Nourishing an Occupation 7: Red Curry Pumpkin-Peanut Soup

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This autumn, I find myself in the very happy situation of having an abundance of pumpkins.  Pumpkins are one of my favorite foods and are a wonderful medium for creative cooking.  They are not just for jack-o-lanterns or pie, but are a great basis for both savory and sweet dishes.

This Sunday, I looked at my pile of pumpkins and started a free improvisation soup composition.  The result: a savory Red Curry Pumpkin Peanut soup that was heartily enjoyed by guests from Occupy Wall Street and Vassar College at the Occupy Poughkeepsie encampment.

This soup is packed with protein, fiber, flavor, and thermal inertia.  You might be a nerd if you try to convince someone to try a bowl of soup based on its thermal inertia, but those are exactly the words I heard come out of my mouth, standing on the dark streets of Poughkeepsie.  By that, I meant it 'holds its heat', once warm, it stays warm for a long time and will keep your body warm too.

For this soup, I started with 2 pumpkins of 2 different varieties.  One 'Long Island Cheese' which is shown cut open above with the seeds mostly cleaned out, has a dull pale outer skin and a deep orange flesh.  When you cut into one, you'll get an aroma like a sweet melon.  These pumpkins are as big as the jack-o-lantern pumpkins that most people don't eat, but they have a much more flavorful and dense flesh. 

The other pumpkin was a smaller 'sugar' or 'pie' pumpkin.  It has a deep orange outer skin and pale, but sweet flesh on the inside.

 

After scooping out the seeds (I'll toast them later for snacking), I laid them face-down in backing dishes, put a little water in the bottom of each dish and roasted them in the oven at 375F.  I tested after about 45 min.  They are done when you can insert a fork into them easily.  The large one took about an hour to be done.  They smell really good while they're baking. When they were done, I set them on the counter to cool.

 

While the pumpkins were roasting, I soaked 6 oz dried bean thread (a/k/a cellophane) noodles in hot water and rinsed and soaked 10 dried shiitake mushrooms in a separate vessel of hot water.  Dried shiitakes are one of the best ways I've found to provide that richness of flavor called umami into vegan food.

 

I chopped 1 large onion and 3 large cloves of garlic and sauteed them in hot oil in my largest soup pot.  When they were translucent, I added a couple quarts of water. a couple cups of split red lentils (masoor dal) and a little salt and brought to boil. I cooked this at a rolling boil until lentils disintegrated.  I decided to add the lentils for 2 reasons: first, to add protein to make the soup more nutritious; second to give the soup a smooth, thick texture (and thermal inertia).  Red lentils are about the same color as pumpkin and fairly neutral in flavor so they did not interfere with the overall aesthetic that was developing.

When the lentils were nearly disintegrated and the pumpkin cool enough to handle, I scooped the flesh out of the pumpkin with a large spoon and plopped it into the soup.  The lentils and pumpkin simmered together for a moment while I went upstairs to borrow my landlady's immersion blender.  Being very careful, not to burn myself with molten pumpkin and lentils, I blended until the contents of the whole pot were nice and smooth.

I drained and chopped the softened bean thread noodles....

and shiitake mushrooms, and threw them into the pot.

I seasoned the soup with several Tbs of Thai Kitchn brand red curry paste, about 1/2 cup of smooth peanut butter, a dash of salty ume plum vinegar. a generous dash of soy sauce (I would have used fish sauce but I was making this soup be vegan), a splash of cider vinegar to brighten the flavor, a large dollop of tamarind concentrate and a squirt of Sriracha sauce for a bit of heat.  I was dismayed to find my fresh ginger had given up the ghost in the fridge, so I used some dried ginger, but fresh would have been much better.  As you might guess, this was not a precise process.  I rummaged through the flavors in my spices and condiments and added a bit of this and that, tasting as I went along.  This is the fun part!  I recommend you try it and don't worry too much about conforming to any standard.  Just balance salty, sour, sweet, umami, hot, and bitter and keep going until it makes your mouth happy.

The flavor was nicely balanced and the texture was almost there.  The broth was smooth and rich on the tongue.  The mushrooms were nicely chewy and the noodles were fun, but it needed a bit of crunch.  I had a purple kohlrabi in the fridge from the last CSA pick up of the year.  Kohlrabi is a member of the cabbage/turnip.  It has the texture of a very crisp apple and a flavor like very sweet brocolli.

I cut the kohlrabi into matchsticks and used them as a crunchy garnish with color contrast.

Who says occupation dining can't be elegant?

Nourishing an Occupation 5: Pumpkin Bread Pudding

Are you cooking for an Occupation? I'm looking for guest bloggers to write about their experiences of the Occupy movement and their food. Please contact me here (note: this link will take you to another website)

Occupy Poughkeepsie Encampment 11/3/11

This week, I only cooked for Occupy Poughkeepsie one time, because other people in our 'Moms & Dad's' group shared cooking duties and covered other nights. This week, I prepared and served a vegan split pea soup that I wrote about in an earlier blog post and a pumpkin bread pudding that turned out so delicious and smelled so good that it seemed to disappear almost as soon as it appeared.

