We have been experiencing pretty nice weather here in Salt Lake, with temperatures hitting 80’s pretty much whole September…nights got cooler of course, but nothing drastic yet, until the last couple of days. Yaaay, finally! Even though I don’t know if it’s here to stay, real Fall weather is here, low to mid 60’s and please close the window before sleep, because it is cold. Weeeee…
I know some people might think I am crazy now and might even stop reading from disgust, haha….but I hate being hot, I hate it so much that I don’t think anyone can hate cold as much as I hate heat, so, sorry, but my time is here!
It means it is also time for nice comfy soups and stews. See? Fall is awesome!
I had couple of ears of corn leftover in the fridge and chowder came to my mind, but I also really wanted a pumpkin soup. So why chose??? Pumpkin Corn Chowder it is!
This is a yummy and filling soup you can put together in half an hour or so, which makes it extra great, and I added some bacon to it, because, why not? It’s bacon! 😀
Without it this is a great vegetarian option too.
Pumpkin Corn Chowder
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large or 2 smaller carrots, diced
1 parsnip, diced
1 large onion, diced
stalk of celery, diced
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
about 1 cup of corn (leftovers or frozen, both works great)
1 1/2 cup of pumpkin pure
11/2 to 2 cups of half and half
1 1/2 cup chicken broth
about half a cup of chopped bacon
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon curry
(this is optional, I have some people not crazy about curry around here and it is tasty without it too, I happen to like it with though!)
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
Saute onions, carrots, parsnip and celery on olive oil. When softened add the garlic and chicken broth. Add the corn and cook for 10 minutes. I like to reserve a 1/4 of corn to add to the soup after I blend it because I enjoy to bite into a kernel of corn, if you don’t like this, just add all the corn.
After ten minutes add all the seasonings, pumpkin and half and half. In case you don’t have half and half, I also made this soup with heavy cream and milk (just not skim) successfully, so improvise and use what you like better!
Cook for another ten minutes and while the soup is cooking, fry up some chopped bacon on a side. I don’t like to add it to the soup until I am ready to eat, so I set that on a side until ready to eat.
With a hand held blender blend the soup how much you like (I would say I do it 3/4 of a way to perfectly blended, I like a bit of a texture left in a chowder, if I was making just pumpkin soup, I would blend it all the way). Of course, you can use you blender for this too, I just find the clean up easier with my hand held blender, and I also have more control with how much I will blend it.
If you reserved some corn kernels, put them in the soup now and also if the soup seems to be too thick, add some more half and half or milk.
Serve with a generous sprinkle of bacon. I also like to add a spoon of creme fraiche.
Also, to end this post, I would like to thank you all of you wonderful people out there, who took the time over the past years to read through some of the posts, As of yesterday I’ve had over half a million page-views and I am amazed. I know it is not a huge number compared to a lot of food blogs out there. But this started for me as a place for my favorite recipes that I am not going to lose, and this number is amazing to me. Thank you and it is certainly a great motivation to get better and keep going!
