Not Your Mom’s Pumpkin Soup

You know it’s pumpkin season when the TV special for the evening is “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”. Well, there’s that and the playoffs. Two big tip-offs; even I would have to be living under a rock to miss those.

So it’s pumpkin season, and I’ll admit it. When it comes to squash, my favorite way to eat it is usually in a baked good. Oh, I do like acorn squash roasted with butter, but pies, muffins and the the ubiquitous tea cakes are really my favorites. That means that for a main dish I want different ingredients than the usual pumpkin companions, leaving me continuously on the lookout for another interesting way to cook those winter squash. The following recipe uses pumpkin, however I’m betting it would be equally good with butternut, acorn or some other lesser known squash such as buttercup.

This bisque has no apples. It has no cinnamon, no pumpkin pie or apple pie spice mixes. No nuts here, and barely any sugar. What it does have are some incredible flavors in the form of caramelized onions, marsala and bacon. Other than the bacon, there’s little fat in the soup, because it calls for milk rather than cream.

I’ve also made it easy on myself by using canned pumpkin. Feel free to substitute your own roasted pumpkin if you just happen to have one lying about.

Pumpkin Bisque with Marsala and Bacon (Printer-friendly recipe)

Ingredients:

4 pieces Bacon

1/2 Onion, diced

3/4 cup dry Marsala

1 15-ounce can Pumpkin Puree

2 cups Chicken Broth

1 teaspoon Brown Sugar

1 Bay Leaf

1 teaspoon dried Thyme

Salt to taste

1/4 teaspoon White Pepper

1-2 teaspoons Balsamic Vinegar

1 – 1 1/2 cups Milk

Note: With the understanding that the bisque will be sweeter, a sweet marsala may be substituted for the dry. If this substitution is made, omit the sugar and use only 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar.

 

Directions:

Fry bacon in pan until crisp. Remove to drain, reserving bacon drippings in pan. To drippings, add onion and cook until caramelized.

 

Deglaze pan with marsala, then add pumpkin, chicken broth, sugar, spices and balsamic vinegar. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

 

Puree pumpkin mixture using immersion blender or in batches using standard blender.

 

Return soup to heat and add milk to achieve desired consistency. Heat through and serve topped with crumbled bacon and a dollop crème fraîche.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Excitement in the Kitchen (Daring Bakers October Challenge)

This month’s baking has brought a flurry of excitement to the kitchen, at least half of which is from this month’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge. This is my first month with the Daring Bakers, and while I was a bit nervous, the idea of a baking challenge was what ultimately made me plunge into the proverbial water. Imagine my delight when my first challenge was to make something that I’ve been interested in, but have been keeping on the back burner: the macaron.

Suffice it to say that given the reputation of the Daring Kitchen, I expected nothing less than a real test and learning experience. And that’s what I got!

I chose to flavor the macaron with a combination of loose ground Russian Country tea which is very smoky, both in leaf form and in brew, and orange peel.

My first try yielded a batter that I had great hopes for. I didn’t feel I’d overmixed it, but as most of us know, sometimes things in the kitchen can be tricky.

Piping the rounds out onto the cookie sheet was messy work, made messier by the years between now and the last time I actually used a piping bag and tip! When the cookies were fairly round in shape, I called it good and sent them into the oven.

While I’d love to declare the first batch a resounding success, something wasn’t quite right. They weren’t nearly as tall as they ought to be and the macarons had no feet!

Still, after being filled with a pumpkin buttercream, they were absolutely delicious, if not exactly the correct texture.

Time for another batch!

What I didn’t realize when I joined the Daring Bakers, is that there would be a great resource of help available for all my learning needs. The Daring Kitchen site is a fantastic resource for those completing the challenges. There I learned that the most likely culprit for the problem I was having was that I just wasn’t beating those egg whites long enough. This time I beat the heck out of those things. I whipped them with my KitchenAid mixer until the whites started to draw away from the sides of the bowl and cling to the whisk.

That did the trick! The second batch wasn’t perfect in shape, and perhaps the next time I try them, they’ll be higher still. But I’m really happy with the texture and yes, feet, on the second batch. And wow, did we zoom right through eating those things. They were amazing both in flavor and texture: lightly sweet pumpkin filling in a crispy, airy and slightly chewy cookie.

Second batch (again Smoky tea and Orange Macarons with Pumpkin Italian Buttercream)

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Powered by ScribeFire.