I decided to make a bread pudding because there was a large quantity of donated bread at the encampment and I wanted to make something that would use it up before it spoiled. Since the bread already wasn't vegan and I didn't know how to make a vegan bread pudding (though I'm sure it can be done), I made this dish vegetarian, but it does contain egg and dairy.

I started by taking 2 loaves of bread, one white and one wheat and tearing them into rough pieces into a large baking dish. I scattered a handful of raisins over the bread and fluffed and mixed everything together with my hands.

A few weeks ago, I roasted a large 'Long Island Cheese' variety pumpkin in the oven, scooped out the flesh and mashed it. This I froze in containers for future uses like this dish. In a large mixing bowl, I put 4 cups of pureed pumpkin. I added 8 small eggs. I get my eggs from a farmers market and this particular batch of eggs were small. If you have regular large eggs, I'd say use 6. I added 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp nutmeg, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt and about 1.5 cups of half and half and beat this together until smooth.

I poured the pumpkin/egg mixture over the bread and gently mixed it in until every piece of bread was sopping in pumpkin goodness.

The whole pan went into the oven at 375F. I wasn't sure how long to cook it, so I checked on it every so often. After about an hour, I judged it was done because a knife inserted into the center came out clean. The smell was beyond heavenly.

After removing it from the oven, I covered the top with aluminum foil, wrapped the whole dish in a blanket, and drove it directly to Occupy Poughkeepsie in Hulme Park. When I arrived at the park, I opened the hatch of my car and the aroma immediately attracted a trio of Occupiers to help carry the food down to the camp. It was a cold night and even though the soup was also popular, most people there, including me, ate dessert first - and who can blame us?

Pumpkin King Stew

As I sit down to write this week's blog post, I'm thinking about the ends of things. Last night I heard news of the death of a member of Bulls Head Meeting. The second of our small community to die this month. I'm remembering Adam with fondness.

This week also marks the end of the growing season in this part of the world. Our last regular CSA pick-up was on Tuesday, though there will be a special Thanksgiving share that I'll get next month. This morning, I went to the last Hyde Park Farmers' Market of the year. Last night we had a frost and the weather guys declared an official end to the growing season. There is still a bit of green on some of the trees, but as many of them are bare now too. I love the crisp feel of the air and the way the light filters through the autumn leaves this time of year.

Because I'm thinking of making something really nurturing for the Meeting as we deal with another loss; because I'll be traveling a lot in November and won't be around to make soup for the meeting for the next 3 weeks; because I'm enjoying filling my home with the warm smells of cooking; and because my CSA offered me all the pumpkins I could carry this week, I'm making an extra-special soup. This is more complicated than I usually do, but what the heck, I'm feeling inspired.

I have a bunch of pumpkin already cooked and smashed, like for pie. Here's how you do it:

• Get a good pie pumpkin - either a 'sugar' or 'Long Island Cheese' variety.
• Cut it in half longitudinally.
• Scoop out the seeds (see below on how to make the seeds into a tasty snack).
• Put the pumpkin halves face down in a baking dish with a bit of water.
• Roast at 350F until they are soft.
• Let them cool a bit and then scoop out the tender flesh with a spoon. If it's watery, that's ok for soup (for pie, you squeeze out the water).

I also roasted a bunch of autumn veggies to add to the soup at the end. I cup up into large bite-size pieces: 1 onion, 3 large carrots, 2 large parsnips, 5 cloves of garlic, and a baby pumpkin. The pumpkin I cleaned the same way I described above, and then I peeled it and cut it up like the other veggies. Everything went into a large glass roasting pan.

I made this marinade:

• 3 Tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 Tbs Bragg Liquid Aminos
• 1 heaping tsp Chinese 5 spice powder
• 1 tsp maple syrup

Mixed it well, drizzled it over the veggies, tossed them around until the were all coated and put them in a 425F oven to roast and caramelize for about 30 minutes. Check often if you try this, I didn't pay very close attention to the time and not all veg cooks at the same rate.

Aside: This marinade is wonderful on any winter squash. I use it on delicata and red curie squash and eat them skins and all and on tougher-skinned squashes like butternut, blue hubbard, and pumpkins after peeling and chunking them. This makes a wonderful, warm, savory-sweet dish right out of oven and if you want a real treat, try saving some left-overs and mixing them with scrambled eggs for breakfast the next morning. I did this with some red curie squash just a couple of days ago and still have some leftovers that will also go into this soup.

Back to the Soup: I decided this soup would be a good opportunity to provide at least one answer to a question that lots of CSA members have this time of year: what to do with the celeriac. Also known as celery root, celeriac is one of the ugliest vegetables you'll ever meet. It's so ugly that lots of people I know are afraid to eat it. That's too bad, though because it is actually quite interesting. After you wash and peel it - and I peel it with a crude and aggressive touch - really just trimming off the outside parts with my knife, the inside has a consistency kind of like a parsnip with a flavor like mild celery. I cubed the celeriac and put it in a saucepan with water to cook over medium high heat until very tender.

