Autumn Baking: Week 4-Pumpkin Coconut Soup

I know you're thinking, hey this is a baking project, why is there recipe soup? That's because I made two recipes today, and the pumpkin biscuits, sadly, were a fail. But the pumpkin soup I made was amazing! So, I'll share it here. Since I was unable to find the source of the recipe, I'll write it out, but it's not mine!

Pumpkin Coconut Soup

1 Tbsp. canola oil

1 onion, chopped(1 cup)

2 carrots, chopped(1 cup)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 (14oz.) cans chicken broth, divided

2(15oz.) cans unsweetened pumpkin

1(140z.) can coconut milk

2 Tbsp. lime juice

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1.) Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat; add onion and carrot, and cook, stirring frequently, 5 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften. Stir in garlic, and cook 30 seconds. Add 1 can chicken broth; bring to a simmer, and cook 10 minutes or until vegetables are very tender. Remove from heat; cool 10 minutes.

2.) Use a hand-held blender to puree the soup until smooth. Return to the heat and add pumpkin, coconut milk, and remaining can of chicken broth, stirring with a whisk. Bring to a simmer over medium heat; stir in lime juice and next 3 ingredients. 

Note: Can be made 1 day ahead. Reheat when ready to eat.

Makes 8 (1 cup) servings

This recipe is really easy to cut in half, and since I'm only one person, I don't need 8 cups of soup, so I made a half batch.

It doesn't puree as well as it should with the half batch, but I did what I could until the next step.

After mixing this, I used the blender to blend it all again and this worked well to finish pureeing everything. I ended up using one whole small lime, and I did not add any of the sugar. I recommend holding off on the sugar until you taste it to see how it is. The carrots can be very sweet, and so is coconut milk. You may not need it.

Here is the very autumnal-looking finished product! It's really tasty, and I can tell it's gonna be even better tomorrow! I'm not a big fan of squash recipes that lean sweet or use desserty ingredients. If I want to eat pumpkin pie, I'll make one, I don't don't want pumpkin pie soup...But if you want to experiment with herbs and spices, go for it! Curry is a very common addition to soups like this. If you don't want the cayenne, that might be a great addition. 

This is the perfect soup for the start of autumn. It still has a couple hold-outs from summer, but the finished product is all autumn!