Haitian Pumpkin Soup

I cooked up a storm last Tuesday night I think. I worked on three different meals: the veggies for the split pea soup, the entirety of this Haitian pumpkin soup and the stuffed eggplant!!

HAITIAN PUMPKIN SOUP

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2643

Serves 8

Haitian households celebrate their country's Independence Day with bowls of this comforting soup. The national holiday falls on New Year's Day, when Haitians walk from house to house to pay friends and family the first visits of the New Year. Although this is a vegetarian version, add small cubes of browned beef stew meat along with the pumpkin, if you like. Simply remove and then return them to the pot just as you do the hot peppers. This recipe was inspired by Norzina, a lumber and charcoal vendor and microcredit client of Fonkoze, Whole Planet Foundation'simplementing partner in Haiti.

Ingredients

2 pounds (1-inch) chunks seeded, peeled butternut squash or pumpkin (about 7 cups) --I used my homemade pumpkin puree
10 cups water, plus more if needed
Salt and pepper to taste
2 jalapeño or serrano peppers
10 whole cloves
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 turnips, peeled and cut into small chunks --Whole Foods was out of these so I picked a different root vegetable, that I think is rootebega
1/2 small head green cabbage, cored and roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 pound vermicelli or capellini
1/4 cup chopped parsley--skipped

Method

Put squash, water, salt and pepper into a large pot. Stud peppers with cloves by pushing them halfway into the flesh, then add peppers to pot, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and simmer until squash is very tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer peppers to a small bowl and set aside. 

Working in batches, purée remaining contents of pot in a blender or food processor until smooth, taking care as it will be very hot. Return pureed squash mixture to the pot along with peppers. Add carrots, turnips, cabbage, nutmeg, lemon juice, salt and pepper, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in vermicelli and parsley, cover again and simmer gently until pasta is tender and soup is thickened, about 10 minutes more. Because the texture of squash and pumpkins can vary, thin the finished soup with a bit more water, if desired

Here are the frozen noodles I'd made for the dinner party Britney and I hosted in October. I defrosted them and used about 1/2 the bag for this soup. 

I know, it's pathetic, this is the best shot of my soup I got and it's just in a Tupperware container in the fridge. The reason why is that we never ate it as a formal dinner together like we normally do. I made it in the craziness of a night when I was cooking up a storm and then put it in the fridge as an available food source when needed. It ended up being a quirky soup that I wouldn't say was phenomenal or close to it, but it was interesting. The most interesting thing was that I didn't use turnips but rather used something like a rootabega or something that was kinda spicy.