Pumpkin Soup and Brown Rice

And now for another food I bought on sale: coconut milk. I've had a couple cans in the pantry forever. Last week I added a splash to some cupcake frosting in lieu of regular milk. But that left me with about a cup and a half and not a clue what to do with it.

I don't have all the right spices to make curry, so that was out. A search on Epicurious for recipes containing coconut milk yielded Silky Coconut Pumpkin Soup, a recipe from a new book I've been wanting to take a look at: Hot Sour Salty Sweet, about Asian cooking.

But I didn't really have all the ingredients for that either. Undeterred, I decided I would make something like it and just taste as I go to get the flavor right. Beware: there aren't really any exact measurements here.

Home Food Pumpkin Soup

Dice an onion and caramelize it in olive oil. This takes about 15 minutes. Start at medium heat and turn it down. Keep stirring the whole time so the onions don't burn. Deglaze the pan with a little sherry or broth or water and keep cooking until golden brown.

Stir in a large can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling), however much coconut milk you have left over after making frosting (about a cup and a half) and chicken broth until you get a thick soup consistency. You can always add more or boil some off. Add about a teaspoon of coriander, lots of black pepper, sea salt to taste, a couple tablespoons of maple syrup, and some balsamic vinegar. The idea is to balance the sweet and sour, so just keep adding and tasting. Bring to a boil, simmer ten minutes or something, and then hold on warm while you cook the brown rice. Or, if you are known for planning ahead, perhaps you cooked the brown rice at the same time as everything else. If so, you are not really the sort of person I'd like to spend a lot of time with.

Other possibilities for this: plain yogurt (there you are again, my love!), cloves, curry powder or peppers or something spicy, fresh pumpkin instead of canned, in which case you could keep the chunks large, fry them first, and then serve the whole thing over rice rather than side by side. Or thin it out a lot more and add some pasta. It doesn't get any easier or beta-carotene-ific than this!