Potato pumpkin soup.

I am so awesome. Max "hates" pumpkin, unless it is baked into a pie (or maybe some kind of sweet bread). Yet I made a soup tonight that he says tastes delicious!

Stuff:

6 small yellow potatoes
1 smallish pie pumpkin
1 yellow onion
1 can coconut milk
spices/herbs:
salt & black pepper
dried cilantro
dried basil
garam masala
allspice
star aniseed powder
smidgen chipotle powder
smidgen sriracha sauce

Do it like this:

Gut & peel the poor defenseless pumpkin (throw the seeds outside for a lucky squirrel to find). Chop it into small cubes. Wash the potatoes & chop into small cubes. Dice that onion up coarsely. Set about 1 cup of the pumpkin aside.

Put the rest of the pumpkin, the potatoes, and the onion into a crock pot, and add about 2 cups of water. Turn it on high and leave it alone until everything is almost completely cooked (I think it took about 2 hours?), then add the can of coconut milk & stir well. In a frying pan, saute the remaining pumpkin in a little oil, along with some salt and garam masala powder. Get it nice and brown and a bit soft.

Add the salt/pepper, herbs & spices to the crock pot-- to taste. I mean it. Just stir and taste until you think it tastes good. Go easy on the chipotle, or the soup will end up tasting only of smoky hot. Mash everything up coarsely while it's in the crock pot, then add the sauteed pumpkin and stir. It should be super thick and lumpy.

Max thinks we should have pureed it, but thick soups like that always remind me of baby food and are a little boring, in my opinion.

OK, so as delicious as this is, Max had an incredibly good idea-- serve it in bread bowls & sprinkle Fontina cheese on top. That kid is so smart. We're going to do just that tomorrow for dinner. You know what I love about the crock pot? I put the insert into the fridge, and then put it back in the heaty part when I want to get dinner ready. I already made dinner for tomorrow night!!