Putting it together: It's finally time to bring out the soup pot. I trimmed, washed, cut up and washed again (you can't be too careful with leeks, they're dirty little guys) 2 leeks, heated a little olive oil in the bottom of my soup pot and sauteed the leeks. While the leeks were sizzling I took the garlic cloves out of my roasted veggie mix and, using an electric blender, pureed the celeriac (in its cooking liquid), the garlic, the smashed pumpkin (about 4 cups total), about 2 Tbs of red miso, and water, in batches. As the leeks were becoming tender, I poured the puree mixture in and stirred well. The thickness is like a nice, thick, smooth soup because I adjusted the amount of water while blending. After tasting the result, I hit it with a squirt of Bragg Liquid Aminos and a tsp of Chinese 5 spice powder. I left this on the stove to simmer for a little while to finish cooking the leeks.

Finally, I gently folded in the roasted veggies and my leftover red curie squash. There was some lovely caramelized stuff in the bottom of the roasting dish, so I rinsed it with a little water, scraped up the deliciousness, and poured that into the soup pot.

The color is a deep yellow/orange and the richness in the mouth is wonderful. The pureed celeriac adds a bit of intrigue and the 5 spice powder a bit of the exotic.

As promised above, how to make toasted pumpkin seeds: Use your fingers to remove the seeds from the pulp. Put them in a strainer and rinse them. Put them in a pie pan and sprinkle with Adobo seasoning (or salt) and black pepper. Toast in a 325F over, shaking/agitating often. Take them out when they are dry and crunchy but not too dark.

Thai Curry Pumpkin

It's autumn in North America and that means that it's pumpkin time. Most of the Americans I know treat pumpkins as Halloween decorations. If it's eaten at all, it is as pie filling from a can. I feel like shouting from the rooftops, "Pumpkin is FOOD!" Wonderful food, too.

My CSA has a pumpkin patch with several varieties of pumpkins that I've been free to pick for the past several weeks. In the photo, you see 2 of them. The one on the left is a Blue Hubbard squash (did you know that pumpkins are squash?) and on the right is a variety called Long Island Cheese. Both are known for being really good to eat.

I wish you could smell this soup. It's so fragrant and rich.

I started this afternoon by cutting open a big Long Island Cheese pumpkin and roasting it in my oven. My oven is so small and the pumpkin was so big that I had to do it one-half at a time. I put it cut side down in a baking dish with a little water and baked it at 350 until I could poke a fork into it easily. I pulled it out of the oven, turned it over, scooped out the flesh and put it in a mixing bowl where I smashed it up with a potato masher.

By the way, I also scooped out the seeds, separated them from the inside goop, washed them, tossed them with some Adobo seasoning and cayenne pepper and toasted them in the oven for about 8 min while the squash was baking - an excellent and healthy snack.

For the soup, I chopped up 4 cloves of garlic and 4 small onions and caramelized them over pretty high heat in the bottom of my soup pot in some olive oil. I had some sweet red peppers so I cut them up and when the onions were pretty brown I through them in to saute a bit too. So far, everything has been locally-grown, organic produce from my CSA.

There was some good oniony stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan so I added just a little water, stirred it around and then added some more water. In went the pumpkin and a can of coconut milk, & a rough tablespoon of Thai green curry paste. I shop a lot at my local Asian market. I've never lived in a town that hasn't had at least one, even when I was growing up Kansas, so chances are good that there is one near where you live too.

At this stage, I tasted the soup and it was a little too spicy, but the pot was only half full so by the time the rest of it was filled up it would be just about right for most people.

I knew I needed to add some water, but I wanted to bulk up the soup a bit and add some interesting texture to it. So I heated up a couple of cups of water and then threw in a couple of packets of bean thread noodles to let them hydrate. Bean thread noodles, also know as cellophane noodles, are great for soup because they can sit in hot liquid for a long time and not get mushy. They are made from mung beans so people on wheat-free diets can eat them. Also they are fun to eat because you can see through them. After they were hydrated, I drained the water and chopped them up.

The soup was close to ready, but when I tasted it, it needed a bit of saltiness and a bit of tang. Because this I'm using Thai seasonings, I departed from my usual vegan ingredients and added a healthy shot of Thai fish sauce and a squeeze of lemon.

Tastes great. I thought about adding a bit of peanut butter to add richness, but I was a little concerned that it would overpower the other flavors, so I dished up a small bowl of soup for myself and stirred in a spoonful of peanut butter. Sure enough, too much. It was a good call to stop when I did.

Before it goes into the fridge to go to meeting tomorrow morning, there's some yummy pumpkin soup for me for dinner (with extra hot peppers) and I have enough pumpkin left over to make a pie tomorrow.