Garlic - Ginger Pumpkin Soup

Imagine this: three moms each with one crazy toddler running around chasing each other, playing musical water bottles and making all manner of “music” using various kitchen utensils. These three moms decide to get together to cook, never in the kitchen at the same time. Each tossing in ingredients while taking turns wrangling toddlers. Well this crazy mixed-up soup is the result. I would never have put garlic and ginger together in pumpkin soup but someone else did, and I'm really really glad they did. It might be my favorite new flavor combination!

When making this recipe remember to choose a cooking apple that retains its flavor after cooking. I’d recommend a Braburn, Jonagold, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Mutsu, Pippin or Pink Lady.

I’ve tested this recipe with both a fairytale pumpkin and a Kabocha squash. Both worked out perfectly.

Makes: 6 servings (about 3 quarts)

Preparation time: 30m
Cooking time: 30m
Total time: 1h30m

Ingredients:

  • 4 pound fairytale pumpkin (or Kabocha squash)
  • 3 sweet potatoes (total of about 2.5 pounds)
  • 1 yellow onion
  • 1 large apple (cooking apple, see suggestions above)
  • 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger (about a thumb-sized piece)
  • 4 large garlic cloves (at least)
  • 2 cups vegetable stock (or bone broth if not making this vegetarian/vegan)
  • 2 cups water

Equipment: 2 jelly roll pans (rimmed baking sheets), large stockpot (at least 4 quart), immersion blender or regular blender

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425ºF/220ºC.
  2. Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds. Then place it cut-side-down onto a jelly roll pan. Do not use a cookie sheet for this; liquid is going to come out of the pumpkin and you need the rim to catch it. You can save this liquid and pour it into the soup or discard it.
  3. Using a knife or fork poke holes in the sweet potatoes and place them in the second jelly roll pan.
  4. Cut the onion in half and place it onto the pan with the potatoes. You do not need to peel it (yet).
  5. Roast the pumpkin, potatoes and onion. They are ready when you can pierce the pumpkin and potatoes easily with a fork. Depending on the size of your pumpkin and potatoes, this could take 45-60 minutes. When they are ready, remove from the oven and set out to cool until you can handle the pumpkin to scoop out the flesh.
  6. Scoop the pumpkin flesh into a large stockpot.
  7. Break the sweet potatoes into multiple pieces and place in the stock pot.
  8. Peel the dry layers off the onion and discard, place the soft parts into the stock pot.
  9. Remove the apple core and chop the apple into 8-10 slices, add to the stock pot.
  10. Add the ginger, garlic, vegetable stock and water to the stock pot.
  11. Using an immersion blender puree the soup until smooth. If using a regular blender, blend in sections until you have pureed all of the soup. Depending on how thick you would like your soup you can add more water at this point.
  12. Quickly bring the soup to a boil, then remove from heat. Cool slightly and enjoy! This soup is definitely better day 2 so it’s a good thing this recipe makes a LOT.