A Tasteful Cure For The Winter Depression: Pumpkin Soup

When the sun steps back and the winter kicks in, the elixir for the ones wrapped in their blankets becomes a bowl of soup.

Pumpkin is one of the vegetables that are badly omitted from the kitchen during the winter season where its formidable rivals, lentil, tarhana and ezogelin become more popular.

When the pumpkin is in question, the children of the past reminisce the times when they ate pumpkin seeds after drying them underneath the stove and the children of today think of Halloween costumes. But unfortunately everyone thinks of it as a kind of dessert.

Pumpkin soup which I guess is not very popular in Turkey due to its sour taste, has become one of those good-to-the-last-bite meals that you can hear people calling “grandma’s soup” in most European countries.

While pumpkins are fresh in season, I’d like to share one of the simple and basic recipes of pumpkin soup to give this omitted vegetable its due.

Ingredients

2 or 3 slices of pumpkin

1 onion

Butter

Milk

Salt

Black pepper

Put in the pot some butter to melt. Add cubed onions and pumpkin and stir them a bit. Add water enough to cover the ingredients. Simmer until the pumpkin is cooked enough, not very much and then puree the mixture in a blender until it gets silky smooth. Pour enough milk to achieve the consistency that you like.

As pumpkin has a sweetish taste, it needs more salt in comparison with the other soups. On top of that, I think the soup tastes great with Tasmania lanceolata because of its blackberry-like taste. A few fresh mint leaves, some basil and one red pepper would complement the soup with their taste and colors.

You can consume your pumpkin soup piping hot or go Italian style and have it slightly warm.

You can find that some recipe books may also list various other ingredients like flour, cream, and nutmeg. Some use saffron or turmeric to add some vivid color to the soup.

Whether you prefer to add extra ingredients to the soup or not, I highly recommend you to have a bash at this cute vegetable. I’m sure it will fend off winter depression with its exquisite smell, energetic color and mouth-watering taste!

Bon appétit and enjoy the taste of life!..