What better time to have soup?
Spring is here but we are still confined to our homes, and may be there longer than the April 30 end date of the current state order. It’s a hard time and one that cries out for human interaction. Passing along a soup recipe may be a poor alternative to a genuine social gathering, but it’s worth a try.
And a COVID-19 shelter-in-place order may provide the best-ever excuse for comfort food.
I found this recipe in the fall of 2008. That summer I’d lost my newspaper job after 20 years at the Star and six months at the south suburban journalistic product that was the result of a merger between the Daily Southtown and my paper. By the end of October I’d found new employment in the marketing -communications shop at Governors State University, an opportunity for which I will always be grateful.
Before I started my new job, Patty and I took the train to downtown Chicago and celebrated at Heaven on Seven, the venerable Cajun-Creole restaurant on Wabash Avenue. The menu included a seasonal offering of pumpkin soup with andouille sausage. It was wonderful and I searched the internet to find a comparable recipe.
I’ve made this with both fresh pumpkin and pumpkin from a can. To be honest, I prefer it out of the can. That not only saves the step of cooking the pumpkin, but lets you make the soup year-round and not just when pumpkin is in season.
I use a stick blender to puree the soup. If you are doing the same, remember to keep the blender below the surface of the soup. Otherwise you’ll have pumpkin soup all over your kitchen.
This is a simple recipe with only eight ingredients. I’ve made it without broth, just water, and it still turns out great – sweet, spicy and always satisfying.
Pumpkin and sausage soup
Ingredients
- ½ pound andouille sausage, diced
- ¼ cup butter
- 1¼ cups chopped onion
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 29-ounce can of pumpkin
- 6 cups vegetable broth
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup whole milk (or cream)
Directions
Cook sausage and onion in a skillet with two tablespoons butter for five minutes.
Place broth, canned pumpkin, brown sugar and thyme in a large pan or dutch oven. Add sausage and onion mixture. Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.
Use the stick blender to puree the soup. Then stir in the remaining butter and milk. Warm but do not boil.
Makes seven servings.