Appley-Pumpkin soup

Hello all!! I hope everyone’s having a great, spectacular day. I feel great partly due to the fact I spent my entire day making the most delicious, tummy-warming, who-cares-its-cold-outside soup. I call it, Appley-Pumpkin soup, and I would absolutely love to share the recipe with you so that you too can bask in its healthiness as well as the amazing aroma that I promise will fill your kitchen like a smell sent from heaven. Feel free to play around with the measurements; I honestly don’t worry myself about precise ingredients. Cooking is best when it comes from the heart, not from a page.

Appley-Pumpkin Soup

½ a pumpkin, depending on how much you want to make (I like making hugeee batches for a week of school lunches)
2 or 3 medium sized apples cored and diced. Fuji are great!
1 onion, roughly chopped, (don’t worry about how you chop it; you’ll just be blending it together later anyways.)
2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1/3 cup olive oil
3 cups of vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups of whole milk
Assortment of herbs such as thyme, basil, and oregano. If you want a more dessert-like soup feel free to add cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. The possibilities are endless!!
Salt and pepper.
How-to-make-this-amazing-soup

1. First of all, you need to bake that pumpkin. I prefer to put the whole pumpkin on a tray, whole, and bake in the oven at 360 for about an hour. Leaving it uncut results in a moist, mash-able inside.
2. Sautee the onions in the olive oil in a pan with raised sides, you’ll be adding a bunch of stuff into this pan so make sure you use a suitable sized one. After the onions are translucent, add the chopped garlic. When fragrant, add the diced apple and stir for about 5 minutes or until the apple pieces are a little soft.
3. Meanwhile, add the broth to a big pot and bring to a simmer. Go ahead and add the onion mixture.
4. When you’ve taken the pumpkin out of the oven, slice sideways and scoop out the seeds and put them in your compost bucket. Scoop out the insides of the pumpkin and add to the broth mixture.
5. Add the herbs, if your totally lost on how much to add, I suggest just adding a tsp of each herb and then taste. *You can always add more but you can’t take any out.
6. Add the milk. This part is optional, but honestly it’s the milk that will give your soup that nice, creamy feel and taste. If you don’t want to add milk then leave it out and just add 3 tbsp of sour cream.
7. Once you have everything together in the pot, you’re left with a question. How to blend it all together. I own a little hand-held blended so I simply place it in the pot and blend till smooth. I’ve included a picture of my hand blender in case you’re having a hard time imagining what sort of invention I am talking about. It’s a lifesaver! Especially when you love soup as much as I do  anyways, if you don’t own a hand blender, place it in a normal blender and blend in batches till you’ve blended the entire pot.
8. Heat the soup back up till it’s the desired temperature, garnish with a sprig of oregano if you have one on hand, or decorate with a slice of apple.
9. ENJOY!!

If you happen to make this soup, please comment and let me know if I should alter the recipe a bit in case my measurements were askew.

Happy souping!
-Gloria