Curried Carrot and Pumpkin Soup

I was ready to try something savory after all of the sweet pumpkin dishes earlier this week, so decided upon soup.  Soup is my middle name come fall, and I like to make as much as I can both for instant enjoyment and to pop into the freezer to carry us through the winter and into the spring.  Having a nice variety of soups from delicate to hearty means I'm always ready for guests at a moment's notice; when we're weary from Christmas shopping I can have a meal on the table faster than I can hit the defrost button on the microwave.

Instead of simply making a pumpkin soup, I wanted to create something a bit more complex.  A soup that was not at all sweet, but with a depthness of flavor that would cause people to wonder just exactly what made up the list of ingredients.  So I combined carrots with pumpkin, seasoned them with curry and pumpkin pie spice, and came up with a delicious soup with a cayenne kick.  It goes together in a flash, and if you have an immersion blender and can blend it at the stove, you can have it on the table in 30 minutes.

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, chopped

1 pound packaged baby carrots

4 cups chicken stock, homemade if possible 

1 tablespoon medium curry paste

1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper *

1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice *

1/3 cup solid pack pumpkin

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt *

Sour cream for garnish, if desired

* More to taste

Equipment: Plastic condiment bottle (recommended) or small plastic food storage bag

Preheat medium pot over medium high heat. Add olive oil, butter, onions and carrots and saute 5 minutes. Add 4 cups chicken stock, curry, pumpkin pie spice, and cayenne, and about 1 teaspoon salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until carrots are very tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and blend using an immersion blender, or process in small batches in a blender or food processor.  Return soup to heat and thoroughly stir in pumpkin. Adjust seasonings.

To make spider web decoration:  Place sour cream in a plastic condiment squeeze bottle or into a medium food storage bag. Cut a very small hole in the corner of the bag with scissors. Ladle soup into bowls and squirt a swirl of sour cream around the bowl from the center out to the rim. Drag a toothpick from the center of the bowls out to the edges, forming a spider web design on soup.

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