THE CHEF FROM HELL

Halloween is nigh and after carving up a pumpkin, what's one to do with all that delicious pumpin meat?  Here's a soup recipe that was inspired from a visit to a cafe in Arkansas years ago.

Ingredients:

Olive Oil

1 small Spanish Onion, diced fine

2 stalks Celery, diced fine

1/2 cup Smoked Ham, diced fine

1 TBS Dark Brown Sugar, crumbled up

5 cups roasted Pumpkin meat

3 cups Chicken Stock

Note:  If you want to make your own stock, go to Homestyle Chicken Stock

1/2 cup Heavy Cream

Dry Spice Mix:

1 tsp Kosher Salt

1/2 tsp Ground Ginger

1/2 tsp Ground White Pepper

1 pinch Ground Nutmeg

Cooking Procedure:

To roast the pumpkin meat:  Place the pumpkin meat in a baking dish & drizzle a little olive oil over it---toss well--place in a 350 oven & roast the pumplin meat until soft & carmelized, about 20 - 25 minutes--let the pumpkin meat cool for about 10 minutes or so before using

To prepare the soup:

In a medium sized pot, heat 2 TBS olive oil over high heat for 2 minutes

Stir well & cook this down until the onions begin to soften

Add the smoked ham & brown sugar

Stir well & reduce heat to medium

Let this cook down for 3 minutes

Take the roasted pumpkin meat & puree it in a food processor

Place the pureed pumpkin meat in the pot

Stir well

Add the chicken stock

Stir well

Let this come up to a high simmer

Reduce heat to low

Simmer the soup for 20 minutes

Stir in the cream

Let the soup simmer for another 10 - 15 minutes until it has thickened a bit

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Also in the sidebar in the Fave Food Blogs section is a new page I've added to the site--- The Chef From Hell Food Blog Directory --- which catalogues many of the food blogs I've been checking out online.  I've been to several other food blog directories but they are not consistenly updated --- there are too many "dead" blogs on their lists.  I'll try to keep this one current and up-t0-date.