Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup

Pumpkin is a fabulous vegetable, great for both sweet and salty preparations. It is characterized by a delicate taste, can be baked in the oven, or can be used for making soup. Pumpkin is also ideal as cake dough, or it can be blended to make a cream and much more.

It is rich in benefits: it fights constipation, it is good for sight and heart, it has calming and anticancer properties, it is good for skin care and it has also diuretic effects. Today, I will use it to prepare a thick and velvety pureed soup with carrots and potatoes, served with some crunchy toasted bread: a simple, healthy and quick dish!

The recipe

Ingredients for 3-4 people:

500 g pumpkin
600 ml water
1 big-sized golden onion
2 carrots
2 sweet potatoes
3 slices of bread (I recommend not to slice bread too thin)
A pinch of salt
Just enough extra virgin olive oil
Pepper to taste
Toasted pumpkin seeds
A pinch of curry powder
Some rosemary

Method:

Remove the peel from pumpkin, potatoes and carrots and cut them into chunks.
Clean and roughly chop the onion.
In a pot, heat an oil and slice the onion until it turns golden.
Then add potatoes, carrots and pumpkin, salt to taste, a pinch of pepper and curry powder, and brown them for a few minutes, stirring them regularly.
Pour some water until it almost covers the vegetables, then let it cook covered with a lid, until all the ingredients become soft. (I recommend you to control potato cooking, because has a longer cooking time).
Meanwhile, chop bread slices into chunks and put them in a baking tray.
Season bread chunks with a pinch of salt, a handful of rosemary and oil, then mix all well and cook in a preheated oven at 180 ° C for about 10 minutes.
If necessary add more salt to the soup, then put off from the heat and blend it with a kitchen mixer until you get a smooth and homogeneous pureed soup. (My advice: blend the soup slowly, to avoid burning yourself).
Serve hot together with slices of grilled bread and toasted pumpkin seeds.

My advices:

You can store this soup in the fridge for a few days.
I prefer to enjoy it hot, but it is delicious even cold.
To avoid burning yourself, cool the soup before blend it and then heat it back on low heat, stirring it regularly.

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Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup