Early bird special

This cold seems to go away when one is vertical only to reappear when we try to go horizontal. Since I am not quite tired enough to sleep standing just yet, I've been gummaging about the house for half the night.

We had all good intentions of making pumpkin pie from scratch. So, last night Curt roasted one of the 'pumpkin-pie' pumpkins that we bought about a month ago. You can see the remaining one in the background of one of the photos below.

Anyhow, I decided instead to make up a soup. There's always the other pumpkin and some butternut squash (which is what most canned pumpkin really is anyhow) to fall back on for that pie.

First I chopped half a large vidalia onion into big chunks. Then I sauteed it in some garlic-herb butter (the last remnants from our summer garden) until it was limp and semi-translucent.

Once the onion pieces were looking pretty, I added about 2 cups of frozen chicken/vegetable stock and let it cook on high until it was all liquid.

While that was doing it's thing, I pureed the cold pumpkin flesh with a bit of whole milk and a pinch of fresh grated ginger.

Next I turned the heat down to the low-medium range and combined the pumpkin with the broth and added a bit more milk.

Finally I added some seasoning - salt, pepper, paprika, hot pepper flakes and a smidge of Thai curry paste.

Then I just kept stirring that sucker until it bubbled.

Now it's in a bowl cooling. I wil run it thru the food processer again and probably top it with a dab of sour cream and some chopped spring onion to cool off the spice a bit.

Even with my cold, it smells wonderful.