Pink Lady pumkin two ways

Here are the two dishes I made this week with Tony's (Accardo Gourmet Produce) beautiful Pink lady pumpkin. I used the Pink lady because I had never eaten it before and I was curious to cook with it. But you could use any of his beautiful pumpkins or squashes for this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 pink lady pumpkin or any other pumpkin or Squash

1 onion diced

1 head of garlic pealed

1/2 cup olive oil

2 carrots diced

2 stocks celery diced

6 sprigs of fresh thyme

2 qrts chicken stock (or vegetable stock)

salt and pepper to taste

First thing to do is to roast the pumpkin. You could just put the squash in the pot with the veg and stock, but roasting it first gives it a nice caramelized flavor profile. Plus it's so easy.

You want to Cut the pumpkin in to manageable pieces and peel the skin off.

Once you have peeled the pumpkin and taken the seeds out you need to cut it into bite size cubes. Place it on a sheet pan with 1/4 cup of olive oil, onion, garlic, generous salt and pepper. Mix so that everything is evenly coated.

Place the sheet pan in a 350 degree oven and roast for about an hour, just until the pumpkin is fork tender. You will want to stir every once and a while to insure even browning. ( you may need two sheet pans depending on the size of the pumpkin)

Place the other 1/4 cup of olive oil in a pot with the carrots, celery, and thyme and saute over medium heat until tender. Add the roasted pumpkin mixture into the pot. I set aside some of the roasted pumpkin for dinner that first night.

Cover with the stock. and bring to a boil. Once the soup comes to a boil, lower the heat and bring down to a simmer. Let simmer for a half an hour. Test for salt and pepper, adding more if you need to. After the half hour let the soup sit and cool a little. Once cooled place a little at a time in a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth. I then take the pureed soup and run it through a sieve. This however is not necessary. It just depends on how smooth you like your soup. Do this with the remainder of the soup.

Now you could have the soup that day. I like to let it sit for a day. I just seems to enhance the flavors. I also like to place some of the cold soup in to small zip lock bags and keep them flat in the freezer for future consumption. And they are a perfect one serving portion.

If you would like to church up the soup a little, I like to garnish it with some of Paul's Parsley pesto and a little Creama (or you could use sour cream)

Now for the roasted Pumpkin that you set aside. This makes a perfect side dish for a meal. I pared it with some of our new vendor, Cajun Grain, Brown Jasmin rice. If you had not tried this you really need to. It is amazing!! I also kept it simple by roasting off some chicken thighs for protein.

Enjoy!!