Curried Pumpkin Carrot Soup

Exotic, flavorful, and comforting, this exquisite curried pumpkin carrot soup will warm — and please you — to your very core!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups carrots
• 8 cups vegetable broth or chicken broth
• large can of pureed pumpkin
• 3 tbsp. Splenda or sugar
• 3 tbsp. brown sugar or Swerve Brown
• 3 tbsp. of your favorite curry powder (we love the Spicewalla brand, which we carry at Capers) mixed with 1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 3 tbsp. cream

Start by shredding the carrots or chopping them very finely (or take the easy route and throw them into your mini food processor and make small pieces almost instantly). Mix up your stock with warm water (if you are using the paste kind) or pull out your boxes or cans of ready-made broth. Put the broth and carrots into a large pan on medium high heat on your stovetop.
Add your can of pumpkin, your curry powder and pumpkin pie spice, and the two sweeteners (yes, you could use just one, but it really is better with two — and don’t forget to taste before you get ready to serve, you may want to add a little more). Stir well. Continue to cook until the carrots are tender. Add the cream. Taste. Adjust the sweetness, if you like. Serve!

I garnished it a squiggle of sour cream thinned with cream (get your squeeze bottles out, people!) and a trio of candied sage leaves. Fresh sage leaves would work, too. Another option is fried sage leaves. Next time you’ve got a bunch of hot oil that you’re using to fry something, throw a few sage leaves in. Make sure they don’t have any drops of moisture on them, or you’ll make a huge mess. Fry for just a few seconds, then drain on paper towels. They get very crisp. You can sprinkle a little Splenda or sugar on the leaves immediately after taking them out of the oil, while they still have a little oil glistening on them for the sweetener to stick to. The reason I recommend using the packet Splenda, rather than the bulk, is that the grains are smaller and it will stick better.

This soup has a very comforting quality. It goes particularly well with turkey, but now that I think about it, I also like it with pork, chicken, salad. You taste it. You see what you think!

You can cut the recipe in half if you don’t need this quantity, but my suggestion is that you make a big batch, freeze half in a gallon freezer bag, and allow it to live to see another day.