Day 15- Pumpkin Soup with Honey and Cloves

Greetings on the last day of the challenge! It's been a long, but very tiring 15 days. Thanks to everyone who's checked out my culinary adventure and left comments. Now on to the last meal- Pumpkin Soup with Honey and Cloves.

the yummy ingredients

Soups are such an excellent dinner option over here. Traditionally lunch is the biggest meal in Morocco, so dinner doesn't have to be a big deal. Soups are warm, filling and delicious! For this soup, I started it as I usually do- in the morning. That's another thing I love about soups. I can start it as I'm making lunch and not be in a hurry in the evening.

I started by cooking the carrots and onion in butter. The recipe called for celery, but I don't have any over here and I don't really like it anyway. I upped the onion and carrot a bit to make up for the lost volume.

Once the carrots and onions were soft, I added the chicken stock (from cubes....sorry), pumpkin and whole cloves. This mixture simmered for about a half hour until the pumpkin was soft.

After the chunky soup cooled, I pureed it in two batches using my sweet blender (I love that thing). I ruined my first blender by not waiting until the soup cooled. Turns out heat cracks the plastic- oops! In the end I returned the soup to heat and added the honey and cream (creme fraiche!)

The creme fraiche is a bit runnier than the heavy cream they recommend, so I couldn't do a very nice decorative swirl, but it still looks pretty good I think.

The verdict: Great soup! The flavor from the cloves was subtle, but noticeable and the honey added a lovely sweet touch. I generally make my pumpkin/carrot soups with ginger, but this was a nice change of pace! If you like soups, by all means try this one. Mohamed agreed- a solidly yummy soup!

Check out the full recipe here: Pumpkin Soup with Honey and Cloves from Epicurious

So now that the challenge is over, what's next on Teresa's Pieces? That's a great question. I learned a few things from this process- 1) It's fun to be a regular blogger and 2) It's awesome to try new food! So, while it won't be on a daily basis I hope to continue posting recipes from time to time. Maybe I'll even add a few of my own. So stay tuned!

See you all next year ;-)