I'm snarfing down pumpkin soup and cornbread - both made from scratch.

[talkingmime]

We mashed and froze pumpkin pulp in October or so. My daughter pulled out a bag and used it to make a soup with carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions and her own spicing. There were leftovers.

Tonight she made a cornbread from scratch in a mini-loaf tin (8 loaves to a tin) and it included corn kernels.

The two make an excellent combination. And no, you can't have any - it won't fit through the Internet.

[MiddleFingerMom]

1. I used to cook for friends and one of my oft-requested dishes was a pumpkin-apple soup.

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I don't know what the hell I did this one time, but I served it to about 8 friends and went back
to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the main course, etc.
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The dining room got really silent for a little while... and all of a sudden there was a HUGE wave
of laughter.
.
When I went out to check, they told me that my usually EXCELLENT pumpkin-apple soup SUCKED
that day (I tasted it and it did -- I think it was the finishing cream I used... I didn't taste it in the
kitchen after adding that) and they had tried to feed some to the host's yellow Lab -- who would
eat smelly roadkill if given the opportunity.
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She had turned her nose up QUICKLY and walked away from the bowl.
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[talkingmime]

3. Was the cream bad?

[MiddleFingerMom]

5. Musta been -- I had made that soup a coupla dozen times for friends & functions and myself...

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... and it ALWAYS got rave reviews. I taste as I cook -- and the only thing I had NOT tasted was
the soup after the final post-cooking addition of cream.
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[cbayer]

2. That sounds really, really good.

I have been really into soups this winter, but have not yet made a pumpkin soup.

I have made mushroom, tomato, butternut squash, beet and carrot soups. Pureed them all and all were heavenly.

And cornbread is indeed the perfect accompaniment.

Enjoy!

[talkingmime]

4. We try to preserve as much as we can in the fall. The freezer's sort of full right now.

[MiddleFingerMom]

6. Soups are one of the coolest, easist things in the world to do... and the difference...

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... in what 98% of us are used to (Campbell's, etc.) and a simple homemade soup may
be one of the most marked in most of our culinary experiences.
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I was heavy into soups for awhile, too. Vicchysoise (I like mine warm or hot -- cold is too
earthy for me... and someone like Julia Child said the temp is all about preference rather
than dogma). The pumpkin-apple was one of my best. My all-time best (and I lost the
recipe -- originally from an AD in a cooking magazine, I think) and have spent countless
hours (pretty literally) looking for it to no avail. The name is out there -- not the recipe.
.
Tomato l'Orange Soup from scratch -- blanching and seeding whole tomatoes and all
(though OJ concentrate was an ingredient). THAT soup was ambrosial indeed!!!
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[cbayer]

7. Yum. The last tomato soup I made, I added fresh orange juice

and it was great.

Just perfect.