Spiced Pumpkin Soup

We had another successful Farmer's Choice vegetable selection in the cafeteria last week. A big thank you goes to Mark and Sunny Gandara for making another delicious recipe with our kids. I also wanted to mention again that the Hudson Valley Fresh Dairy Cooperative generously donated all the milk for this recipe. On a personal note, I was thrilled to go up to one of the nine farms in the coop and pick up the milk myself. The director of Hudson Valley Fresh, Sam Simon showed me around his farm and introduced me to the cows. It was a meaningful experience seeing first hand where our milk comes from. I hope we can put together a field trip for Haldane students to visit the farm and see first hand where their milk would be coming from if the cafeteria switched over to local milk.

                                       Spiced Pumpkin soup

Serves 6

One- 3 lb cooking pumpkin
ground cinnamon-1tablespoon
ground ginger-1tablespoon
ground allspice-1 teaspoon
curry powder- 1teaspoon
olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
milk- ½ gallon
brown sugar- ¼ cup

Method-

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all spices and add into a dry sauté pan and toast over medium heat till fragrant, remove from heat. Line a cookie sheet with foil. With a sharp knife, carefully cut the pumpkin in half lengthwise. Discard seeds (or save to make roasted pumpkin seeds).
place pumpkin on foil lined cookie sheet cut side up and rub cavity with olive oil, season with salt & pepper and toasted spices(you will not use all of the spice mix). Place in oven and roast for 45 min to an hour or till pumpkin is soft to touch. While pumpkin is roasting place milk in saucepot along with 1 teaspoon of spice mix and bring to just under a boil. Remove from heat. Once pumpkin is done remove from oven and allow to cool for 15 min. using a kitchen spoon scoop the cooked pumpkin flesh into the cup of a blender and add warm milk to blend until smooth and until you reach the consistency and thickness you want. Repeat process until all pumpkin is pureed. Add sugar and season with salt & pepper.