice...

and good on ya for taking it.

I've been using butternut, or whatever similar one is available, for years in soup. It's rich and nutty and will hold up to all the other stuff in there. I also use Halloween pumpkins as the serving bowl, although I never cook them-- just cut a "lid" from the top, clean the thing out well and pour in the soup.

I've used large Hubbard squashes as vegetable servers, too, but they taste pretty good so I cook them. I'll cut one in half and put things like cooked Brussels sprouts with cheese sauce, bacon, and cranberries in there and roast the whole mess until the Hubbard softens. Makes a mildly spectacular display and you can eat everything but the skin. Some people even eat the skin.

If no large Hubbards or other squashes are available, any old pumpkin can be used-- just don't plan on eating the display types.