Hey there! I am Beth Casey and well, let’s face it, food is necessary for survival. I quickly learned this after moving out of my parent’s house and I have been cooking ever since. I really like trying out new things and adding a twist to the traditional. Most of the dishes that I cook are targeted toward the College Cuisine, that is, home cooking with a thrifty twist. Never will you see me use extremely expensive cuts of meat or hard-to-find ingredients. I hope helps you fill your living quarters with great aromas and your belly with great food, all without having to take out a student loan. I find that good food brings people together, whether it be for family, friends, or possible love interests. Everyone has to eat and if you feed them right, they will probably like you for that.

With the bitter snap of fall that occurred this weekend, I began to crave those warm, fall flavors. To warm up without actually turning my heat on, I decided to turn to my fall favorite recipe, pumpkin soup.

The recipe is as follows and serves approximately 8 hungry people, or one lonely person and mooching roommates for about 3 days.

Ingredients

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 stalks of celery, diced
• 2 handfuls of baby carrots, chopped
• 1 sweet potato, diced
• 3 medium potatoes, diced (can substitute 1 cup of cauliflower)
• 5 cups chicken broth (can use vegetable stock if you are a vegetarian)
• 1-29oz can of pumpkin
• 1tbs salt 1tbs pepper
• ½ tbs garlic powder
• ½ tbs onion powder
• 1tbs clove
• 1tbs cinnamon
• 1tbs nutmeg
• ¼ cup sour cream

Start with a large stock pot. Add olive oil and warm to a medium flame. Add onion, garlic and celery for about 2 minutes, or until it gets soft. Next, add the carrots, sweet potato and potato and continue until these start getting cooked and less colored, about 7 more minutes, stirring often.

In a separate sauce pan, heat the broth to a boil and wisk the canned pumpkin into it. Make sure that this is in a separate pan when you do the mixing. (I am not micromanaging, this is important. The broth when not warm warps the cooking time on the veggies.) When the pumpkin/broth mixture is all warm and mixed, add to the veggies combo (aka omg-this-is-what-makes-my-kitchen-smell-amazing mix. ) Let simmer and finish cooking the vegetables fully for about 20 minutes.

(This step is optional and preferred) Take the soup and a little at a time put it through the food processor and whip that baby until it is smooth like delicious tasting baby food for grown-ups. Doing so makes it really easy to throw the soup in a coffee mug and bring it with you to have in class or on the bus (ala homemade soup at hand to go) Once soup is blended, return to big stock pot.

Add spices to taste and sour cream. Don’t heat the soup any more or else the sour cream will get all nasty (trust me). You can add a dollop of sour cream per bowl if you plan on eating this over time, the sour cream gives it a yummy creamy texture.

Serve the soup and eat that delicious fall goodness; or secretly disguise it labeled “puréed chicken livers” in the fridge like I do to prevent your vulture-like roomies, your call. Keeps about a week.