Sunday, July 02, 2006

Pumpkin Soup and Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

A few days ago, I made some pumpkin muffins from freedom's blog. That left me with some extra pumpkin to use up. Yesterday I was flipping through cookbooks at my aunt's house and I wrote down a recipe for Arizona pumpkin soup.

Today I cooked up the soup recipe. It is made with pumpkin, red pepper, onion, garlic, chili powder, and lime juice. The soup is good. My last pumpkin soup attempt was a disaster, so I'm glad this one was edible. I wonder if the folks from Arizona have ever had any soup like this.

My aunt and I went strawberry picking yesterday. There is a wonderful little farm not far from our houses. This is the first year they offered CSA shares. I'm hoping to get one next year, but I was excited to check out what they had at the store. I purchased some fresh currants (which I have no idea what to do with) and some rhubarb to use with the strawberries.

While we were walking over to the berry patches, one of the owners stopped us and offered some freshly picked black mulberries to try. They were interesting. The strawberry fields weren't doing incredibly well. Because of all the rain, many of the berries were moldy. Though we managed to pick some good ones.

The Garden of Vegan has a recipe for Rhubarb Crunch. I used half as much rhubarb and added strawberries. Check out the big pan of fruity goodness that I have waiting for me.

Actually, shortly after that photo I ate a plateful of it. After my soup, I may have another dish of it. Tonight I'm hoping to make some mojito scented soap. I'll post some pics of it once it is done.

5 comments:

KleoPatra said...

Wow, all of that looks amazing!!! I haven't had rhubarb before... for some reason! Is it sweet on its own or do you add a lot of sweetener when making this? I should check the link, i suppose, right!? I am clueless on this root vegetable/fruit. My dad loooooooves rhubarb pie... The soup looks great.

Can't wait to hear about the soap! Good luck with that and hope to see photos when you can...

Jody from VegChic said...

Hey Kleo,

Wow you posted right after I posted, lol.

Rhubarb is very tart. It definitely needs sweetener, though I suspect less was needed because of the strawberries.

The Garden of Vegan recipe for rhubarb already used 1/2 as much sugar as other crisp recipes, so I gave it try. This is great, but there is 3/4 cup of sugar in the fruit mixture and 1/2 cup of succanat in the crisp part.

KleoPatra said...

What timing, 'eh? Thanks for your comment on my blog. I just posted today's note there as well. Wish I had a pic of me 'n' either of the bands, but i didn't get close enough to them!

Thank you for the info about rhubarb and about the sweetening it needs. I kind of figured it was tart. My dad is like obsessed with rhubarb pie as well as pecan pie. I wish i could make him some sometime...

Anonymous said...

I've never thought of making pumpkin soup with canned pumpkin. great idea.

mmm..strawberry rhubarb, the PERFECT combination!

funwithyourfood said...

Pumpkin Soup. Yum. I love it with nutmeg. It's a fall fav for me :)

Teddy

ps I'm home now! YAY- been gone a week