Bowling for Soup - Pumpkin Soup!

I've only made soup once. My college roomie Jul-Bean and I made cream of broccoli soup from a Moosewood cookbook recipe as part of a Valentine's Day double date dinner. The soup wasn't all that memorable - actually neither was the date.

Fast forward x amount of years later and I decided to embark on a rematch with soup making. Spurred on by the sugar pumpkin that has been my tablescape and my new blender, I was up for the challenge.

After scouring the web for the simplest pumpkin soup recipe I could find, I settled on Kerry Simon's (of Vegas' Simon Kitchen & Bar fame and now Ago) recipe from The Food Network site. (link to recipe: here)

The result? Well, now I know why I don't make soup. Besides basically not having the patience, there was a ton of chopping (carrots, onion, apple, sage in a fine dice) just to put it all in the blender. Not to mention roasting the pumpkin forever and chopping that up as well! I was also a bit heavy handed with the cream and needed to season, season and season again to get it just right. Couldn't believe how much salt this dish needed! The cleanup was a bit much as well although if I owned an immersion blender it might have helped lessen the mess.

In my defense, the soup actually tasted so much better the next day after all the flavors settled. Still a bit too creamy for my palate but overall not too shabby.